Central Institute of Indian Languages

Study of Indigenous Lamguage of Andaman and nicobar Islands

Supported by

Andaman Adim Janjati Vikas Samiti, Port Blair

Languages

Languages of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Non-indigenous Languages

The migration of civilians from different parts of the mainland India and Burma to the Islands due to political and economic reasons resulted into a steady increase in the number of non-indigenous languages in the Islands. As such, presently the following are the prominent non-indigenous languages spoken in the Territory.

Assamese, Bengali, Burmese, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Karen, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Manipuri, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.

Indigenous Languages

There are six indigenous languages in the Territory. They are, the Onge language, Andamanese language, Jarawa language, Sentinelese language, Nicobarese language and Shompen language spoken by the six respective tribal communities.