Jeru, or ''Akajeru'' (also known as ''Yerawa'', not to be confused with Järawa), is a moribund dialect of the Northern Andamanese language, and the last surviving variety of the

Great Andamanese The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely rela ...

language family. Jeru was spoken in the interior and south coast of

North Andaman North Andaman Island is the northern island of Great Andaman of the Andaman Islands. It belongs to the North and Middle Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. the island is lying n ...

and on Sound Island. A '' koiné'' of the Northern Andamanese dialects, based principally on Akajeru, was once spoken on

Strait Island Strait Island is an island of the Andaman Islands. It belongs to the North and Middle Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The island lies north from Port Blair. History Strait ...

; the last semi-fluent speaker of this, Nao Jr., died in 2009. Akajeru, Akachari, Akakhora and

Akabo Akabo is a village complex in the Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria, West Africa., United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency A village with this same name is also found in Nnewi and Oguta, all in Igboland. Geograp ...

were dialects of a singular language, termed Northern Andamanese, with lexical correspondency between Akajeru and Akachari at 93%.

History

As the numbers of Great Andamanese progressively declined over the succeeding decades, the various Great Andamanese tribes either disappeared altogether or became amalgamated through intermarriage. By 1994, the 38 remaining Great Andamanese who could trace their ancestry and culture back to the original tribes belonged to only three of them ( Jeru, Bo, and Cari).A. N. Sharma (2003),
Tribal Development in the Andaman Islands
', page 75. Sarup & Sons, New Delhi. The resulting mixture produced a koiné of the dialects of Northern Andamanese, based principally on Jeru. The last fluent speaker, Nao, died in 2009.

Phonology

Consonants

Aka-Jeru has the following consonants: ;Notes #

kʰ In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breathing, breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the Stop consonant#articulation, closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones i ...

] is in free variation with [Voiceless velar fricative, x] # [Aspirated consonant, pʰ] is in free variation with [Voiceless bilabial fricative, ɸ] and [[ f] # b.html" ;"title="nowiki/> b">nowiki/>Voiced bilabial plosive, bis in free variation with β# [Voiced dental, alveolar and postalveolar trills">r">Voiced bilabial fricative">β# ris in free variation with [Voiced dental and alveolar taps and flaps">ɾ">nowiki/>Voiced dental, alveolar and postalveolar trills">ris in free variation with [Voiced dental and alveolar taps and flaps">ɾ

Vowels

Aka-Jeru has the following vowels:

Grammar

See Great Andamanese languages for more general grammatical description. Proclitics based on words for parts of the body pervade the grammatical system of the language, a pattern not attested from any other known language.

Sample text

The following is a sample text in Present Great Andamanese, in Devanagari, the Latin script, and

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation ** International Phonetic Association, the organization behind the alphabet * India pale ale, a style of beer * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA ...

References

Bibliography

* Raoul Zamponi. 2022. ''A Grammar of Akajeru : Fragments of a Traditional North Andamanese Dialect.

External links

* - VOGA
Aka-Jeru language
Omniglot {{DEFAULTSORT:Aka-Jeru Language Agglutinative languages Great Andamanese languages Extinct languages of Asia Languages of India Languages extinct in the 2000s Languages written in Devanagari