Aka-Bo language
Bo | |
---|---|
Aka-Bo | |
Native to | |
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | akm |
akm.html | |
Glottolog | akab1248 |
ELP | Aka-Bo |
The Bo language, Aka-Bo (also known as Ba), was a
.Name
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]
History
The original size of the Bo tribe, by 1858 has been estimated at 200 individuals.
In 1949, any remaining Bo were relocated, with all other surviving Great Andamanese, to a reservation on
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
Extinction
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
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]
Grammar
The Great Andamanese languages are
- A cushion or sponge is ot-yop "round-soft", from the prefix attached to words relating to the head or heart.
- A cane is ôto-yop, "pliable", from a prefix for long things.
- A stick or pencil is aka-yop, "pointed", from the tongue prefix.
- A fallen tree is ar-yop, "rotten", from the prefix for limbs or upright things.
Similarly, beri-nga "good" yields:
- un-bēri-ŋa "clever" (hand-good).
- ig-bēri-ŋa "sharp-sighted" (eye-good).
- aka-bēri-ŋa "good at languages" (tongue-good.)
- ot-bēri-ŋa "virtuous" (head/heart-good)
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
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
References
- ^ a b c d e (2010) Language lost as last member of Andaman tribe dies. The Daily Telegraph, London, 5 February 2010. Accessed on 2010-02-22.
- ^ a b (2011) "Lives Remembered". The Daily Telegraph, London, 10 February 2010. Accessed on 2010-02-22. Also on web.archive.org
- ^ Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. (1922). The Andaman Islanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b c d e Temple, Richard C. (1902). A Grammar of the Andamanese Languages, being Chapter IV of Part I of the Census Report on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Superintendent's Printing Press: Port Blair.
- ^ a b c d George Weber (~2009), Numbers Archived May 31, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. Chapter 7 in The Andamanese Archived 2012-08-05 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed on 2012-07-12.
- ^ a b A. N. Sharma (2003), Tribal Development in the Andaman Islands, page 62. Sarup & Sons, New Delhi.
- ISBN 81-8324-010-0
- ^ "GA Community". Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (VOGA). Retrieved 2011-01-21.
- ^ "Obituary for Boa Sr". Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (VOGA). Archived from the original on 10 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-02-05.
- ^ a b "People of Great Andamanese". Andamanese.net. 2009-02-22. Archived from the original on February 8, 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-14.
- ^ "Language lost as last member of Andaman tribe dies". The Daily Telegraph. 2010-02-05. Retrieved 2010-02-22.
- ^ Watt, Jonathan (2010-02-04). "Ancient tribal language becomes extinct as last speaker dies". The Guardian. Retrieved 2010-02-22.