Boa Sr, Last Speaker Of Ancient Language Of Bo, Dies In India

BBC News :

The last speaker of an ancient language in India's Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85, a leading linguist has told the BBC.

Read the whole story: BBC News

Comments

[PresidentRobertBooth]

12:17 PM on 02/05/2010

“***That's profound...like sayin' "**** Happens", or "It is what it is".

Some would say it's more than that though...it's an activist position. Nihilism allows those that want to shape the world their way a door to do so by suggesting everyone else should step aside, not resist, eat Sh*t, suck it up, OBEY, and assimilate.”***


Languages cannot be artifically sustained.

If the population of speakers wanes, so will the language.

[gimiesome]

10:30 AM on 02/05/2010

If only one person speaks a ancient language isn't it already lost

[Bharatbhangi]

03:04 AM on 02/05/2010

India has a billion plus population, at least 3 times as large as Pakistan's. That is why you will see 3 times maybe more moronic Indians posting on this board than Pakistanis.

[Tenjikuronin]

02:30 AM on 02/06/2010

Are you Pakistani?

[CoronaDischarge]

02:03 AM on 02/05/2010

Gotta feel sad for the man. I guess he didn't have anyone to talk to at the end.

[Khirad]

01:35 AM on 02/05/2010

"Of the estimated 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, linguists say, nearly half are in danger of extinction and are likely to disappear in this century. In fact, they are now falling out of use at a rate of about one every two weeks." (2007)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/world/18cnd-language.html

Unlike most here, I think it important for these to be recorded - and no they don't need an alphabet - I can't believe I actually read that. It's as if some have never heard of CD's, orthography or the IPA.

Who knows what connections may be made that were missed. DNA can't always solve this. You may not care that it is no longer surviving or exhibit any interest whatsoever in linguistics or anthropology, but to have an 'artifact' is still important, at least.

"The tri-lingual, tri-scriptal book could help not just linguists but ecologists as well, as many of the words are the names of plants, birds and fishes. "

- http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article100977.ece

People's general disdain for science, glib indifference and lack of appreciation for the implications of this gobsmacked me. Yes, things come and go, and transience is the nature of things - and yes we all come from Africa, duh (you seem to not understand the specifics here). But, if someone had been around to record the theoretical PIE language, don't you think that might have been important?!

RIP, Mrs. Boa.

[EuroMom]

10:58 AM on 02/05/2010

Thanks for that post -- I can't believe I haven't fanned you already (you crop up in the strangest places to say the sanest things)

[Squeezer55]

01:30 AM on 02/05/2010

Not to sound crass but it's not a big loss except to an anthropologist. The reality is that the older and more primitive the language, the smaller vocabulary involved. In the Canadian north, there are many dialects spoken and little more than 500 hundred miles in any direction and the language is hard for a native to understand . Listen to a conversation and you will hear English words throughout the discussion because there is no equivalent word. The English language has over 900,000 words and most native languages have less than 5000 . Some native words will have six different meanings because of the lack of evolving.
As one poster commented , speaking a global language furthers our ability to communicate with each other. In India, of the British's accomplishments, the most important was to establish English as a national language allowing the entire country to communicate for the first time in their history.
As a history piece , old languages are fine to examine but their phasing out is not a blight on mankind.

[Khirad]

01:45 AM on 02/05/2010

True. There's a case for speaking both, though. It may ultimately prove impractical, and even if it were to ossify as a purely "liturgical" language, this is in part also about preserving a people's culture.

Ní tír gan teanga - There is no nation without a language. (Irish Gaelic proverb)

[EuroMom]

09:10 AM on 02/05/2010

While I agree that a global language may be a useful communication tool, I disagree that the loss of other languages is something to be dismissed so lightly. Language is such an important part of cultural/ethnic identity, and that is always eroded to some degree whenever a language dies out. Different structures in different languages also often reveal interesting differences in cultural perceptions. Sometimes unexpected affinities between languages can give clues about past migrations. So – not just one for the anthropologists.
Besides, a smaller vocabulary is not necessarily a sign of a “more primitive” or less viable language. English, for instance, has vastly more words than either German or French, but I don’t think anybody would seriously argue that either of those cultures are inferior because of it.

[CoronaDischarge]

12:01 AM on 02/05/2010

Oh well. Dinosaurs died too. No Jurassic Park for the kids.

Dialect happens.

[nailinpalinnow]

07:27 PM on 02/04/2010

I'm glad that at least somebody noticed.

[cucumber]

06:58 PM on 02/04/2010

So? It's no longer useful. It's not like humans are going extinct or anything. As a species, the sacredness with which we treat our own cultural artifacts, and the complete disrespect we give towards nonhuman earthlings and the earth itself, is mind-boggling.

[SukiTheCat]

08:47 PM on 02/04/2010

absolutely

[Cinnamonape]

09:19 PM on 02/04/2010

I think that they are related. Those who disrespect the fragile cultures -mainly indigenous peoples who lived more closely and in tune with the natural world- are those very ones who shrug when those environments disappear.

The Andaman people have lived in isolation from other cultures for tens of thousands of years, and each island was isolated from the others. Boas language carried traces of very ancient ones that can only be reconstructed by looking at many distantly related forms. His is gone, forever.

Watch the developers rush in saying "There is no distinctive culture here any more, nothing worth protecting."

[Khirad]

02:01 AM on 02/05/2010

Duly fanned.

[EuroMom]

07:36 AM on 02/05/2010

Excellent post! Thanks!

[PresidentRobertBooth]

06:55 PM on 02/04/2010

Languages go through change

Some survive, some don't.


It's the way it is.

[Cinnamonape]

09:23 PM on 02/04/2010

That's profound...like sayin' "SH*T Happens", or "It is what it is".

Some would say it's more than that though...it's an activist position. Nihilism allows those that want to shape the world their way a door to do so by suggesting everyone else should step aside, not resist, eat Sh*t, suck it up, OBEY, and assimilate.

[113]

05:41 PM on 02/04/2010

this is sad.

[Artos]

05:39 PM on 02/04/2010

If a language is extinct and there's no one around to hear it, then how do you even know it existed.

[DC]

06:53 PM on 02/04/2010

it is recorded

[DredLockRasta]

05:01 PM on 02/04/2010

WARNING this is a joke Warning warning .....

See what happens when you let gays join the military, and marry each other.

I shudda been a comedian!!! I got a million of em.

[Cristancho]

05:31 PM on 02/04/2010

This calls for a Big Lebowski quote, "This is what happens when you f**** a stranger in the a$$!"

[deluk]

05:01 PM on 02/04/2010

Oh dear, it'll be French next, you wait.

[hype-free]

04:18 PM on 02/04/2010

Another rivet falls out of the plane. The World and human race becomes just a little less diverse.

[mikefina]

08:06 PM on 02/04/2010

Diversity is WAY overrated.