Car () is the most widely spoken Nicobarese language of the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.
Although a member of the Austroasiatic language family, it is typologically much more akin to nearby Austronesian languages such as Nias and Acehnese, with which it forms a linguistic area.Cysouw, Michael; Quantitative explorations of the world-wide distribution of rare characteristics, or: the exceptionality of north-western European languages ; pp. 11-12 Car is a VOS language and somewhat agglutinative.WALS: Nicobarese There is a quite complicated verbal suffix system with some infixes, as well as distinct genitive and "interrogative" cases for nouns and pronouns.Whitehead, Rev. G.; Dictionary of the Car (Nicobarese) language; published 1925 by American Baptist Mission Press; pp. xxvi-xxxii
Phonology
Consonants LabialAlveolar/RetroflexPalatalVelarGlottalPlosiveNasalFricative Tap Approximant
The alveolar flap can typically be pre-stopped. Before a voiceless consonant, its pre-articulation is voiceless as , and elsewhere it is voiced .
Vowels FrontCentralBackCloseClose-midOpen-midOpen()
only occurs in English loanwords. Vowel sounds are also typically short when occurring before an .
Morphology 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).
ɲa - 'to eat' / haɲaː 'to feed' pɯɲ - 'to cry' / hapɯɲ-ɲɔː 'to make cry' kucik - 'be palatable' / kumcik 'to taste' kale - 'brave' / kumle 'bravery'
Vocabulary Paul Sidwell (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.
+ Word Car proto-Nicobarese hot taɲ *taɲ four fɛːn *foan child kuːn *kuːn lip (minuh) *manuːɲ dog ʔam *ʔam night hatəːm *hatəːm male koːɲ *koːɲ ear naŋ *naŋ one heŋ *hiaŋ belly (ʔac) *ʔac sun (tavuːj) - sweet (pacaːka) - overflow tareːci *roac nose mɛh *moah breast tɛh *toah to cough ʔɛhɛ *ʔoah arm kɛl *koal in, inside ʔɛl *ʔoal elbow sikɔŋ *keaŋ
References