The Shompensky language is a supposedly isolated language, distributed on the island of Big Nicobar in the Bay of Bengal (the union territory of India is the Andaman and Nicobar Islands ).
| Chompensky language | |
|---|---|
| Countries | |
| Regions | |
| Total number of speakers | 400 |
| Status | |
| Classification | |
| Category | Languages of Eurasia |
| |
| Language Codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | - |
| ISO 639-2 | - |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| WALS | |
| Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
| Ethnologue | |
| ELCat | |
| IETF | |
| Glottolog | |
Little is known about this language, partly in connection with the policy of the Government of India to protect the Nicobar Islands from the outside interference. Most of the data collected dates back to the 19th century, and only brief and fragmentary information was collected in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Content
- 1 Media
- 2 Classification
- 3 Options
- 4 Phonology
- 5 Links
Media
The Chompène nationality or group of nationalities are hunters and gatherers living in the mountainous interior of the Great Nicobar Island. The population, according to the most rough estimates (census has not been carried out), is about 400 people.
Classification
Traditionally, the Chompensky language was included in the Nicobar group of the Austro-Asian family , but this hypothesis was based only on the territorial proximity to Nicobar languages. The only words whose Austro-Asian origin is not in doubt are numerals and some names of body parts that could be borrowed, for example, koi “head”, along with the local fiau .
Options
The number of dialects of the Chompensh language and the degree of their relationship are not clear. Lists of words compiled by different researchers are sometimes completely different from each other. For example, the word for “back,” according to various lists, sounds like gikau, tamnōi and hokōa; “Swim” - pu (g) oihoɔp and hōhōm.
Phonology
There are seven vowels, / ie ɛ a ɔ ou / , all of which can be nasalized. There is a category in the Chompensk language such as the length of the vowels, probably for all vowels, but it is not clear whether the nasal vowels can be long.
The consonant system is roughly the following:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal * | Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | [m] | [n] | [ɲ] | [ŋ] | ||||||
| Explosive | [p] | [b] | [t] | [d] | [tʃ]? | [dʒ]? | [k] | [ɡ] | [ʔ] | |
| [pʰ] | [bʱ] | [tʰ] | [kʰ] | [ɡʱ] | ||||||
| Fricatives | [ɸ] | [x] | [ɣ] | [h] | ||||||
| Hooked | [w] | [l] | [j] | |||||||
- * Palatal closures are recorded as <c> and <j>. It is unclear how they are realized phonetically.