Talk:Aka-Bo language

Created

This article was created using Aka-Bea language as a base. (Taivo (talk) 16:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC))

Putative "Last Speaker"

Removed a bunch of very bad BBC reporting about the supposed "last speaker" who, by her own admission, did not speak Bo, but spoke Jeru. (Taivo (talk) 07:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

• haha man, thanks. it was bad enough the bbc did a shit story about it without it getting picked up by wikipedia for some reason - Pthag (talk) 08:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
• can you give sources pointing to whether this woman spoke Bo or Jeru? It's now being reported all over the news, would be good to have it mentioned somewhere here as I'm sure more people will be coming to read this page. --213.52.212.129 (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Since there seems to be some confusion here: it appears that (according to a linguist who knew her) she spoke both Bo and Jeru. [1] If you know of conflicting sources, please do add them. Henry^Flower 09:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Boa Sr. spoke a mixture of several Great Andamanese Language

From the website http://www.andamanese.net/about.htm, Boa Sr. spoke a mixed language that was derived from the languages spoken by Great Andamanese tribes. She did not speak Aka-Bo. This error may have resulted from her name being mixed up with the

Could we have a source establishing that she did not in fact speak Bo, for clarification? Remember Wikipedia's policy: Verifiability, not truth. Aridd (talk) 09:35, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Aridd, I added information to this article to expand it for a place in the ITN section on the main page (at which point the article resembled this), now it has six sentences. The story has been covered by the BBC, Al Jazeera, USA Today, The Hindu, The Times, The Guardian, AFP, The Telegraph and The Independent. Whilst many of these will have picked it up from the newswires they are all reliable sources, but it wouldn't be unknown for them to be incorrect. I would like to see at least one reliable source to the contrary, which states that all this news coverage is erroneous - Dumelow (talk) 10:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

It does seem from that that she did speak both, or at least knew songs and stories in Bo, or perhaps Bo-influenced Jeru that other Jeru speakers could not understand. She also seems to have been the most valuable language consultant for all of Great Andamanese, so that is certainly newsworthy. But I've locked the article because of the other garbage that's creeping in: that Bo is the "oldest" language, "65,000 years old", "came from Africa", and other such crap. Maybe once the news dies down we can better separate the wheat from the chaff. But it is unfortunate that we've failed to be a source of reliable information for a newsworthy event. kwami (talk) 10:20, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, I don't think that the confusion here amounts to a content dispute, let alone edit warring, and it's certainly nothing that we can't control by both keeping an eye on it. (And if there is a content dispute, you would be a party to it with your revert, and so shouldn't have protected the page!). I'd suggest we unprotect it and put whatever cited information we can find in the article, to add to the bare bones we have now. The linguist whose blog I mentioned above would seem to be a more reliable source than the news media. Henry^Flower 10:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Okay, will unblock. kwami (talk) 11:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

One of the mails which Anvita Abbi wrote to several linguists, was forwarded to me, she gives links to the BBC article but didn't say that Boa Sr didn't spoke the language. She would have mentioned that in her e-mail, I guess. But I know that's not a verifiable source. However, she demented the stuff that the BBC invented, not sure if I am allowed to cite her here: "What BBC said about the antiquity of the language is all wrong but journalists make their own judgements." — N-true (talk) 11:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Now I found this link from the project that Anvita Abbi is herself involved in: http://www.andamanese.net/generalia.htm — the Obituary says she was the last speaker of Bo. On the other hand, the text also says "Although she claims Jeru to be her mother tongue, which might well be the case, her language has quite an evident and strong influence of Bo."; also note that her name is always written as "Boa Sr." there, so Sr. looks like an abbreviation instead of her last name. Just wanted to throw that in as a new source. — N-true (talk) 12:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess it is an abbreviation of senior as there is a Boa Jr. (junior) in that list as well. Under languages known for her it lists "Bo, Jeru and Andamani Hindi" - Dumelow (talk) 12:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

That last link given by Dumelow (which I was looking at yesterday as well) is the key one. Boa Sr didn't claim to speak Bo. I would think that a native speaker's judgement of what language she speaks is pretty important. She only knew snippets of Bo, so that doesn't make her a "speaker". I know snippets of Old English, but that doesn't make me a speaker. Unless and until Abbi makes a definitive published statement on the matter, we need to not rely on the patently unreliable BBC report (which was then mirrored and slavishly copied into multiple other sources). Multiple copies of a single report does not make multiple reliable sources. (Taivo (talk) 13:17, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

Saw Bo's obit on the VOGA website. I rewrote the comment about her death in the article to 1) remove that garbage BBC reporting, and 2) clarified that she didn't speak Bo, but remembered pieces of Bo only. She was our last speaker in that sense, not in the sense that she was a regular user of Bo. (Taivo (talk) 13:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

"Remembered any Bo" is gibberish - we all now remember some Bo since hearing her speak in the news. --213.52.212.129 (talk) 16:13, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"Project director Anvita Abbi, a professor at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, met with Boa as recently as last year. "She was the only member who remembered the old songs," Abbi recounted in her obituary.

"Boa Sr was the only speaker of Bo and had no one to converse with in that language," Abbi told CNN. Her husband and children had already died, the linguist said.

Other than Bo, she also knew local Andaman languages, which she would use to converse, according to Abbi " CNN 170.123.4.230 (talk) 19:37, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Andaman is part of India

It's recommended to edit the sentence which reads "Andaman Islands, which administered by India" instead it should be Andaman, India as it's a part of India. I'm editing it for the purpose. Bmayuresh (talk) 07:27, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Favorite blog versus the BBC as a reliable source

I don't think your favorite blog is more reliable than the BBC by Wikipedia rules. If the BBC retracts or emends their reporting then we can do the same at Wikipedia. Highlighting your favorite source on the Internet is searching for TRUTH instead of of what is verifiable. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

(Wikipedia)... is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall. matt kane's brain (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Uh, Mr. Norton, the "blog" which you mention is actually the scientific website of the expert on the Great Andamanese language and the Andamanese languages in general. She is the world's leading authority. She is the linguist who actually knew and worked with the deceased speaker. I would say that she knows one heck of a lot more about the Bo language than any BBC reporter will ever know. And the BBC report was rife with stupidity and patently false linguistic claims about Bo. When the experts speak, the BBC doesn't count. (Taivo (talk) 17:29, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

Bo Sr. did not speak Aka-Bo

According to http://www.andamanese.net/about.htm and http://www.andamanese.net/Fig.%201%20language%20family.pdf, Boa Sr. spoke eastern Great Andamanese, a mixture of 4 related languages - Jero, Sare, Bo and Khora. Boa Sr.'s tribe (The Great Andamanese of Strait Island) are the descendants of several eastern Great Andamanese tribes. 35 other Great Andamanese (out of 50) can speak eastern Great Andamanese but they use far fewer words and use simple grammar, none are fluent speakers, they usually converse in Hindi. None of their children speak eastern Great Andamanese. --Diamonddavej (talk) 02:21, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

But Prof. Abbi specifically said that Boa Sr remembered some songs and narratives in Bo. (Taivo (talk) 04:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC))

On the other hand, I know some songs and a bunch of words and phrases in Finnish, Avar and Japanese, but could I be called the last speaker of those languages? Hardly so. But still I suggest staying with Boa Sr. having been the last speaker, simply since Abbi never said the contrary. — N-true (talk) 01:49, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Boa Sr. or Boa Sr?

Was her name Boa senior (Boa Sr., with a period) or actually Boa Sr (without a period)? -- megA (talk) 15:30, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

With a period, but never spelled out "senior". (Taivo (talk) 17:01, 14 February 2010 (UTC))

"Senior" is also abbreviated "Sr" without a period, just like "Mr" and "Dr". kwami (talk) 03:18, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The andamanese.net website by Dr. Abbi shows periods on her name throughout and never spelled out. (Taivo (talk) 04:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC))

As I can see, it's definitely a "Sr. vs Jr.", and not a family name, as I thought. I'd recommend the American convention, adding a period after the Sr., in order to avoid confusion. ("In American English, the period is usually added if the abbreviation might otherwise be interpreted as a word, but some American writers do not use a period here.") You never know with extinct languages... -- megA (talk) 08:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Numerals

Hello Ko'oy, just wondering: Why have you removed the numerals? — N-true (talk) 20:55, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Since Andamanese languages didn't have numerals above 2 or 3, I wonder where those came from. Could be borrowed, I suppose, but it would be good to be clear. — kwami (talk) 23:26, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

they are from a different, unrelated "Aka" language.. - check it out: http://books.google.com/books?id=HE8SvY4tMscC&q=ligidi .Ko'oy (talk) 23:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, our Aka language. Good sleuthing! — kwami (talk) 01:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh my, thanks for pointing that out! — N-true (talk) 21:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Aka (Sillok) numerals are still listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_numbers_in_various_languages as "Aka-Bo". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.206.181.191 (talk) 08:35, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Removed again. — kwami (talk) 06:26, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

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