On the aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands / by Edward Horace Man. With report of researches into the language of the South Andaman Islands by A. J. Ellis.

  • Man, Edward Horace.
Date:
[1932]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands / by Edward Horace Man. With report of researches into the language of the South Andaman Islands by A. J. Ellis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    The only way in which they affect the syntax is to render possible the frequent use of long compounds almost poly- synthetic in their nature, or, to put it in another way, of long compounds which are sentences in themselves. But the construction of these words is not synthetic, but agglutina- tive. They are, as words, either compound nouns or verbs, taking their place in the sentence and having the same relation to the other words in it, as they would were they to be introduced into a sentence in any other agglutinative language. There are, of course, many peculiarities of grammar in the Andaman group, and even in each member of the group, but these are only such as are incidental to the grammar of other languages, and do not affect its general tenor. I consider, therefore, that the Andaman languages belong to the agglutinative stage of development, and are distinguished from other groups by the presence in full development of the principle of prefixed and afl&xed gram- matical additions to the roots of words.” The South Andaman language, called by the natives hbjig-ngrji-da}- consists in the first place of a series of base forms, which Mr. Temple reduces to roots. These forms may answer to any part of speech, and in particular to what we call substantives, adjectives or verbs. These forms do not vary in construction, and are not subject to inflexion proper. Hence there is nothing resembling the grammatical gender, declension or conjugation of Aryan languages ; but the functions of such Aryan forms are discharged by prefixes, postpositions, and suffixes. It is only in the pronouns and pronominal adjectives that there is anything which simulates declension. And it is only by the use of the prefixes that anything like concord can be established. The Andamanese have of course words which imply sex, * The word bo-jig appears to mean bo-jig da-bar- our make of buckets, our-make-of, according to our habits. bojig bil-j-ovx mok.Q ot cooking-pots, Mr.Man only knows it in the names of etc. The .bd-jig-y&-bda inhabit the V:ie:ixi\>es bd-jig-ngi-ji-&ni..bo-jig-ya-b-, Southern portion of Middle Andaman, our-make-of friends, our make of speech, and most closely resemble the South and in such expressions as bo-jig ka-- Andamanese in speech. rama- our make of bows to shoot with.