Austroasiatic language spoken in the Nicobar Islands, India
Car (Pū ) is the most widely spoken Nicobarese language of the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
Although a member of the Austroasiatic language family , it is typologically much more akin to nearby Austronesian languages such as Nias and Acehnese , with which it forms a linguistic area .[ 2] Car is a VOS language and somewhat agglutinative .[ 3] There is a quite complicated verbal suffix system with some infixes , as well as distinct genitive and "interrogative" cases for nouns and pronouns.[ 4]
The alveolar flap can typically be pre-stopped. Before a voiceless consonant, its pre-articulation is voiceless as [ᵗɾ] , and elsewhere it is voiced [ᵈɾ] . /æ/ only occurs in English loanwords.
Vowel sounds are also typically short when occurring before an /h/ .[ 5] Paul Sidwell (2017)[ 6] published in ICAAL 2017 conference on Nicobarese languages.
Word
Car
proto-Nicobarese
hot
taɲ
*taɲ
four
fɛːn
*foan
child
kuːn
*kuːn
lip
(minuh)
*manuːɲ
dog
ʔam
*ʔam
night
hatəːm
*hatəːm
male
koːɲ
*koːɲ
ear
naŋ
*naŋ
one
heŋ
*hiaŋ
belly
(ʔac)
*ʔac
sun
(tavuːj)
-
sweet
(pacaːka)
-
overflow
tareːci
*roac
nose
mɛh
*moah
breast
tɛh
*toah
to cough
ʔɛhɛ
*ʔoah
arm
kɛl
*koal
in, inside
ʔɛl
*ʔoal
elbow
sikɔŋ
*keaŋ
Shared morphological alternations: the old AA causative has two allomorphs, prefix ha- with monosyllabic stems, infix -um- in disyllabic stems (note: *p > h onset in unstressed σ).
ɲa - 'to eat' / haɲaː 'to feed'
pɯɲ - 'to cry' / hapɯɲ-ɲɔː 'to make cry'
kucik - 'be palatable' / kumcik 'to taste'
kale - 'brave' / kumle 'bravery'
^ Car at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Cysouw, Michael; Quantitative explorations of the world-wide distribution of rare characteristics, or: the exceptionality of north-western European languages Archived 2009-05-14 at the Wayback Machine ; pp. 11-12
^ WALS: Nicobarese
^ Whitehead, Rev. G.; Dictionary of the Car (Nicobarese) language ; published 1925 by American Baptist Mission Press; pp. xxvi -xxxii
^ Sidwell, Paul (2015). Car Nicobarese . The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages: Leiden: Brill. pp. 1231–1240.
^ Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress ". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.
West Katuic Ta'oihic Pacoh Katu
Viet-Muong Cuoi Chứt Kri Phong–Liha
Pear Western Pearic (Chong)
Central Western Northern Southern
North
South
Kharia Juang Sora-Gorum Gutob-Remo Gta’