Language dies out in the Andamans

If you click on the link in the middle of this page you can hear a woman speaking a language that'll never be used in the world again, for she was the last speaker. Can't have been much fun: "Professor Abbi - who runs the Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (Voga) website - explained: "After the death of her parents, Boa was the last Bo speaker for 30 to 40 years. She was often very lonely and had to learn an Andamanese version of Hindi in order to communicate with people.

The importance of the work currently being done by several groups recording and studying ancient and disappearing languages can hardly be overestimated. What they are recording is no less that the evolving pattern of human thought and reasoning.

Nonetheless, for reasons which the article makes apparent, one can't help hoping that the sensible Sentinelese maintain their attitude to strangers from "civilisation".

There was another case of a language dying out, a few years ago in South America, and I wrote a poem about it in Long-Haul Travellers. Behind the cut in memory of Boa Snr and Bo.

( Interviewing the Two Last Speakers )