30 more languages spoken in China identified

Melbourne, July 28 (ANI): Two Melbourne researchers have identified 30 "new" languages as the living languages in China, the most for any single country.

La Trobe University graduate researcher Jamin Pelkey and supervisor David Bradley uncovered the languages in China.

About a dozen of languages in China were identified by Professor Bradley and while Dr Pelkey discovered 18.

These newly discovered languages have been incorporated in Ethnologue: Languages of the World, an encyclopedic reference work that catalogues the world's 6909 known living languages from 156 countries.

The languages were largely found in Yunnan province in southern China, include Azha, which was spoken by 53,000 people and Phula, a tongue considered endangered and spoken by just 200 people in north-west Guangnan county.

The new edition consists of 83 "new" language listings from 19 countries.

"In most cases they are endangered languages (being replaced by Mandarin)," the Age quoted Bradley as saying.

"They are not being learnt by children or being used outside the village," he added.

Bradley also said the Amazon rainforest and parts of Latin America were also happy hunting grounds for linguists keen to identify new languages.

There were other countries such as Burma, which has 135 ethnic groups. (ANI)