Car language

Car
	Pū
Pronunciation	[puː]
Native to	India
Region	Nicobar Islands
Native speakers	37,000 (2005)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Nicobarese Car; ;
Writing system	Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	caq
Glottolog	carn1240
ELP	Car Nicobarese[2]
	Car Car
	Coordinates: 9.19°N 92.77°E

Car (Pū) is the most widely spoken of the Nicobarese languages spoken in the Nicobar Islands of India.

Although related distantly to Vietnamese and Khmer, it is typologically much more akin to nearby Austronesian languages such as Nias and Acehnese, with which it forms a linguistic area.[3]

Car is a VOS language and somewhat agglutinative.[4] There is a quite complicated verbal suffix system with some infixes, as well as distinct genitive and "interrogative" cases for nouns and pronouns.[5]

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar/ Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t	c	k	ʔ
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative	f v	s			h
Tap		ɾ ɽ
Approximant		l	j

The alveolar flap can typically be pre-stopped. Before a voiceless consonant, its pre-articulation is voiceless as [ᵗɾ], and elsewhere it is voiced [ᵈɾ].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Close-mid	e	ɤ	o
Open-mid	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Open	(æ)	a

/æ/ only occurs because of the occurrence of English loanwords.
Vowel sounds are also typically short when occurring before an /h/.[6]

Vocabulary

Paul Sidwell (2017)[7] 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
four	feːn	*foan
elbow	sikɔŋ	*keaŋ

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'

References

Car at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Endangered Languages Project data for Car Nicobarese.
Cysouw, Michael; Quantitative explorations of the world-wide distribution of rare characteristics, or: the exceptionality of north-western European languages Archived 2009-05-14 at the Wayback Machine; pp. 11-12
WALS: Nicobarese
Whitehead, Rev. G.; Dictionary of the Car (Nicobarese) language; published 1925 by American Baptist Mission Press; pp. xxvi-xxxii
Sidwell, Paul (2015). Car Nicobarese. The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages: Leiden: Brill. pp. 1231–1240.
Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.

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[e18-1] Car at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[ELP1-2] Endangered Languages Project data for Car Nicobarese.

[3] Cysouw, Michael; Quantitative explorations of the world-wide distribution of rare characteristics, or: the exceptionality of north-western European languages Archived 2009-05-14 at the Wayback Machine; pp. 11-12

[4] WALS: Nicobarese

[5] Whitehead, Rev. G.; Dictionary of the Car (Nicobarese) language; published 1925 by American Baptist Mission Press; pp. xxvi-xxxii

[6] Sidwell, Paul (2015). Car Nicobarese. The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages: Leiden: Brill. pp. 1231–1240.

[Sidwell2017-7] Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.