Shompen language

Shompen
Shom Peng
RegionGreat Nicobar Island
EthnicityShompen people
Native speakers
400 (2004)[1]
Possibly a language isolate traditionally considered Austroasiatic
Dialects
  • Kalay (west)
  • Keyet (east)
Language codes
ISO 639-3sii
Glottologshom1245
ELPShom Peng
Approximate location where Shompen is spoken
Approximate location where Shompen is spoken
Shompen
Location in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and in the Bay of Bengal.
Approximate location where Shompen is spoken
Approximate location where Shompen is spoken
Shompen
Shompen (Bay of Bengal)
Coordinates: 7°01′N 93°49′E / 7.02°N 93.81°E / 7.02; 93.81
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Shompen, or Shom Peng, is a language or group of languages spoken on Great Nicobar Island in the Indian union territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the Indian Ocean, northwest of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Partially because the native peoples of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are protected from outside researchers, Shompen is poorly described, with most descriptions being from the 19th century and a few more recently but of poor quality. Shompen appears to be related to the other Southern Nicobarese varieties, however Glottolog considers it a language isolate.

  1. ^ Shompen at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)