| Bo | |
|---|---|
| Aka-Bo | |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Andaman Islands; east central coast of North Andaman island, North Reef island. |
| Ethnicity | Bo people |
| Extinct | 26 January 2010, with the death of Boa Sr. [1] [2] |
Great Andamanese
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | akm |
| Glottolog | akab1248 |
| ELP | Aka-Bo |
 | |
The Bo language, Aka-Bo (also known as Ba), was a Great Andamanese language. It was spoken on the west central coast of North Andaman [3] and on North Reef Island of the Andaman Islands in India.
The Aka- at the beginning of the language name is a common Great Andamanese prefix for words related to the tongue, which includes language. [4]
The original size of the Bo tribe, by 1858 has been estimated at 200 individuals. [5] However, they were discovered by the colonial authorities only later, in the work leading to the 1901 census. [5] Like other Andamanese peoples, the Bo were decimated during colonial and post-colonial times, by diseases, alcohol, opium and loss of territory. The census of 1901 recorded only 48 individuals. [6] Census takers were told that an epidemic had come from the neighboring Kari and Kora tribes, and the Bo had resorted to killing all of their own who showed symptoms. [5] Their number was up to 62 in 1911, but then decreased to 16 in 1921 and only 6 in 1931. [5]
In 1949, any remaining Bo were relocated, with all other surviving Great Andamanese, to a reservation on Bluff island. In 1969 they were moved again to a reservation on Strait Island. [7] By 1980 only three out of the 23 surviving Great Andamanese claimed to belong to the Bo tribe. By 1994 their numbers had grown to 15 (out of 40). [6]
However, tribal identities became largely symbolic in the wake of the relocations. By 2006 the cultural and linguistic identity of the tribe had all but disappeared, due to intermarriage and other factors. The last speaker of the Bo language, a woman named Boa Senior, died at age 85 in late January, 2010. [1] [2]
Boa Sr., the last person who remembered any Bo, [8] died on 26 January 2010, at the age of approximately 85. [9]
Boa Sr.'s mother, who died approximately forty years before her death, was the only living speaker of Bo for a long time. Other members of the Great Andamanese speech community had difficulty understanding the songs and narratives which she knew in Bo. [10] She also spoke the Andamanese dialect of Hindi, as well as Great Andamanese, a mix of the ten indigenous languages of Andamans.
Boa Sr. worked with Anvita Abbi, a professor of linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, since 2005. Abbi studied and recorded Boa's language and songs. [10]
Boa Sr. died at a hospital in Port Blair on 26 January 2010. [1] Boa Sr., who was approximately 85 years old, was the oldest living member of the Great Andamanese tribes at the time. [11] Boa Sr.'s death left just 52 [1] surviving Great Andamanese people in the world, none of whom remembers any Bo. Their population is greatly reduced from the estimated 5,000 Great Andamanese living in the Andaman Islands at the time of the arrival of the British in 1858. [1]
Stephen Corry, director of the British-based NGO Survival International, issued a statement saying, "With the death of Boa Sr. and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands." [12] Linguist Narayan Choudhary also explained what the loss of Boa Sr. meant in both academic and personal terms, "Her loss is not just the loss of the Great Andamanese community, it is a loss of several disciplines of studies put together, including anthropology, linguistics, history, psychology, and biology. To me, Boa Sr. epitomised a totality of humanity in all its hues and with a richness that is not to be found anywhere else."
The Great Andamanese languages are agglutinative languages, with an extensive prefix and suffix system. [4] They have a distinctive noun class system based largely on body parts, in which every noun and adjective may take a prefix according to which body part it is associated with (on the basis of shape, or functional association). Thus, for instance, the *aka- at the beginning of the language names is a prefix for objects related to the tongue. [4] An adjectival example can be given by the various forms of yop, "pliable, soft", in Aka-Bea: [4]
Similarly, beri-nga "good" yields:
The prefixes are:
| Bea | Balawa? | Bajigyâs? | Juwoi | Kol | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| head/heart | ot- | ôt- | ote- | ôto- | ôto- |
| hand/foot | ong- | ong- | ong- | ôn- | ôn- |
| mouth/tongue | âkà- | aka- | o- | ókô- | o- |
| torso (shoulder to shins) | ab- | ab- | ab- | a- | o- |
| eye/face/arm/breast | i-, ig- | id- | ir- | re- | er- |
| back/leg/butt | ar- | ar- | ar- | ra- | a- |
| waist | ôto- |
Body parts are inalienably possessed, requiring a possessive adjective prefix to complete them, so one cannot say "head" alone, but only "my, or his, or your, etc. head".
The basic pronouns are almost identical throughout the Great Andamanese languages; Aka-Bea will serve as a representative example (pronouns given in their basic prefixal forms):
| I, my | d- | we, our | m- |
| thou, thy | ŋ- | you, your | ŋ- |
| he, his, she, her, it, its | a | they, their | l- |
'This' and 'that' are distinguished as k- and t-.
Judging from the available sources, the Andamanese languages have only two cardinal numbers — one and two — and their entire numerical lexicon is one, two, one more, some more, and all. [4]
The Andamanese languages are the languages spoken by the indigenous Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. It contains two known language families, Great Andamanese and Ongan, as well as two presumed but unattested languages, Sentinelese and Jangil.
The Pucikwar language, A-Pucikwar, is an extinct language of the Andaman Islands, India, formerly spoken by the Pucikwar people on the south coast of Middle Andaman, the northeast coast of South Andaman, and on Baratang Island. It belonged to the Great Andamanese family.
The Pucikwar were one of the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, one of the ten or so Great Andamanese tribes identified by British colonials in the 1860s. They spoke a distinctive Pucikwar language (A-Pucikwar) closely related to the other Great Andamanese languages. The tribe disappeared as a distinct group sometime after 1931.
The Andamanese are the various indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal. The Andamanese are a designated Scheduled Tribe in India's constitution.
The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely related languages comprised the Great Andamanese languages, one of the two identified Andamanese language families.
The Bea language, Aka-Bea, is an extinct Great Andamanese language of the Southern group. It was spoken around the western Andaman Strait and around the northern and western coast of South Andaman.
The Bale language, Akar-Bale, is an extinct Southern Great Andamanese language once spoken in the Andaman Islands in Ritchie's Archipelago, Havelock Island, and Neill Island.
Ongan, also called Angan, South Andamanese or Jarawa–Onge, is a phylum which comprises two attested Andamanese languages spoken in the southern Andaman Islands.
The Great Andamanese languages are a nearly extinct language family once spoken by the Great Andamanese peoples of the northern and central Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, and part of Andamanese sprachbund.
The Kede language, Aka-Kede, is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. It was spoken in the Northern section of Middle Andaman island.
The Kol language, Aka-Kol, is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Central group. It was spoken in the southeast section of Middle Andaman.
The Juwoi language, Oko-Juwoi, is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Central group. It was spoken in the west central and southwest interior of Middle Andaman.
The Cari, Chariar or Sare language, also known as Aka-Cari, is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group, which was spoken by the Cari people, one of a dozen Great Andamanese peoples.
The Jeru language, Aka-Jeru, is a moribund Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. Jeru was spoken in the interior and south coast of North Andaman and on Sound Island. A koiné of Aka-Jeru and other northern Great Andamanese languages was once spoken on Strait Island; the last semi-fluent speaker of this, Nao Jr., died in 2009. Aka-Jeru is the last surviving member of the Great Andamanese languages.
The Kora (Cora) language, Aka-Kora, is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Northern group. It was spoken on the northeast and north central coasts of North Andaman and on Smith Island.
Järawa or Jarwa is one of the Ongan languages. It is spoken by the Jarawa people inhabiting the interior and south central Rutland Island, central interior, and south interior South Andaman Island, and the west coast of Middle Andaman Island.
Boa Sr was an Indian Great Andamanese elder. She was the last person fluent in the Aka-Bo language.
The Bo was one of the ten indigenous tribes of the Great Andamanese people, originally living on the western coast of North Andaman Island in the Indian Ocean.
The Kora, Khora or Cora were one of the ten indigenous tribes of the Great Andamanese people, originally living on the eastern part of North Andaman Island in the Indian Ocean. The tribe is now extinct, although some of the remaining Great Andamanese on Strait Island claim to have Kora ancestors.
Professor Anvita Abbi is an Indian linguist and scholar of minority languages, known for her studies on tribal languages and other minority languages of South Asia. In 2013, she was honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award by the Government of India for her contributions to the field of linguistics.
