This is kinda sad… a whole language dies along with the last
survivor of a tribe from the Andaman Islands. Her name was Boa
Sr, and was the last remaining member of the Bo tribe, and was
the last speaker of an ancient tongue – the Bo language has been
around for over 65,000 years! It’s amazing to think – with her,
a whole language is wiped out. Sadly, her final years were
mostly spent feeling isolated, since she had nobody else to talk
to in her native language. The only other indigenous tribe in
that region are the Sentilinese, who are aggressive to all
outsiders, and famously fired arrows at an Indian helicopters
sent in to relieve the victims of the tsunami on 12/26/04. There
are many endangered languages in the world, though it is hard to
say exactly how many. It’s difficult to work out precisely how
many languages are spoken throughout the world today – Unesco
have an interactive map where you can see just how many known
languages are deemed ‘critically endangered’ – it’s a lot higher
than you’d think.