Languages and dialects of the Andaman Islands at British contact

The Bo was one of the ten Indigenous tribes of the

Great Andamanese people 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 relat ...

, originally living on the western coast of

North Andaman Island North Andaman Island is the northern island of Great Andaman of the Andaman Islands. It belongs to the North and Middle Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. the island is lying ...

in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. The tribe spoke the Akabo dialect, closely related to other dialects of the Northern Andamanese language. The native name for the language was ''Akabo'' ('' Aka-'' being a prefix for "tongue"); and this name is often used for the tribe itself. They were mostly forest-dwellers (''eremtaga'') with a smaller number of shore-dwellers (''aryoto'').George Weber (~2009),
The Tribes
''. Chapter 8 in

''. Retrieved 2012-07-12. They are a designated Scheduled Tribe. There are still a handful of people who identify themselves as members of the tribe living on a reservation on Strait Island, but none can speak the original language. Anvita Abbi (2006),
Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands
'. Lincom Europa.

History

The original size of the Bo tribe, by 1858, has been estimated at 200 individuals.George Weber (~2009),

''. Chapter 7 in

''. Retrieved 2012-07-12. However, they were discovered by the British only later, in the work leading to the 1901 census. Like other

Andamanese people 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 Indi ...

s, the Bo were decimated during colonial and post-colonial times, by diseases,

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

, colonial warfare, and loss of territory. The census of 1901 recorded only 48 individuals. Census takers were told that an epidemic had come from the neighboring

Kari Kari or KARI may refer to: Places *Kari, Jhunjhunu, a village in Rajasthan, India * , a village in Mouhoun Province, Burkina Faso * Kari, Tikamgarh, a town in Madhya Pradesh, India * Kari, Iran, a village in Bushehr Province, Iran * Kari-ye Bozorg ...

and Kora tribes, and the Bo had resorted to killing all of their own who showed symptoms. Their number was up to 62 in 1911, then decreased to 16 in 1921 and only 6 in 1931. In 1949, any remaining Bo was 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.Rann Singh Mann (2005)
Andaman and Nicobar Tribes Restudied: Encounters and Concerns
page 149. Mittal Publications. 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).A. N. Sharma (2003),
Tribal Development in the Andaman Islands
', page 62. Sarup & Sons, New Delhi. 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 Sr Boa Sr ( 1925 – 26 January 2010) was an Indian Great Andamanese elder. She was the last person fluent in the Aka-Bo language. Boa Sr is not to be confused with another Great Andamanese tribal member, Boa Jr; the two women were not directly re ...

, died at age 85 in late January 2010.(2010)
Language lost as last member of Andaman tribe dies
'. The Daily Telegraph, London, 5 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-22.(2011

''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', London, 10 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-22. Als
on web.archive.org
/ref>

References

External links

* http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/20102543519461807.html
The Times
* http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/last-of-the-bo-tribe * https://web.archive.org/web/20100209004900/http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/bo-tribe-extinct * https://web.archive.org/web/20100209082426/http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/boa-sr-last-member-of-bo-tribe-on-andaman-islands-dies/19346945 {{authority control Ethnic groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Scheduled Tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Extinct Indigenous peoples