Researchers discover new language

A new language has been discovered in a remote part of India.

The language, Koro, was discovered by a team of linguists who were on an expedition as part of National Geographic’s “Enduring Voices” project on threatened indigenous languages.

It is estimated that the language is spoken by around 800 to 1200 people and has never been written down. Koro is distinct from other languages in the area, and belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family. According to BBC News:

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.
It belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family, which includes around 150 languages spoken in India. But scientists were unable to find any others closely related to Koro within this group.

I find it amazing that this language wasn’t ‘discovered’ until now! I wonder how many other languages we haven’t yet heard about?