[SkyPilot]

Boa lived in a concrete and tin hut provided by the government and survived on state food rations and a pension of about 500 rupees (£6.80) a month. 'She always said she wanted to go back to the place where she was born,' Professor Abbi said. 'Alcohol was a big problem. It was killing them one by one.' The Bo are believed to have lived on the islands for as long as 65,000 years, making them one of the oldest surviving human cultures.

Interesting article. If you believe these people migrated 65,000 years ago as the article says, it raises some questions as to how the tribe survived even that long. Like most primitive peoples, they were plagued with tribal warfare, almost no medical care, and a hand-to-mouth existence.

If you believe in Noah's flood, they dispersed around 2,300 BC from the mountains near Ararat and then migrated from there into Africa and Austrailia (Aborigines).

The language is not anything I would describe as beautiful. It is a grating language that sounds like someone chanting in a childish sing-song manner as opposed to someone actually conversing.

The last of the Bo-tribe, 85 year old Boa Sr has died. The Bo language died with her.

[Claud]

Godspeed to Boa...always something particularly sad when a person who dies takes a whole culture with her.

But yeah, as far as the article goes, I am not aware of ANY way to prove or even suppose with reasonable certitude that a particular culture is the direct descendant of an archaeological site that old, and not some more recent replacement. Heck, archaeologists are loathe to make those kind of connections with North American sites of the 1400s and 1500s. But 63000 BC? I’m sure there’s a trail of assumptions here that may or may not be good ones.

[ASA Vet]

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
—Gen. 11

[muawiyah]

Irrespective of all that, the lead-in continues with the myth that human beings “walked out of Africa”. Current belief is they set sail and traveled the coasts ~

[Miles the Slasher]

If he was the last one to speak it, how did they really know he was fluent in the language, and not just pulling their legs all these years?

[Erik Latranyi]

No liberals were around to put them on the endangered species list?!

Oh, I forgot, liberals care more about animals than humans.

[Cailleach]

GGG worthy?

[silverleaf]

65,000 years of emigration and it ends with one old woman’s dying in a govt-provided tin hut with an uncashed govt check for 6.8 pounds

Let’s hope the last English speaker fares better

[dennisw]

Some primitive cultures I respect and some I don’t. This one is the latter

[bert]

This article is a report on Darwinian natural selection acting on the human species and natural selection in action.

The weak Adamans have succumbed to stronger and more adaptable individuals.

[Squidpup]

Bo knows Bo ?

[Hot Tabasco]

Boa Sr, who died last week aged about 85, was the last native of the Andaman Islands who was fluent in Bo

Wow, imagine not having anyone to talk to......but still surrounded by people.

[whd23]

And yet no anthropologist cared enough to learn the language. If the professionals whose passion is ancient people and languages don’t care, why should I?

[Spudx7]

A local radio show compared the recording of her speaking in Bo with a song by Lady Gaga. Uncanny similarity.