What is known about the Sentinelese Island tribe?
from cheese_greater@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca on 06 May 11:04
https://lemmy.world/post/46498781

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PonyOfWar@pawb.social on 06 May 11:23 collapse

The best deep dive into the topic I’ve seen is this one by The Pharao Nerd. It’s 2 parts and I’d say it covers almost everything we know about them. Stephan Milo also has a great, somewhat shorter video on the topic.

I guess the TL;DR is that we know quite a bit about them from various expeditions, contact attempts and other events (including even an abduction) over the last centuries. But their language is still unknown to anyone but them. One thing we know for sure is that they want to be left alone.

GreenBeard@lemmy.ca on 06 May 21:03 collapse

Minor caveat, we have limited understanding of things like their culture and language directly from them, but we can make a lot of educated inferences based on what we know about the other tribes in the Andamanese island groups:

  • The Jarawa: They are considered closely related to the Sentinelese and inhabit the western coast of Great Andaman Island. Unlike the Sentinelese, the Jarawa have had contact with outsiders since the late 1990s, though they previously maintained strict isolation.
  • The Onge: They are another indigenous tribe in the Andaman Islands, living on Little Andaman Island. They have had long-term contact with outsiders and have been settled into reservations.

We also know direct contact with the outside world will be catastrophic and possibly extinction grade for them because they can’t handle our diseases (which we know, because that’s what happened to The Jarawa, The Onge, and the Jangil).

a_gee_dizzle@lemmy.ca on 06 May 23:03 collapse

We also know direct contact with the outside world will be catastrophic and possibly extinction grade for them because they can’t handle our diseases (which we know, because that’s what happened to The Jarawa, The Onge, and the Jangil).

Given how much they avoid us, I suspect they know this too