Önge leid

The Onge or Öñge leid (; variously spelled Ongee, Eng, or Ung) is a leid spoken bi the Onge fowk in Little Andaman Island. It is ane o twa kent Ongan leids.

Önge uised tae be spoken throughoot Little Andaman as well as in smawer islands tae the north - an possibly in the soothren tip o Sooth Andaman island. Syne the middle o the 19t century, wi the arrival o the Breetish in the Andamans, an, efter Indien independence, the massive inflow o Indien settlers frae the mainland, the nummer o Onge speakers haes steadily declined, awtho a moderate increase haes been observed in recent years. Currently, thare ar anerlie 94 native speakers o Onge, confined tae a single dounset in the northeast o Little Andaman island (see cairt ablo), makin it an endangered leid.

Phonology
Vowels
   Front Central Back High     Mid    Low     

Thare is some vowel harmony: 1p pl. prefix et- becomes [ot-] when the vowel in the next syllable is /u/, e.g. et-eɟale 'oor faces' but ot-oticule 'oor heids'.

Consonants
   Labial Coronal Palatal Velar Stops               Nasals                 Approximants         (/r/)      

/ʔ/? (c.f. Blevins (2007:161))

Blevins (2007:160-161) states that /c, ɟ/ ar actually affricates, an that retroflexes mey or mey no be phonemic.

/kʷ/ delabializes tae /k/ afore /u, o/.

Phonemic /d/ surfaces as [r] intervocalically, while arguably some words hae phonemic /r/ which alternates wi surface [r, l, j].

Phonotactics
Words mey be monosyllabic or langer, even in content words (unlik in the closely relatit Jarawa). Words mey begin wi consonants or vowels, an maximal syllables ar o the form CVC. Aw Onge words end in vowels, except for imperatives, e.g. kaʔ 'gie'.

Consonant-final stems in Jarawa aften hae cognates wi final e in Onge, e.g. Jarawa iŋ, Onge iŋe 'watter'; Jarawa inen, Onge inene 'foreigner'; Jarawa dag, Onge dage 'coconut'. Heestorically thir vowels must hae been excrescent, as nonetymological wird-final e doesna surface when nummer markers ar suffixed, an the definite airticle (-gi efter etymological consonants, -i efter etymological vowels, due tae lenition) appears as -i efter etymological e but as -gi efter excrescent e, e.g. daŋe > daŋe-gi 'tree; dugoot'; kue > kue-i 'pig'.

NC clusters whiles optionally reduce tae single C, e.g. / 'tae drink' (c.f. Jarawa ).

Voiced obstruents mey optionally nasalize in syllable onset when the coda is nasal, e.g. bone/mone 'resin, resin torch' (c.f. Jarawa pone 'resin, resin torch').

Morphophonemics
Clusters across morpheme boundaries simplify tae homorganic sequences, includin geminates, which mey occur efter wird final -e drops, e.g. daŋe 'tree, dugout canoe' > dandena 'twa canoes'; umuge 'pigeon' > umulle 'pigeons'.

References

Bibliography

 External links 

Category:Agglutinative leids
Category:Andamanese leids
Category:Leids o Indiae
Category:Endangered leids