Katchal (Katchall, Katchál, Kachel), or ''Tehnu (Tēhnyu)'',
[Edward Horace Man, 1889, ''A dictionary of the central Nicobarese language''] is a
Nicobarese language spoken in the central
Nicobar Islands
The Nicobar Islands are an archipelago, archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of t ...
. Apart from the dialect of Trinket
[Robert Parkin, 1991, ''A guide to austroasiatic speakers and their languages'', pp 37–38] (Trinkat, Trinkut, or ''Lâfūl''),
[ it is not mutually intelligible with the other Central Nicobarese languages. The population of Trinket was evacuated to Nancowry and Camorta after the ]2004 tsunami
On 26 December 2004, at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7), a major earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2–9.3 struck with an epicentre off the west coast of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The undersea megathrust earthquake, known in the scient ...
, and can be expected to disappear as speakers assimilate.
References
Languages of India
Nicobarese languages
{{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub
fr:Nancowry (langue)