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This paper applies the comparative method to two related languages of the southern Andaman Islands, Jarawa and Onge, leading to the reconstruction of a protolanguage termed "Proto-Ongan" (PON). The same method is used to argue that Proto-Ongan may be related to Proto-Austronesian (PAN). Lexical and grammatical evidence suggests that Proto-Ongan and Proto-Austronesian are sisters, daughters of a Proto-Austronesian-Ongan (PAO). The implications of this discovery are wide-ranging, from potential solutions to problems in PAN grammar, to new hypotheses regarding ancient speaker migrations. While few of these implications are examined here, an extended Austronesian phylogeny is proposed in the hope that it will seed new avenues of research, and highlight the potential importance of Andamanese studies in understanding Austronesian prehistory.
1. AN INTRODUCTION TO JARAWA AND ONGE, TWO LANGUAGES OF THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS.1 This paper makes use of the comparative method to argue that two related languages of the Southern Andaman Islands, Jarawa and Onge (a.k.a. Önge), are distantly related to Proto-Austronesian. Comparison of these two languages allows reconstruction of a protolanguage termed "Proto-Ongan" (POn).2 The same method is used to suggest that Proto-Ongan is related to Proto-Austronesian (PAn). Before turning to the historical reconstructions, a brief introduction to these two languages of the Andaman Islands will inform the discussion that follows.
Jarawa and Onge are two endangered languages of the Andaman Islands, a cluster of over 200 islands in the Bay of Bengal between India and Myanmar (Burma) (see map 1). Jarawa and Onge are spoken in the southernmost part of the archipelago. Two other languages indigenous to this southern region are Jangil (Portman 1899), and Sentinelese, of North Sentinel Island, both unknown. Jangil is extinct, and has not been spoken for over 100 years. Sentinelese, on the other hand, is still spoken. However, the Sentinelese people do not welcome outsiders, and, to date, no one has been successful in engaging them in any dialogue, linguistic or otherwise.3 According to recent counts, Jarawa has approximately 250 speakers, and Onge 94 speakers (Abbi 2006:7). Nearly all of these speakers are monolingual.
North of the area once covered by these four languages was a group of approximately 10 different languages, together termed "Great Andamanese," spoken by the Great Andaman Tribes: Aka-Cari, Aka-Bo, Aka-Kora, Aka-Jeru, Aka-Kede, Aka-Kol, AkarBele,...