BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11479563
Researchers have identified a language new to science in a remote region of India. Known as Koro, it appears to be distinct from other languages in the family to which it belongs; but it is also under threat.
Koro was discovered by a team of linguists on an expedition to Arunachal Pradesh, in north-eastern India. The team was part of National Geographic’s “Enduring Voices” project onthreatened indigenous languages. The researchers were searching for two other little-known languages spoken only in one small area. As they heard and recorded these, they found a third which was completely new to them and had never before been listed. “We didn’t have to get far on our word list to realise it was extremely different in every possible way,” said Dr David Harrison, one of the expedition leaders.
The linguists recorded thousands of words- and found Koro was distinct from other languages in the area.
But in February this year, the language “Bo” died out on the Andaman Islands.
Andaman Islands
The last speaker of an ancient language in India’s Andaman Islands has died at the age of about 85, a leading linguist has told the BBC. The death of the woman, Boa Senior, was highly significant because one of the world’s oldest languages, Bo, had come to an end, Professor Anvita Abbi said. Languages in the Andamans are thought to originate from Africa. Some may be up to 70,000 years old. The islands are often called an “anthropologist’s dream” and are one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. Professor Abbi – who runs the Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese (Voga) website – explained: “After the death of her parents, Boa was the last Bo speaker for 30 to 40 years.
The k2p blog 