A new language discovered, two dead languages revived

If this week has proved anything, it’s that the age of exploration is all but over! So much has happened that I decided to condense three stories into one post.

So, without further ado, your language news for the week:

American linguists have announced the discovery of a previously unknown language in Arunachal Pradesh, a state in Northeast India. The new language, called Koro, is spoken by only 800 people! (Linguists discover new language in remote India) The Google map on the right shows the location of Arunachal Pradesh.

In other news, your home computer now brings you two languages long thought dead: Latin and Babylonian! (Babylonian, dead for millennia, now online)

If you want to hear what the ancient language of Babylonia sounded like, you can listen to recordings of poems and other texts, posted online by Cambridge University’s Martin Worthington. This will help students of Babylonian language and culture understand how the language sounds, something many people learning Spanish, German or Russian take for granted.

And last, but certainly not least, Latin made a comeback this week with the help of Google, which has added Latin to Google Translate! How did they announce this new development? A blog post written in Latin of course!