Rare Find: a New Language (fwd link)

[Jennifer Teeter]

How it possible for these linguists to have "discovered" a language?
Certainly, the speakers of the language
have been using it and they surely know that their language exists.

Best wishes,
Jennifer Teeter
Kyoto

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 8:34 AM, Phillip E Cash Cash <
cashcash at email.arizona.edu> wrote:

> OCTOBER 6, 2010
>
> Rare Find: a New Language
> As Native Tongues Rapidly Become Extinct, Linguists Discover an Exotic
> Specimen
>
> By ROBERT LEE HOTZ
> USA
>
> In the foothills of the Himalayas, two field linguists have uncovered
> a find as rare as any endangered species—a language completely new to
> science.
>
> The researchers encountered it for the first time along the western
> ridges of Arunachal Pradesh, India's northeastern-most state, where
> more than 120 languages are spoken. There, isolated by craggy slopes
> and rushing rivers, the hunters and subsistence farmers who speak this
> rare tongue live in a dozen or so villages of bamboo houses built on
> stilts.
>
> The language—called Koro—was identified during a 2008 expedition
> conducted as part of National Geographic's Enduring Voices project.
> The researchers announced their discovery Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
> So many languages have vanished world-wide in recent decades that the
> naming of a new one commanded scientific attention.
>
> Access full article below:
>
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703843804575534122591921594.html
>



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