Great Andamanese
The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely related languages comprised the Great Andamanese languages, one of the two identified Andamanese language families.
Riala, an interpreter for the British from the Aka-Kede Tribe of Great Andamanese from Middle Andaman, in 1890 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 59 (2020) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| India Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Strait Island) | 59 |
| Languages | |
| originally Great Andamanese languages, today mainly Hindi and other Indian languages, Census of India 2001 | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Onge, Jarawa, Jangil, Sentinelese | |
The Great Andamanese were clearly related to the other Andamanese peoples, but were well separated from them by culture, language and geography. The languages of those other four groups were only distantly related to those of the Great Andamanese and mutually unintelligible; they are classified in a separate family, the Ongan languages.
They were once the most numerous of the five major groups in the Andaman Islands with an estimated population between 2,000 and 6,600, before they were died out or killed due to diseases, alcohol, colonial warfare and loss of hunting territory. Only 52 remained as of February 2010; by August 2020 there were 59. The tribal and linguistic distinctions have largely disappeared, so they may now be considered a single Great Andamanese ethnic group with mixed Burmese, Hindi and aboriginal descent.