The Language of the Jarawa: Phonology

Since its inception the Andaman and Nicobar Regional Centre of the Anthropological Survey of India has been undertaking anthropological researches in cultural and biological aspects among the people of this region. The linguists of the Anthropological Survey of India have been doing work on the languages of tribes/communities of India and there has been a study of the language of the Onges, a tribe of the Andaman and Nicobar. There is also a linguistic study on the Andamanese. The present study is in the same genre. The most remarkable achievement has been in terms of the primary contact with the isolated populations like the Jarawas, the Shompens, the Sentinelese. Taking advantage of the short stay among the Jarawas Dr. R. Senkuttuvan, Assistant Linguist of the Survey, could collect about 500 lexical items from them for linguistic analysis. The Jarawas being a monolingual community, there was definitely some difficulty on the part of the researcher to collect data for a comparative purpose and also for a basic structural analysis. Perhaps some doubts can be raised as to the justifiability of these lexical items as words and even the slash and stroke (phonemic and phonetic) that have been used could be subjected to meticulous academic scrutiny. Considering the limitation of data and the technicalities involved one cannot expect too much sophistry out of it but since a researcher has been able to collect a sizeable quantity of firsthand information, it is worth reporting the same to the larger academic community. The study has generated excitement and enthusiasm among colleagues to continue with renewed vigour their studies on the Jarawas. And from this perspective the exercise, I believe, has been rather fruitful. But I am sure Dr. Senkuttuvan, during his further stay and study among the Jarawas would be able to come out with more concrete and verifiable information on various aspects of the Jarawa language in near future.