65,000-Year-Old Language Goes Extinct

Boa Senior died last week, ending ancient Andaman culture Alok Das/ Survival International

A tribal language thought to have existed for 65,000 years has disappeared 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.

"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.

"Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands," he added.

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.

Singing in an almost hypnotic language, she was very lonely as she had no one to converse with.

"But throughout her life she had a very good sense of humor and her smile and full-throated laughter were infectious," said Anvita Abbi, a linguist at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University who managed to speak with Boa using a local version of Hindi and Great Andamanese.

Living Andamanese tribes can be grouped into four major groups, the Great Andamanese, the Jarawa, the Onge and the Sentinelese.

Apart from the Sentinelese, who resist contact with all outsiders, all struggle for survival.

"You cannot imagine the pain and anguish that I spend each day in being a mute witness to the loss of a remarkable culture and unique language," Abbi, who runs the Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (Voga) website, said.

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.