Ancient dialect extinct after last speaker dies

Tribe may have lived on the Andaman Islands for as many as 65,000 years

updated 11:18 a.m. ET, Fri., Feb. 5, 2010

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 on Friday.

She died last week in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which were hit by a devastating tsunami in 2004.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

The language was estimated to have been 70,000 years old. Amazing!

The whole field of linguistics and the origin of languages is definitely something that I wished I had more time to involve myself in. When you better understand how slowly languages progress, and the iterative process by which is splinters it reshapes how we think about "civilized" man, and truly challenges our preconceived notions about human history.

The problem, as usual, in this debate is that in soft sciences there is less of a willingness, shall we say, to step outside the safety zone and make a statement. In math or physics you have show a repeatable test to prove your hypothesis. When you make statements about the past, you don't have that luxury and therefore scholars are less likely to make a statement they believe to be true and stay with the status quo.

All this rambling to say that I think we will find out that human civilization is far older than we give credit to.

and recently here one of the last people able to teach the Arikara (Sahnish) language died. she was 78. its just tragic that no matter where you are from, the loss of these people is a loss of culture, history, and heritage for all of us.

reply to post by LocoHombre


yeah. you hope that they have enough foresight to make recordings of these people speaking their language for future study and reference.

I enjoy hearing elderly people speak. Any language, whether i understand it or not. It is something about the voice.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


i have a book somewhere that you could learn Hidatsa (native language) from. it was through a translator and from the actual hidatsans. so its not the overly- messed white version.

now where is it?

reply to post by LocoHombre


i had an aunt that was from Hungary that had a thick accent and weathered face. I loved hearing her talk. The cadence of her voice. Often, if one is fluent, even if there is a thick accent, they get this cadence in their voice (depending on the individual and the accent).

She reminded me of that old lady from that Metallica song.

A few years later..

I'm sorry to hear that, I only just watched a docu on the Andaman people which was pretty interesting, will post below if anyone's interested.

Shameful that our societies just let a language die.

Im studying Anthropology, and Linguistics, I would have loved the opportunity to have saved a language, at least try. Why was more not done?

Someone above said 70,000 years old, wow. Are there any recordings at all?

a reply to: brandiwine14

The first quarter of the docu above they cover some historical audio and early video, for as much as they appear to be isolated, they have certainly been bombarded over the years with people trying to access them non-stop, their only defence being their war-like stance on the shore when anyone came near. Totally primitive. Alas, it's too late now to save it, it would seem.

a reply to: Ramcheck

I had not realized that this was the tribe you speak of. I have heard only a few stories. Well, then perhaps they got their wish. Maybe it is best that it died with them.

Still, kind of a bummer though.