Watch your language!

DATELINE: 5th February, year 2410. Canterbury, formerly in Britain, now part of The Great European Empire.

Jedd Adams, the last surviving English speaker, died aged 87 last night in his sleep. His death marks the end of a language that once was predominant across the world.

The English language has officially been a dead language for the past 100 years although several universities offer courses in English alongside such oddities as Latin, German and French.

Mr Adams had no one to converse with since his wife, Tracey, died 10 years ago although it was reported that they hadn’t been on speaking terms for at least seven years prior to her death.

Kevin Bosworth, president of the campaigning group Keep English Alive, said it was a sad day for those who cherished the richness and complexities of the English language . . .

An unlikely future scenario? Perhaps. But nothing lasts forever.

This thought struck me when I read the story carried in The Times of London about the last member of a tribe that inhabited the Andaman Islands, about 750 miles off the east coast of India, dying of old age and taking to the grave with her one of the country’s many endangered languages.

Boa Sr, who died last week aged 85, was the last member of the Bo, one of the 10 Great Andamanese tribes. She was the last speaker of the Bo language, which is distinct from those of the other Great Andamanese tribes, according to Anvita Abbi, a professor of linguistics at Jawaharlal National University in Delhi.

Professor Abbi, who had known Boa since 2005, said that she had been losing her sight in recent years and was unable to converse with anyone in her own language since the other surviving Bo speaker died several years ago.

“She was the only person left who spoke Bo,” Professor Abbi told The Times. “At times, she felt very isolated and lonely as she had no one to talk to in her own language.” Boa had no children, and her husband died several years ago.

In the blink of an eye, a whole language, a culture, a country can disappear. Never to return.

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"