Sentinelese is the undescribed language of the

Sentinelese The Sentinelese, also known as the Sentineli and the North Sentinel Islanders, are an indigenous people who inhabit North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal in the northeastern Indian Ocean. Designated a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Gro ...

people of

North Sentinel Island North Sentinel Island is one of the Andaman Islands, an Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal which also includes South Sentinel Island. It is home to the Sentinelese, an indigenous people in voluntary isolation who have defended, often by ...

in the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

. Due to the lack of contact between the Sentinelese people and the rest of the world, essentially nothing is known of their language, or its vitality. The Sentinelese people do not allow outsiders onto the island and are generally hostile towards visitors. Friendly interactions have been rare.

Classification

It is presumed that the islanders speak a single language and that it is a member of one of the Andamanese language families. Based on what little is known about similarities in culture and technology and their geographical proximity, it is supposed that their language is related to the Ongan languages, such as Jarawa, rather than to Great Andamanese. On the documented occasions when Onge-speaking individuals were taken to

in order to attempt communication, they were unable to recognise any of the language spoken by the inhabitants. It has been recorded that the Jarawa and Sentinelese languages are mutually unintelligible.

Status

Sentinelese is classified as

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

due to the small number of speakers, matching the unknown population of the island, which has been estimated at anywhere from 100 to 250; a rough estimate by the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

is 100.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sentinelese Language Andamanese languages Unattested languages of Asia Endangered unclassified languages