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Boa Sr, the last member of the Bo tribe, sings.

Boa Sr, the last speaker of the Bo language of the Andaman Islands, has died. Photograph: Alok Das/Survival/

Boa Sr, the last member of a 65,000-year-old tribe, died last week aged about 85. She was the last native of the Andaman Islands who was fluent in Bo, one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to pre-Neolithic times. Jonathan Watts in The Guardian:

The last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the Andaman Islands, breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the world’s oldest cultures.

Boa Sr, who lived through the 2004 tsunami, the Japanese occupation and diseases brought by British settlers, was the last native of the island chain who was fluent in Bo.

Taking its name from a now-extinct tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to pre-Neolithic human settlement of south-east Asia.

Though the language has been closely studied by researchers of linguistic history, Boa Sr spent the last few years of her life unable to converse with anyone in her mother tongue.

Even members of inter-related tribes were unable to comprehend the repertoire of Bo songs and stories uttered by the woman in her 80s, who also spoke Hindi and another local language. More:

From The Independent: Boa Sr, known for an infectious laugh, survived the Asian tsunami of December 2004. She told linguists: “We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us ‘the Earth would part, don’t run away or move’. The elders told us, that’s how we know.” More:

The death of a language: The loss of endangered languages like Bo is more a cultural than a scientific tragedy. In The Guardian.

Also read the story in Survival

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