"The last speaker of an ancient language in India's Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85." Boa Sr was the last person to speak the Bo language (or Aka-Bo), a part of the Great Andamanese language family, which is nearly extinct. For more on Andamanese languages here is Niclas Burenhult's paper Deep Linguistic Prehistory, with particular reference to Andamanese and Anvita Abbi's phenomenal Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese. Both Vanishing Voices and the BBC report have recordings of the Bo language.
posted by Kattullus on Feb 5, 2010 - 17 comments

The tribal people of the beautiful Andaman and Nicobar Islands include socially and genetically important ancient 'negrito' groups such as the Jarawa. Fortunately, it looks like many of their tiny communities have survived the earthquake and tsunami.
posted by iffley on Jan 3, 2005 - 13 comments