Shompen language

2021-02-16T23:25:16Z

2603:6080:F306:D300:A177:578F:2DC5:6296:

{{short description|Nicobarese language}}
{{Infobox language
|name=Shompen
|nativename=Shom Peng
|region=[[Great Nicobar Island]]
|pushpin_map = India Andaman and Nicobar Islands#Bay of Bengal
|pushpin_map_caption = Location in the [[Andaman and Nicobar Islands]] and in the [[Bay of Bengal]].
|coordinates = {{coord|7.02|93.81}}
|ethnicity=[[Shompen people]]
|speakers=400
|date=2004
|ref=e18
|familycolor=Austroasiatic
|fam1=Possibly a [[language isolate]] traditionally considered [[Austroasiatic]]
|fam2=[[Nicobarese languages|Nicobarese]]?
|fam3=Southern
|dia1=Kalay (west)
|dia2=Keyet (east)
|iso3=sii
|glotto=shom1245
|glottorefname=Shom Peng
|notice=IPA
}}

'''Shompen''', or '''Shom Peng''' is a language or group of languages spoken on [[Great Nicobar Island]] in the Indian [[union territory]] of the [[Andaman and Nicobar Islands]], in the [[Indian Ocean]], northwest of [[Sumatra]], [[Indonesia]].

Partially because the native peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are protected from outside researchers, Shompen is poorly described, with most descriptions being from the 19th century and a few more recently but of poor quality. Shompen appears to be related to the other Southern Nicobarese varieties, however [[Glottolog]] considers it a language isolate.

==Speakers==
The [[Shompen people|Shompen]] are [[hunter-gatherer]]s living in the hilly hinterland of the [[Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve]]. Population estimates are approximately 400, but no census has been conducted.

Parmanand Lal (1977:104)<ref>Lal, Parmanand. 1977. ''Great Nicobar Island: study in human ecology''. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India.</ref> reported the presence of several Shompen villages in the interior of Great Nicobar Island.

*Dakade (10 km northeast of Pulo-babi, a Nicobarese village on the western coast of Great Nicobar; 15 persons and 4 huts)
*Puithey (16 km southeast of Pulo-babi)
*Tataiya (inhabited by the Dogmar River Shompen group, who had moved from Tataiya to Pulo-kunyi between 1960 and 1977)

==Data==
During the 20th century, the only data available were a short word list in De Roepstorff (1875),<ref>De Roëpstorff, 1875. ''Vocabulary of dialects spoken in the Nicobar and Andaman islands''. 2nd ed. Calcutta.</ref> scattered notes Man (1886)<ref>EH Man, 1886. "A Brief Account of the Nicobar Islanders, with Special Reference to the Inland Tribe of Great Nicobar." ''The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'', 15:428–451.</ref> and comparative list in Man (1889).<ref>EH Man, 1889. ''A dictionary of the Central Nicobarese language.'' London: W.H. Allen.</ref>

It was a century before more data became available, with 70 words being published in 1995<ref>Rathinasabapathy Elangaiyan et al., 1995. ''Shompen–Hindi Bilingual Primer Śompen Bhāratī 1.'' Port Blair and Mysore.</ref> and much new data being published in 2003, the most extensive so far.<ref>Subhash Chandra Chattopadhyay & Asok Kumar Mukhopadhyay, 2003. ''The Language of the Shompen of Great Nicobar: a preliminary appraisal.'' Kolkata: Anthropological Survey of India.</ref> However, Blench and Sidwell (2011) note that the 2003 book is at least partially plagiarized and that the authors show little sign of understanding the material, which is full of anomalies and inconsistencies. For example, {{IPA|[a]}} is transcribed as short {{angle bracket|a}} but schwa {{IPA|[ə]}} as long {{angle bracket|ā}}, the opposite of normal conventions in India or elsewhere. It appears to have been taken from an earlier source or sources, perhaps from the colonial era.<ref name=B&S>Roger Blench & Paul Sidwell, 2011. "Is Shom Pen a Distinct Branch?" In Sophana Srichampa and Paul Sidwell, eds. ''Austroasiatic Studies: Papers from ICAAL 4''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ([http://icaal.org/ICAAL-4.2.pdf ICAAL], [http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Austroasiatic/Shompen%20as%20AAS%20branch%20offprint.pdf ms])</ref> Van Driem (2008) found it too difficult to work with,<ref name=VD>George van Driem, 2008. "The Shompen of Great Nicobar Island: New linguistic and genetic data, and the Austroasiatic homeland revisited." ''Mother Tongue'', 13:227–247.</ref> However, Blench and Sidwell made an attempt at analyzing and retranscribing the data, based on comparisons of Malay loanwords and identifiable cognates with other Austroasiatic languages, and concluded that the data in the 1995 and 2003 publications come from either the same language or two closely related languages.

==Classification==
Although Shompen is traditionally lumped in with other [[Nicobarese languages]], which form a branch of the [[Austroasiatic languages]], there was little evidence to support this assumption during the 20th century. Man (1886) notes that there are very few Shompen words that "bear any resemblance" to Nicobarese and also that "in most instances", words differ between the two Shompen groups with which he worked. For example, the word for "back (of the body)" is given as ''gikau, tamnōi,'' and ''hokōa'' in different sources; "to bathe" as ''pu(g)oihoɔp'' and ''hōhōm''; and "head" as ''koi'' and ''fiāu.'' In some of these cases, that may be a matter of borrowed versus native vocabulary, as ''koi'' appears to be Nicobarese, but it also suggests that Shompen is not a single language.

Based on the 1997 data, however, van Driem (2008) concluded that Shompen was a Nicobarese language.<ref name=VD/>

Blench and Sidwell note many cognates with both Nicobarese and with [[Jahaic languages|Jahaic]] in the 2003 data, including many words found only in Nicobarese or only in Jahaic (or sometimes also in [[Senoic languages|Senoic]]), and they also note that Shompen shares historical phonological developments with Jahaic. Given the likelihood of borrowing from Nicobarese, that suggests that Shompen might be a Jahaic or at least [[Aslian languages|Aslian language]], or perhaps a third branch of a Southern Austroasiatic family alongside Aslian and Nicobarese.<ref name=B&S/>

However, [[Paul Sidwell]] (2017)<ref name="Sidwell2017">Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "[https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1vtRZF3p8awSmxCRkZ5RjNSbWs Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress]". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.</ref> classifies Shompen as a Southern Nicobaric language, rather than a separate branch of Austroasiatic.

==Phonology==
It is not clear if the following description applies to all varieties of Shompen or how phonemic it is.

Eight vowel qualities are recovered from the transcription, {{IPA|/i e ɛ a ə ɔ o u/}}, which may be [[nasal vowel|nasalized]] and or [[vowel length|lengthened]]. There are numerous vowel sequences and diphthongs.

The consonants are attested as follows:

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center
|-
! colspan="2" rowspan="2" |
! colspan="2" | [[labial consonant|Bilabial]]
! colspan="2" | [[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! colspan="2" | [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! rowspan="2" | [[glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
!plain
![[Aspirated consonant|aspirated]]
!plain
![[Aspirated consonant|aspirated]]
!plain
![[Aspirated consonant|aspirated]]
|-
! rowspan="2" |[[Stop consonant|Stop]]
![[voicelessness|voiceless]]
| p
|pʰ
| t
|tʰ
| c
| k
|kʰ
| ʔ
|-
! [[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]
| b
|bʱ
| d
|
| ɟ
| g
|gʱ
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |[[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
![[voicelessness|voiceless]]
|ɸ
|
|
|
|
| x
|
| h
|-
! [[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]
|
|
|
|
|
| ɣ
|
|
|-
! colspan="2" |[[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| m
|
| n
|
| ɲ
| ŋ
|
|
|-
! colspan=2| [[Approximant consonant|Approximant]]
|
|
| l
|
| j
|w
|
|
|}

Many Austroasiatic roots with final nasal stops, *m *n *ŋ, appear in Shompen with voiced oral stops {{IPA|[b d ɡ]}}, which resembles [[Aslian languages|Aslian]] and especially [[Jahaic languages|Jahaic]], whose historical final nasals have become [[pre-stopped consonant|prestopped]] or fully oral. Although Jahaic nasal stops conflated with oral stops, Shompen oral stops appear to have been lost first, only to be reacquired as nasals became oral. There are also, however, certainly numerous words that retain final nasal stops. It is not clear if borrowing from Nicobarese is enough to explain all of those exceptions. Shompen could have been partially [[relexified]] under the influence of Nicobarese, or consultants might have given Nicobarese words during elicitation.

Other historical sound changes are word-final *r and *l shifting to {{IPA|[w]}}, *r before a vowel shifting to {{IPA|[j]}}, the deletion of final *h and *s, and the [[vowel breaking|breaking]] of Austroasiatic long vowels into diphthongs.

==Vocabulary==
{| class="wikitable"
|+
|-
! Word !! Shompen !! Southern Nicobarese !! proto-Nicobarese
|-
| hot || dai(d) || tait || *taɲ
|-
| four || fuat || fôat || *foan
|-
| child || köˑat || kōˑan || *kuːn
|-
| lip || tūˑin || paṅ-nōˑin || *manuːɲ
|-
| dog || kab || âm || *ʔam
|-
| night || tahap || hatòm || *hatəːm
|-
| male || akòit || (otāˑha) || *koːɲ
|-
| ear || nâng || nâng || *naŋ
|-
| one || heng || heg || *hiaŋ
|-
| belly || (kàu) || wīˑang || *ʔac
|-
| sun || hok-ngīˑa || hēg || -
|}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Austroasiatic languages}}

[[Category:Shompen language| ]]
[[Category:Languages of India]]
[[Category:Languages of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands]]
[[Category:Nicobarese languages]]
[[Category:Endangered languages of India]]

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Shompen language