65000 year-old language goes extinct

A tribal language thought to have existed for 65,000 years has disapperead forever in India’s Andaman Islands, taken to the grave with its last speaker. According to the indigenous advocacy group Survival International, Boa Senior, the last member of the Bo tribe, died last week at the age of 85.

One of the 10 Great Andamanese tribes that are considered indigenous inhabitants of these islands 700 miles east of the Indian mainland, the Bo tribe spoke a language which is thought to date back to pre-Neolithic times and possibly to the first settlement of the region by modern humans.

Boa, a survivor of the Asian tsunami of 2004, lived in the Strait Island of Andaman in a concrete and tin hut provided by the government.

After the death of her parents, she remained the last Bo speaker for 30 to 40 years. She had no children, and her husband died several years ago.

Listen to Boa Sr. singing in Bo

Made up of 10 distinct groups each with their own language, the Great Andamanese numbered more than 5,000 when the British colonized the Andaman Islands in 1858. Many were either killed, or died of diseases carried by the colonists.

“The British tried to ‘civilize’ them by capturing many and keeping them in an ‘Andaman Home.’ Of the 150 children born in the home, none lived beyond the age of two,” Survival International said in a statement. Now the Great Andamanese number 52. Alcoholism is rife among the survivors.