![]() | This article should specify the language of its non-English content using {{ lang }} or {{ langx }}, {{ transliteration }} for transliterated languages, and {{ IPA }} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriate ISO 639 code. Wikipedia's multilingual support templates may also be used - notably abj for Aka-Bea.(April 2025) |
Bea | |
---|---|
Bojigyab, Bôjingîjîda | |
Aka-Bea | |
Native to | India |
Region | Andaman Islands; South Andaman island except northeast coast, and north and east interiors; Rutland island except south coast; small islands southeast of Rutland; Labyrinth Islands. |
Ethnicity | Bea |
Extinct | 1920s [1] |
Great Andamanese
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | abj |
abj.html | |
Glottolog | akab1249 |
![]() Aka-Bea | |
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The Bea language, Aka-Bea, [2] also called Bojigyab, [3] is an extinct Great Andamanese language of the Southern [4] group. It was spoken around the western Andaman Strait and around the northern and western coast of South Andaman. It was well documented in the late 19th century, but died out in the 1920s. The term Aka-Bea was used both to name the language and the people who spoke it, derived from the prefix aka-, used to name objects related to the tongue, and bea, meaning 'spring-water'. [1]
The Bea were one of the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, one of the ten or so Great Andamanese tribes identified by British colonials in the 1860s. Their language was closely related to the other Great Andamanese languages. They were extinct as a distinct people between 1921 and 1931. [5] [1]
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | k | ||
aspirated | tʰ | ||||||
voiced | b | d | ɖ | ɡ | |||
Affricate | voiceless | tʃ | |||||
voiced | dʒ | ||||||
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ ŋʲ | |||
Fricative | ( s ) | ||||||
Rhotic | r | ɽ | |||||
Approximant | w | l | j |
[s] occurs as an optional and idiosyncratic realization of word-final /tʃ/, as well as in non-final positions. [6]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i iː | u uː | |
Close-mid | e eː | o oː | |
Open-mid | ɛ ɛː | ɔ ɔː | |
Open | a aː |
The Great Andamanese languages, including Aka-Bea, are agglutinative languages, with an extensive prefix and suffix system. [7] They have a distinctive noun class system based largely on body parts, in which every noun and adjective may take a prefix according to which body part it is associated with (on the basis of shape, or functional association). Thus, for instance, the *aka- at the beginning of the language names is a prefix for objects related to the tongue. [7] An adjectival example can be given by the various forms of yop, "pliable, soft: [7]
Similarly, beri-nga "good" yields:
The prefixes are,
Bea | Bojigyab | |
---|---|---|
head/heart | ot- | ote- |
hand/foot | ong- | ong- |
mouth/tongue | âkà- | o- |
torso (shoulder to shins) | ab- | ab- |
eye/face/arm/breast | i-, ig- | ir- |
back/leg/butt | ar- | ar- |
waist | ôto- |
Body parts are inalienably possessed, requiring a possessive adjective prefix to complete them, so one cannot say "head" alone, but only "my, or his, or your, etc. head".
The basic pronouns are almost identical throughout the Great Andamanese languages; with the Aka-Bea forms given below:
I, my | d- | we, our | m- |
thou, thy | ŋ- | you, your | ŋ- |
he, his, she, her, it, its | a | they, their | l- |
'This' and 'that' are distinguished as k- and t-.
Judging from the available sources, the Andamanese languages have only two cardinal numbers — one and two — and their entire numerical lexicon is one, two, one more, some more, and all. [7] Akabea has been analyzed as an anumeric language, where words analyzed as numerals actually do not refer to specific quantities. [8]
The following poem in Aka-Bea was written by a chief, Jambu, after he was freed from a six-month jail term for manslaughter. [9]
Literally:
Translation:
Note, however, that, as seems to be typical of Andamanese poetry, the words and sentence structure have been somewhat abbreviated or inverted in order to obtain the desired rhythmical effect.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)The Oko-Juwoi of Middle Andaman and the Aka-Bea of South Andaman and Rutland Island were extinct by 1931.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)