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Önge Language
The Onge language, also rendered Önge (or ''Ongee'', ''Eng'', ''Ung''), is one of two known Ongan languages, spoken on the Andaman Islands in India. It is spoken by the Onge people on Little Andaman Island. Status Onge used to be spoken throughout Little Andaman as well as in smaller islands to the north, and possibly in the southern tip of South Andaman Island. Since the middle of the 19th century, with British colonization and the massive inflow of Indian settlers from the mainland, the number of Onge speakers has steadily declined, although a moderate increase has been observed in recent years. Currently, there are only 94 native speakers of Onge, confined to a single settlement in the northeast of Little Andaman island (see map below). It is an endangered language. Phonology Consonants * /ʔ/? (cf. Blevins (2007:161)) * Blevins (2007:160-161) states that /c, ɟ/ are actually affricates, and that retroflexes may or may not be phonemic. * /kʷ/ delabializes to /k/ befor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India, 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 by population (United Nations), most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approximant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like (as in ''rest'') and semivowels like and (as in ''yes'' and ''west'', respectively), as well as lateral approximants like (as in ''less''). Terminology Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term ''approximant'' in the 1960s, the terms ''frictionless continuant'' and ''semivowel'' were used to refer to non-lateral approximants. In phonology, ''approximant'' is also a distinctive feature that encompasses all sonorants except nasals, including vowels, taps, and trills. Semivowels Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms ''semivowel'' and ''glide'' are often used for these non-syllab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agglutinative Languages
An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations). In such languages, affixes ( prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or circumfixes) are added to a root word in a linear and systematic way, creating complex words that encode detailed grammatical information. This structure allows for a high degree of transparency, as the boundaries between morphemes are usually clear and their meanings consistent. Agglutinative languages are a subset of synthetic languages. Within this category, they are distinguished from fusional languages, where morphemes often blend or change form to express multiple grammatical functions, and from polysynthetic languages, which can combine numerous morphemes into single words with complex meanings. Examples of agglutinative languages include Turkish, Finnish, Japane ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geminate
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from stress. Gemination is represented in many writing systems by a doubled letter and is often perceived as a doubling of the consonant.William Ham, ''Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Geminate Timing'', p. 1–18 Some phonological theories use 'doubling' as a synonym for gemination, while others describe two distinct phenomena. Consonant length is a distinctive feature in certain languages, such as Japanese. Other languages, such as Greek, do not have word-internal phonemic consonant geminates. Consonant gemination and vowel length are independent in languages like Arabic, Japanese, Hungarian, Malayalam, and Finnish; however, in languages like Italian, Norwegian, and Swedish, vowel length and consonant length are interdependent. Fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jarawa Language (Andaman Islands)
Järawa or Jarwa is one of the Ongan languages. It is spoken by the Jarawa people inhabiting the interior and south central Rutland Island, central interior, and south interior South Andaman Island, and the west coast of Middle Andaman Island. ''Järawa'' means "foreigners" in Aka-Bea, the language of their traditional enemies. Like many peoples of the world, they call themselves "people" in their language, ''aong.'' The Jarawa language of the Andaman Islands is considered vulnerable. History Jarawa is a language used mainly by hunter-gatherer communities who live along the western coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Other than having a history as traditional hunter-forager-fishermen, they also had reputations as warriors and uncompromising defenders of their territory. The Jarawas managed to survive as a tribal entity despite suffering massive population loss from outside infectious diseases to which they had no immunity. Jarawas currently have a population of 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Content Word
Content words, in linguistics, are words that possess semantic content and contribute to the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. In a traditional approach, nouns were said to name objects and other entities, lexical verbs to indicate actions, adjectives to refer to attributes of entities, and adverbs to attributes of actions. They contrast with function words, which have very little substantive meaning and primarily denote grammatical relationships between content words, such as prepositions (in, out, under etc.), pronouns (I, you, he, who etc.) and conjunctions (and, but, till, as etc.). All words can be classified as either content or function words, but it is not always easy to make the distinction. With only around 150 function words, 99.9% of words in the English language are content words. Although small in number, function words are used at a disproportionately higher rate than content and make up about 50% of any English text because of the conventional pattern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vowel Harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning that the affected vowels do not need to be immediately adjacent, and there can be intervening segments between the affected vowels. Generally one vowel will trigger a shift in other vowels, either progressively or regressively, within the domain, such that the affected vowels match the relevant feature of the trigger vowel. Common phonological features that define the natural classes of vowels involved in vowel harmony include vowel backness, vowel height, nasalization, roundedness, and advanced and retracted tongue root. Vowel harmony is found in many agglutinative languages. The given domain of vowel harmony taking effect often spans across morpheme boundaries, and suffixes and prefixes will usually follow vowel harmony rules. Termi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Vowel
An open vowel is a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned approximately as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels (in U.S. terminology ) in reference to the low position of the tongue. In the context of the phonology of any particular language, a ''low vowel'' can be any vowel that is more open than a mid vowel. That is, open-mid vowels, near-open vowels, and open vowels can all be considered low vowels. Partial list The open vowels with dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ... are: * open front unrounded vowel * open front rounded vowel This vowel is not known to occur as a phoneme distinct from in any language. * open back unrounded vowel * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mid Vowel
A mid vowel (or a true-mid vowel) is any in a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately midway between an open vowel and a close vowel. Other names for a mid vowel are lowered close-mid vowel and raised open-mid vowel, though the former phrase may also be used to describe a vowel that is as low as open-mid; likewise, the latter phrase may also be used to describe a vowel that is as high as close-mid. Vowels The only mid vowel with a dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ... is the mid central vowel with ambiguous rounding . The IPA divides the vowel space into thirds, with the close-mid vowels such as or and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Vowel
A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately as close as possible to the roof of the mouth as it can be without creating a constriction. A constriction would produce a sound that would be classified as a consonant. The term "close" is recommended by the International Phonetic Association. Close vowels are often referred to as "high" vowels, as in the Americanist phonetic tradition, because the tongue is positioned high in the mouth during articulation. In the context of the phonology of any particular language, a ''high vowel'' can be any vowel that is more close than a mid vowel. That is, close-mid vowels, near-close vowels, and close vowels can all be considered high vowels. Partial list The six close vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * close front unro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Back Vowel
A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark vowels because they are perceived as sounding darker than the front vowels. Near-back vowels are essentially a type of back vowels; no language is known to contrast back and near-back vowels based on backness alone. The category "back vowel" comprises both raised vowels and retracted vowels. Articulation In their articulation, back vowels do not form a single category, but may be either raised vowels such as or retracted vowels such as .Scott Moisik, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, & John H. Esling (2012"The Epilaryngeal Articulator: A New Conceptual Tool for Understanding Lingual-Laryngeal Contrasts"/ref> Partial list The back vowels that have dedicated symbols in the I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
