Akabo dialect
extinct Great Andamanese language
Akabo or Bo (also known as Ba) is an extinct dialect of the Northern Andamanese language. It was spoken on the west central coast of North Andaman and on North Reef Island of the Andaman Islands in India. It was recorded as being mutually intelligible with Aka-Jeru, and the vocabularies are very similar.
Name
The Aka- at the beginning of the language name is a common Great Andamanese prefix for words related to the tongue, which includes language.
History
The population size of the Bo tribe in 1858 has been estimated at 200 individuals. However, they were discovered by the colonial authorities only later, in the work leading to the 1901 census. Like other Andamanese peoples, the Bo were decimated during colonial and post-colonial times, by diseases, alcohol, opium and loss of territory. The census of 1901 recorded only 48 individuals. Census takers were told that an epidemic had come from the neighboring Kari and Kora tribes, and the Bo had resorted to killing all of their own who showed symptoms. Their number was up to 62 in 1911, but then decreased to 16 in 1921 and only 6 in 1931.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Akabo dialect” is extinct Great Andamanese language. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Akabo, dialect and extinct, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q35361. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1858, 1901, 1911 and 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Akabo dialect” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.