Expanding the boundaries of Asian linguistics

Abstract

While the general lines of the areal linguistic typology of Asia are well known, there are some less well understood pockets that promise to throw light on the overall range of variation within the continent. These include the indigenous languages of the Andaman Islands, which have for much of history stood apart from the population and language spreads that have characterized most of Asia. They fall into two families: Great Andamanese – the focus of this article – and Ongan. In some respects Great Andamanese languages go with the bulk of Asia, e.g. verb-final constituent order, but other aspects even of constituent order represent a mixture that matches neither the general Asian head-final type nor the Southeast Asian head-initial type. Some properties of Great Andamanese are typologically unusual, but do find presumably accidental parallels in languages spoken inside Asia, e.g. retroflex consonants, or elsewhere, e.g. body-part prefixes and verb root ellipsis.