Boa Sr.

Boa Sr ( 1925 – 26 January 2010) was an Indian Great Andamanese elder. She was the last person fluent in the Aka-Bo language.

Boa Sr is not to be confused with another Great Andamanese tribal member, Boa Jr; the two women were not directly related. Boa Jr's late mother, Boro (who was also the last speaker of her language, Aka-Kora) was Boa Sr's best friend and named her daughter in her honor.

Biography Boa was born around 1925. Her mother, To, belonged to the Bo people and her father, Renge, belonged to the Jeru people. Boa's early life was spent in Mayabunder, a town on Middle Andaman Island. She was married at a young age to Nao Jer, another member of her father's people, although he predeceased her. She regarded the Jeru language as her mother tongue.

Boa Sr. lived through the epidemic brought by the British to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which devastated the Great Andamanese population, and also through the Japanese occupation of the Andaman Islands during World War II. In the 1970s, she and other Great Andamanese were forcibly relocated by the government of India to Strait Island, a small tribal reserve east of Baratang Island.

Boa Sr. and Nao Jer had no children. She suffered from some vision loss during her later life, but was considered to be in good health until shortly before her death in 2010. Boa Sr.'s death left just 52 Linguist Narayan Choudhary also explained what the loss of Boa Sr. meant in both academic and personal terms, "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. To me, Boa Sr. epitomised a totality of humanity in all its hues and with a richness that is not to be found anywhere else".