Ancient dialect extinct after last speaker dies
One of the world’s oldest dialects, which traces its origins to tens of thousands of years ago, has become extinct after the last person to speak it died on a remote Indian island.
Boa Sr, the 85-year-old last speaker of “Bo,” was the oldest member of the Great Andamanese tribe, R.C. Kar, deputy director of Tribal Health in Andaman, told Reuters Friday.
She died last week in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which were hit by a devastating tsunami in 2004.
“With the death of Boa Sr and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory,” said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, an organisation that supports tribes worldwide.
“Boa’s loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands,” he said in a statement.
Pretty interesting. I was confused when I first read the article, as Boa Sr was a she. But then I realized that in addition to senior, Sr can also mean sister. I guess I had a corpse-man moment, LOL.