Aka-Kora language


The Kora language, Aka-Kora, is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. It was spoken on the northeast and north central coasts of North Andaman and on Smith Island.
It has been extinct since November 2009 when its last speaker, Boro, died.

Name

The native name for the language was Aka-Kora, also spelled Aka-Khora or Aka-Cora ; and this name is often used for the tribe itself. They were divided between shore-dwellers and forest-dwellers subtribes.

History

By the time of the first permanent British settlement at Port Blair, the estimates size of the Kora tribe was about 500 individuals, out of perhaps 3500 Great Andamanese.
However the tribe was discovered only much later, in the work leading to the 1901 census. Like other Andamanese peoples, the Kora were decimated during colonial and post-colonial times, by diseases, alcohol, colonial warfare and loss of territory. The census of 1901 recorded 96 individuals, which decreased to 71 in 1911, 48 in 1921, and 24 in 1931.
In 1949, any remaining Kora were relocated, with all other surviving Great Andamanese, to a reservation on Bluff island. In 1969 they were relocated again to a reservation on Strait Island.
By 1980 only one person claimed to be a Kora member, and 1994 the Kora tribe no longer existed as a separate unit. Although descendants of the Kora were still living in the Great Andamanese reservation of Strait Island as of 2006, they identified themselves as members of other tribes, mainly Jeru. The last known speaker of the Kora language died in November 2009. They were a designated Scheduled Tribe.

Grammar

The Great Andamanese languages are agglutinative languages, with an extensive prefix and suffix system. 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. Thus, for instance, the *aka- at the beginning of the language names is a prefix for objects related to the tongue. An adjectival example can be given by the various forms of yop, "pliable, soft", in Aka-Bea:
Similarly, beri-nga "good" yields:
The prefixes are,
BeaBalawa?Bajigyâs?JuwoiKol
head/heartot-ôt-ote-ôto-ôto-
hand/footong-ong-ong-ôn-ôn-
mouth/tongueâkà-aka-o-ókô-o-
torso ab-ab-ab-a-o-
eye/face/arm/breasti-, ig-id-ir-re-er-
back/leg/buttar-ar-ar-ra-a-
waistôto-----

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; Aka-Bea will serve as a representative example :
I, myd-we, ourm-
thou, thyŋ-you, yourŋ-
he, his, she, her, it, itsathey, theirl-

'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.