Koro language (India)

Koro is a possibly Sino-Tibetan language spoken by approximately 800–1,500 people in the East Kameng district at the western end of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Few speakers are under 20 years old.[3] The people live among the Aka (Hruso), but their language is only distantly related, with distinct words for numerals, body parts, and other basic vocabulary.[3][4] The majority of Koro speakers live in bilingual households in which one or more members speak Ako or another indigenous language rather than Koro.[5] Although it has resemblances to Tani farther to the east, it appears to be at least a separate branch of Sino-Tibetan.[6] Researchers hypothesize it may have originated from a group of people enslaved and brought to the area.[4]

This article is about the Koro language of India. For other uses, see Koro language (disambiguation).
Koro
Native toIndia
RegionArunachal Pradesh, India
Native speakers
1,500 (2010)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3jkr
Glottologkoro1316
ELPKoro (India)[2]

Identification

Recognition in the academic literature of Koro as a distinct language goes back at least to the 2009 edition of the Ethnologue (Lewis 2009), which based its findings on a language survey conducted in 2005. It notes that Koro has only 9 percent lexical similarity with Hruso Aka, and that it is "highly dissimilar to neighboring languages".[7]

In October 2010, the National Geographic Daily News published an article corroborating the findings of the Ethnologue based on research conducted in 2008 by a linguistic team of David Harrison, Gregory Anderson, and Ganesh Murmu while documenting two Hruso languages (Aka and Miji) as part of National Geographic's "Enduring Voices" project.[3] It was reported to them as a dialect of Aka, but turned out to be highly divergent.

Mark Post and Roger Blench (2011)[8] propose that Koro is related to Milang in a branch, or perhaps independent family, they call Siangic.

See also

Further reading

References
  1. Koro at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Koro (India).
  3. Morrison, Dan "'Hidden' Language Found in Remote Indian Tribe". National Geographic Daily News, 5 October 2010, Retrieved on 5 October 2010
  4. Schmid, Randolph E. "Undocumented language found hidden in India". Associated Press. 5 October 2010
  5. Harrison, K. David (2010). The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's Most Endangered Languages. National Geographic Society. ISBN 978-1-4262-0461-6.
  6. "In Search for 'Last Speakers', a Great Discovery". National Public Radio. 5 October 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2010. (Some sound files)
  7. Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International, "Hruso".
  8. Post, Mark W. and Roger Blench (2011). "Siangic: A new language phylum in North East India", 6th International Conference of the North East India Linguistics Society, Tezpur University, Assam, India, Jan 31 – Feb 2.
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