EmanuelNathan at 23:11, 3 May 2025

2025-05-03T23:11:15Z

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{{Short description|Indigenous people of India}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}

{{Infobox ethnic group
| group = Jangil
| native_name_lang = None
| image = Jangil huts by MV Portman, c 1890s.png
| image_caption = A photograph of Jangil huts taken by Maurice Vidal Portman in the 1890s
| population = Extinct by 1920s
| languages = Jangil<ref name=":1" />
| religions = [[Animism]]
| related_groups = Other [[Andamanese peoples]]
}}

The '''Jangil''' (also '''Rutland Jarawa''' or '''Rutland Onge''') were one of the [[Indigenous peoples]] of the [[Andaman Islands]] in [[India]]. They lived in the interior of [[Rutland Island]], and were given the name Rutland Jarawa because it was supposed that they were related to the neighboring [[Jarawa (Andaman Islands)|Jarawa]] people.

Very little information about the Jangil community is known<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Kumar |first=Pramod |date=20 January 2012 |title=Descriptive and typological study of Jarawa |url=https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_1896628/component/file_1896627/content |journal=School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies |pages=}}</ref> and they are believed to have become extinct sometime in the early 1900s.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |date=2013-05-20 |title=George Webber's Lonely Islands, Chapter 8: The Tribes, Section: The Jangil |url=http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter8/text8.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520161055/http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter8/text8.htm#jangil |archive-date=2013-05-20 |access-date=2017-06-28}}</ref>

== Terminology ==
An issue in evaluating the classification and history of the Jangil is the inconsistent terminology used to refer to the [[Andamanese peoples|Andamanese tribes]]. Specifically, the words "[[Jarawas (Andaman Islands)|Jarawa]]" and "[[Onge]]" were often used interchangeably between the 19th century and the 1930s, so the identity of the "Rutland Jarawa" reported during this time period is not clear.<ref name=":1" />

[[Anvita Abbi|Abbi]] (2008)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Abbi |first=Anvita |date=2008 |title=Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa? |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222414027 |journal=Language Sciences}}</ref> and Kumar (2012)<ref name=":0" /> classify the Jarawa, Onge, [[Sentinelese]], and Jangil people under the label "Onge-Jarawa." The 1931 census of India refers to these four tribes as "clans" of Jarawa, with Jangil being described as "a fourth clan of Jarawas of which nothing has been seen since 1907."<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1931 |title=Census of India, 1931 The Andaman and Nicobar Islands |url=https://dspace.gipe.ac.in/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10973/18965/GIPE-016864.pdf?sequence=3 |journal=Census of India |volume=II}}</ref>

A [[Great Andamanese]] legend about how their ancestors discovered fire used the word "Jangil" to refer to their ancestors. One of the Great Andamanese subtribes, the [[Aka-Bea language|Aka-Bea]], referred to the Jarawa of [[South Andaman Island|South Andaman]] as "Jangil." [[Maurice Vidal Portman|Portman]] (1914) suggested that the Aka-Bea used this word because they "may have regarded the tribe as resembling their ancestors in their customs."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Portman |first=M. V. |url=http://archive.org/details/notesonlanguage00portgoog |title=Notes on the languages of the south Andaman group of tribes |publisher=Office of the superintendent of government printing, India |year=1898 |isbn=9781017635386}}</ref>

== Culture and contact ==
Ever since the Jangil were first encountered and documented in the mid-19th century, direct contacts with them remained scarce and they generally sought to avoid such encounters. There are only a few reported instances where outsiders (the [[British Raj|British]] and [[Demographics of India|Indian]] settlers) encountered individuals from the group, the last such case being in 1907. Expeditions sent to the interior of the island in the 1920s failed to find any signs of current habitation. Their disappearance and extinction were most likely the result of introduced [[disease]]s to which they had no natural [[immune system|immunity]].

A picture taken in the 1890s depicted Jangil huts that resembled those of the Sentinelese and Onge, but not of the Great Andamanese or Jarawa. No photographs of Jangil individuals are known to exist.<ref name=":1" />

== Language ==
{{Infobox language
| name = Jangil
| familycolor = Andamanese
| fam1 = [[Ongan languages|Ongan]] (presumed)
| extinct = by 1920s
| ethnicity = Jangil
| region = [[Rutland Island]]
| iso3 = none
| glotto = none
| acceptance = unattested
| mapcaption = The distributions of different Andamanese peoples, languages, and dialects at the time of British contact compared to the present-day.
| map = Distribution of different Andamanese peoples, languages, and dialects at the time of British contact compared to the present day.png
| states = [[India]]
}}

The Jangil language is [[Attested language|unattested]] and therefore technically [[Unclassifiable language|unclassifiable]].

British naval officer [[Maurice Vidal Portman]] made contact with a captured Jangil man named Habia in July 1884. Habia spoke a language that was distinct from, but similar to, [[Jarawa language (Andaman Islands)|Jarawa]]. Portman suggested that Jangil and Jarawa most likely descended from the same original [[proto-language]].<ref name=":1" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Andamanese languages}}

{{authority control}}

[[Category:1920s disestablishments in British India]]
[[Category:History of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands]]
[[Category:Indigenous peoples of South Asia]]
[[Category:Extinct languages of Asia]]
[[Category:Ethnic groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands]]
[[Category:Scheduled Tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands]]
[[Category:Languages of India]]
[[Category:Ongan languages]]
[[Category:Extinct Indigenous peoples]]
[[Category:Languages extinct in the 20th century]]

Jangil - Revision history

EmanuelNathan at 23:11, 3 May 2025