[WSF-Discuss] Fwd: [andamanicobar] The Loss of a Language Family: Death of Boa Sr.

Fri Jan 29 05:31:05 UTC 2010

Friday, 29 January 2010

Read this.

This is very local, and very personal, but also very global, and  
planetary.

This news is intensely sad, by itself, and I felt the ground beneath  
me shake as I read it.  Thank you for posting this, Narayan Choudhary.

But is there also a parable in this, for all us ?  Is what has been  
and is happening in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (in the Indian  
Ocean) – the tsunami of 2006, and beyond this, the tsunami of  
development and modernity, and condemned as it and its peoples surely  
are, by what happened at Copenhagen, and in turn by all of us, for we  
are complicit – also the tip of what lies ahead for so many of us ?

             JS

fwd

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Narayan Choudhary <choudharynarayan at gmail.com>
> Date: January 27 2010 3:53:30 pm GMT+05:30
> To: andamanicobar at yahoogroups.co.in
> Subject: [andamanicobar] The Loss of a Language Family: Death of Boa  
> Sr.
> Reply-To: andamanicobar at yahoogroups.co.in
>
> This is to condole the sad demise of Boa Sr. who breathed her last
> yesternight (26th Jan, 2010) at Port Blair.
>
> Boa Sr. was the oldest and the most prolific of the Great Andamanese  
> people
> of the Andaman Islands. Her death brings a silent catastrophe to the
> community which lost a heritage that is equal to identity. The  
> deaths of Nao
> Jr. last year was the loss of the window from that community to the  
> other
> world. The loss of Boa Sr. is the loss the house itself. What  
> remains now is
> only the ruins in a shape and size that cannot even tell of the  
> edifice that
> was there once.
>
>
> Boa Sr. was almost the last link of the Great Andamanese language  
> family.
> Out of a total of ten languages, Boa Sr. knew two languges, namely  
> Bo and
> Jeru, and was familiar with some more languages of the family.
>
> Boa Sr. died at an age of about 85 years. When we met her she was  
> seemed
> fine for her age. She had saved herself from the Tsunami of 2005 by  
> climbing
> a tree all by herself in Strait Island. She was also the only member  
> in the
> tribe who did not have anybody in her family surviving. Her mother,  
> To, was
> a Bo, and father, Renge, was a Jeru. She was married to Nao Sr., a  
> Jeru, at
> an early age. She did not have any children and her husband Nao Sr.  
> also
> left hear more than a decade ago. Her parents’, as well as her own  
> marriage
> only testifies further a point made by her that in earlier times  
> marriages
> used to take place between different language communities, i.e.  
> different
> tribes. A preference for the same could easily be seen in most of the
> earlier matrimonial alliances. For example, out of six most senior  
> members
> of the tribe, which we have recognized as having four different family
> lineages, four have had mixed parents.
>
> She was the most proficient of the surviving Great Andamanese  
> speakers and
> retained a vast repertoire of songs and narratives. Many of her  
> songs had
> such strong influence of Bo that most of the other speakers of Great
> Andamanese today are unable to derive any much meaning from them.  
> Little
> wonder then that Boa Sr., like most of the other Great Andamanese,  
> insists
> that there is no similarity between Sare, Bo, Khora and Jeru.
>
> She was presumably the richest surviving member of the Great  
> Andamanese
> tribe in terms of linguistic-reservoir. Her love for life was quite  
> evident
> when she used to say that she would love to stay in Port Blair. For a
> society which was not acquainted even with a barter system, it was
> interesting to observe that she understood the value of modern  
> currency.
> Among the things she would often ask for are scissors, blades, and  
> different
> biscuits. It used to be a treat to watch her when she bursted into  
> laughter
> upon things she would herself say. Our predecessors would have very  
> much
> been like her!
>
> It can be said that she was a person who had lived about five to ten
> thousand years of human history and seen and experienced the different
> stages of it within a life span. Her loss is not just the loss of  
> the Great
> Andamanese community, it is a loss of several disciplines of studies  
> put
> together, including anthropology, linguistics, history, psychology,  
> and
> biology.
>
> As the world moves for greater 'development' and 'education'  
> percolates
> deeper into the veins of the untouched areas of humanity, let us  
> pray that
> it will be well for all. To me, Boa Sr. epitomized a totality of  
> humanity in
> all its hues and with a richness that is not to be found anywhere  
> else.
> Let's pray for the peace of the great departed soul of Boa Sr. Amen!
>
> -- 
> :*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
> Narayan Kumar Choudhary
> Doctoral Candidate
> Centre for Linguistics
> School of Languages, Literature and Culture Studies,
> Jawaharlal Nehru University,
> New Delhi-110067
> PH: +91+9868721878
> www.nkchoudhary.wordpress.com
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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______________________________
Jai Sen
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