5 February 2010
The BBC reports the death of Boa Sr, at 85 years old the last native speaker of the Andaman Islands language of Bo. She was the last native speaker of the tongue for at least thirty years.
What I’m not sure about is the hype about it being an “ancient” language. It’s not like the language that Boa Sr learned as a child would have been intelligible to someone from 70,000 years ago. In a way, every language is equally as old. But if the language remained fairly isolated for all those millennia (doubtful), it might have elements that trace back that far. But even if so, I’m not sure how you could divine any cogent information about language development from it.
(Hat tip to the Slog)
