The year is 2008. Two linguists, Gregory Anderson and David Harrison, embark on an expedition to Arunachal Pradesh, a state in North-eastern India. The expedition, part of National Geographic’s Enduring Voices project, sought to document less known, unwritten and less studied languages.
Arunachal Pradesh is known to be one of the world’s “Language Hotspots,” a place with a diversity of languages. Gregory and David’s goal was to study two poorly known languages –Aka and Miji– known to be spoken in one small district.
Until 2008, very few linguists worked in Arunachal Pradesh as they require a special permit to enter the region. Consequently, there was no reliable data on the number of languages spoken there, or numbers of speakers.
In India, the two American linguists were joined by Ganesh Murmu, an Indian linguist from Ranchi University. The three linguists, along with Chris Rainer, a photographer, set off on their linguistic adventure.
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