Nancowry (Nancoury, Nankwari, ') is a
Nicobarese language spoken in the central
Nicobar Islands. It is not mutually intelligible with the other Central Nicobarese languages, and is distantly related to
Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
and
Khmer,
Phonology
Consonants
* The labial glide written variously v and w is written ʋ
Vowels
Vocabulary
Paul Sidwell
Paul James Sidwell is an Australian linguist based in Canberra, Australia who has held research and lecturing positions at the Australian National University. Sidwell, who is also an expert and consultant in forensic linguistics, is most notab ...
(2017)
[Sidwell, Paul. 2017.]
Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress
. International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017. published in ICAAL 2017 conference on Nicobarese languages.
Morphology
Presence of a coda-copy-infixation system. Stock of lexical roots is reduced by active word taboo and hence rely on derivation extensively.
* kóɲ - 'male, husband'
* ʔumkóɲ -'to turn into a man'
* mumkóɲ - 'eunuch'
* ʔinkóɲtet - 'widower'
* kóɲu - 'to marry, to have a man'
* kamóɲu - 'married women'
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).
* ŋok - 'to eat' / haŋok 'to feed'
* cim - 'to cry' / hacim 'to make someone cry'
* lapəʔ - 'pretty' / lumpəʔ 'to make someone pretty'
* karuʔ - 'large' / kumdruʔ 'to enlarge'
References
Languages of India
Nicobarese languages
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