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]
Koro | |
---|---|
Native to | India |
Region | Arunachal Pradesh, India |
Native speakers | 1,500 (2010)[1] |
Possibly Sino-Tibetan
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | jkr |
Glottolog | koro1316 [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
- Koro word lists (Wiktionary)
Further reading
- Abraham, Binny, Kara Sako, Elina Kinny, Isapdaile Zeliang. 2018. Sociolinguistic Research among Selected Groups in Western Arunachal Pradesh: Highlighting Monpa. SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2018-009.
References
- Koro at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Koro". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- Morrison, Dan "'Hidden' Language Found in Remote Indian Tribe". National Geographic Daily News, 5 October 2010, Retrieved on 5 October 2010
- Schmid, Randolph E. "Undocumented language found hidden in India". Associated Press. 5 October 2010
- 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.
- "In Search for 'Last Speakers', a Great Discovery". National Public Radio. 5 October 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2010. (Some sound files)
- Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International, "Hruso".
- 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.
- Anderson, Gregory D.S. 2010. Preliminary notes on Koro, a ‘hidden’ language of Arunachal Pradesh. Indian Journal of Linguistics, 71: 1-32.
- Blench, Roger. 2018. The Koro language of Arunachal Pradesh: wordlist and etymological analysis.