Talk:Andamanese languages

Question

The article says: "By the latter part of the 20th century the majority of Great Andamanese languages had become extinct, as the multi-lingual knowledge of the older generations was not replaced in succeeding ones." This seems to suggest a process of language shift. Is it really true? From what I've heard, those populations died out and their languages died with them, so it isn't simply a sociolinguistic matter, right?Youkbam (talk) 03:10, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Blevins 2007

"Blevins 2007" needs an actual citation either in the footnotes or in the bibliography. (Taivo (talk) 05:29, 2 January 2010 (UTC))

Well, I had actually added it a long time ago, but kwami then decided to move it to the Onge article, apparently believing it was too specific to Ongan languages. Anyway, it's back now. I still think that the Blevins 2007 quote is too long and that the clssification section gives undue weight to "splitters", though. (remember that here, unlike with other proposed language families, the usual crackpots are splitters, with more serious authors either supportive or agnostic; of these, Brown was a non-linguist and all others mentioned are "outsiders" with the exception of Manoharan and Abbi) Ko'oy (talk) 13:46, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Bo language

Should there be something about the Bo language, referred to here?--212.183.140.16 (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, that's a terrible piece of journalism, full of factual mistakes and obvious misrepresentations. Definitely not a "reliable" source. Try this one instead: http://www.andamanese.net/. As for the death of the "last Bo speaker" (which is doubtful, really; on the website, Abbi only says that Boa spoke Jeru with a heavy influence of Bo), we should mention it in the Great Andamanese languages article, not here. But then again, let's wait for an update from Abbi's website.Ko'oy (talk) 01:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If the BBC retracts it, it can be deleted. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

If Abbi says the person didn't speak Bo, then that's the end of the issue. It doesn't matter what a BBC reporter says, Abbi is the reliable source when it comes to Andamanese languages. (Taivo (talk) 01:49, 5 February 2010 (UTC))

Exactly. It's not an established fact that Boa "spoke Bo". All we know for sure (at least that's what the website says right now) is that she had some knowledge of Bo and mixed it with Jeru when speaking in GA; in that sense she probably is "the last speaker of Bo" (though not in the way suggested by BBC)... So let's wait for a more authoritative source to give the last word. The author of that article might be a good reporter, but he obviously has no clue about this subject (most of the background info is wrong!).Ko'oy (talk) 02:57, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, Boa herself claimed that she spoke Jeru. (Taivo (talk) 04:26, 5 February 2010 (UTC))