Boa Sr.

Boa Sr. (circa 1925 - Januar 26, 2010) wis an Indien Great Andamanese elder. She wis the last surviving person who remembered ony Bo, a leid o the Great Andamanese leid faimily.

She wids born aroond 1925.

Boa Sr. lived throu the epidemic brocht bi the Breetish tae the Andaman an Nicobar Islands, which devastated the Great Andamanese population, an the Japanese invasion an occupation o the Andaman Islands during Warld War II. Boa Sr.'s mither, who dee'd approximately fowerty years afore her daith, wis the ae livin speaker o Bo for a lang time. Ither members o the Great Andamanese speech community haed difficulty understanding the sangs an narratives which she knew in Bo. She an aa spoke the Andamanese dialect o Hindi, as well as Great Andamanese, a mix o the ten indigenous leids o Andamans.

Boa Sr. worked wi Anvita Abbi, a professor o linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, syne 2005. Abbi studied an recordit Boa's leid an sangs.

Boa Sr. survived the 2004 Indie Ocean yirdquauk bi climbing a tree. She later explained her escape frae the tsunami saying, "We wur all there when the yirdquauk came. The eldest told us the Earth would part, don't run away or move."

Her husband, Nao Jer, dee'd several years afore she did an the couple haed no childer. She suffered frae some vision loss during her later life, but wis considered tae be in guid heal until shortly afore her daith in 2010.

Boa Sr. dee'd at a hospital in Port Blair on Januar 26, 2010. Boa Sr., who wis approximately 85 year auld, wis the auldest livin member o the Great Andamanese tribes at the time. Boa Sr.'s daith left juist 52 surviving Great Andamanese fowk in warld, none o whom remember ony Bo. Thair population is greatly reduced frae the estimatit 5,000 Great Andamanese livin in the Andaman Islands at the time o the arrival o the Breetish in 1858.

Stephen Corry, director o the Breetish-based NGO Survival International, issued a statement saying, "With the daith o Boa Sr. an the extinction o the Bo leid, a unique part o human society is now juist a memory. Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the ither tribes o the Andaman Islands." Linguist Narayan Choudhary an aa explained what the loss o Boa Sr. meant in baith academic an personal terms, "Her loss is not just the loss o the Great Andamanese community, it is a loss o several disciplines o studies put together, including anthropology, linguistics, heestory, psychology, an biology. To me, Boa Sr. epitomised a totality o humanity in all its hues an with a richness that is not to be found anywhere else."