To the east of India and south of Burma in the Bay of Bengal lies a string of islands called Andaman. It is there that the last speaker of the Bo language, Mrs. Boa Sr, has recently passed away.

Out of the 7 indigenous languages of the Andaman Islands, only 6 remain active nowadays, all of which are threatened with extinction on the very short term : the most widely spoken of these languages is Jarawa, with only 250 speakers. And these 6 languages count less than 500 speakers altogether.

The extinction of these languages would mean that of the last traces of an entire misknown civilisation, one of our most ancient cultures born some 65 000 years ago.

It has taken less than two centuries of colonization, deportation, and ill-treatment to extinguish a people and their culture from the face of the earth. The term loss here takes on its fullest sense.

Mrs. Boa Sr often explained her grief and sense of solitude in having no one to share her language with and no one to hand down her culture to, as it had been handed down to her.

“You cannot imagine the pain and anguish I feel every day, silently witnessing of the extinction of a remarkable culture and unique language”, said linguist Anvita Abbi, who worked on documenting Mrs. Boa Sr’s language.

Anvita Abbi had recorded Mrs. Boa Sr, and one now understands how important this work was, these recordings being the very last traces of a language that no on will ever speak again. This may also reminds us of how urgent it is to record, film and document all the other languages and cultures of the planet which are under threat as we speak.

For more information:

Times article on the death of Mrs. Boa Sr

BBC article on the death of Mrs. Boa Sr

Survival International article on the death of Mrs. Boa Sr

Linguist Anvita Abbi, working on languages of the Andaman Islands

Sorosoro page on the languages of the Andaman Islands (in French)