Car language

{{Short description|Austroasiatic language spoken in the Nicobar Islands, India}}

{{Distinguish|text=the Kar language of Burkina Faso}}{{Cleanup lang|date=January 2025|iso=caq}}{{Infobox language

|name=Car

|nativename={{lang|caq|Pū}}

|pronunciation={{IPA|[puː]}}

|states=India

|region=Nicobar Islands

|pushpin_map = India Andaman and Nicobar Islands#Bay of Bengal

|coordinates = {{coord|9.19|92.77}}

|speakers=37,000

|date=2005

|ref=e18

|familycolor=Austro-Asiatic

|fam2=Nicobarese

|script=Latin script

|iso3=caq

|glotto=carn1240

|glottorefname=Car Nicobarese

| map2 = Lang Status 20-CR.svg

| mapcaption2 = {{center|Pū is classified as Critically Endangered according to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger{{cite report |title=Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger |publisher=UNESCO |edition=3rd |url=https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000187026/PDF/187026eng.pdf.multi |date=2010 |page=31}}}}

}}

Car ({{lang|caq|Pū}}) is the most widely spoken Nicobarese language of the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal.

Although a member of the Austroasiatic language family, it is typologically much more akin to nearby Austronesian languages such as Nias and Acehnese, with which it forms a linguistic area.Cysouw, Michael; [http://email.eva.mpg.de/~cysouw/pdf/cysouwDGFS2005.pdf Quantitative explorations of the world-wide distribution of rare characteristics, or: the exceptionality of north-western European languages] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090514195944/http://email.eva.mpg.de/~cysouw/pdf/cysouwDGFS2005.pdf |date=2009-05-14 }}; pp. 11-12 Car is a VOS language and somewhat agglutinative.[http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_nca WALS: Nicobarese] There is a quite complicated verbal suffix system with some infixes, as well as distinct genitive and "interrogative" cases for nouns and pronouns.Whitehead, Rev. G.; Dictionary of the Car (Nicobarese) language; published 1925 by American Baptist Mission Press; pp. xxvi-xxxii