Indian Language Of African Origin On The Verge Of Extinction

With 22 official languages and more than 720 dialects, India is the only country in the world which has given equal respect and status to all its important languages around the country. Due to the diversity that it holds, any one language for the entire nation is beyond possible. Language of every state, community, ethnics has been protected and measures to preserve them are being initiated. But there are some pockets of the country, especially the tribes, where there is a fear of losing out on that language, a worry that this language will be lost to history due to the migrating youth and the government’s efforts to “mainstream” them.

One such language is the Jarawa of the Ongan people, belonging to the Andaman and Nicobar Island. Not related to any of the Indian language, it is said to have roots in the Proto- Austronesian group of languages, where the indigenous people of the Pacific Islands used it. Jarawa means “foreigner”, as termed by their traditional enemies, Aka- Bea.

Inhabiting the interior and south central Rutland Island, central interior and south interior South Andaman Island and west coast of middle Andaman Island, the Jarwas are the first successful human migrations out of Africa. It is believed that they have made the Indian Ocean their home for 55,000 years and are the only Negrito remnants of the Andaman out of 4.

Jarawa belongs to that 5% of the languages in the world which do not have a script, which has made its preservation all the more difficult. The entire community being monolingual, it is deprived of dialects and varieties stemming from it. So without any proper system of writing, they converse through shapes and designs, like the wavy lines represent the sea. It is a reminder to us of where we come from, tracing our own journey from the stone age nomads to what we are today.

An agglutinative language, it has 41 sounds, 28 consonants and 13 vowels. With a clear demarcation of the suffix and prefix to a verb, Jarawa does not differentiate between tenses. One has to understand the text from the context. Another aspect of this language is that the noun comes before the adjective like some European languages.

This ancient language has become very vulnerable. Vastly outnumbered by several hundred thousand Indians who have settled on the islands in the recent decades, only 270 people speaking this language are remaining. Young generations are picking up Hindi due to the Andaman Trunk Road passing through their dense forest territory of 1028 square kilometres.

220 out of 780 Indian languages have already been extinct, and many more are on the verge of disappearing. Saving or preserving them is very essential because the languages hold the history, the background, the roots of our country and its rich diversity.

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