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.

The Great Andamanese were clearly related to the other Andamanese peoples, but were well separated from them by culture, language and geography. 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 killed or died out 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.

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