A group of American linguists just announced the discovery of a new language in a remote region of India.The language, called Koro, was discovered during a 2008 expedition to Arunachal Pradesh, according to a local newspaper.

The interesting thing about the discovery of Koro is that it was “hiding in plain sight.” Koro speakers are part of the Aka culture, and live in villages where most of their neighbors speak Aka. While the two languages are in fact very different, Koro and Aka speakers consider themselves one people, and treat Koro as if it were a dialect of Aka, instead of a “distant sister,” as the linguists described it.

It should be noted that there is some controversy over whether or not Koro is in fact a new discovery. According to the newspaper Telegraph, linguists from the Assam chapter of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage are claiming that Koro was known to Indian linguists before the American linguists documented it.

Whether it’s really a “new” language or not, Koro only has between 800 and 1,200 speakers, so now the race is on to try and preserve it, if possible. A language dies out about every two weeks, and language preservation expert Tabu Ram Taid told our newspaper that: “Koro might have met the same fate. But the point is now to preserve Koro. Apart from speaking, one must develop writing the language to prevent it from vanishing.”

(Adaptado de: <http://blog.k-international.com/new-language-discovered-in-india/> Acesso em: 12 out. 2010.)

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