Tikhir Language Documentation
Tikhir Language Documentation Project
This project centers on the documentation and description of Tikhir, an endangered Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman) language spoken in the eastern edge of Nagaland, India. The Tikhir community occupies a linguistically and culturally rich region near the Indo-Myanmar border — a place where multilingualism is the norm, and language change is unfolding rapidly.
Why Tikhir?
Tikhir has never been formally described in the linguistic literature, and is under increasing pressure from both neighboring regional languages and larger sociopolitical forces. Yet, it exhibits deep internal variation — across villages and generations — that speaks to larger questions about how languages evolve under contact.
This project documents:
- Dialects and variation across villages and age groups
- Grammatical features shaped by local multilingual ecologies
- Place names, oral histories, and cultural knowledge embedded in language
- A collaborative dictionary and sketch grammar, created with community input
Fieldwork and Methods
I work closely with members of the Tikhir community and the Tikhir Literature Board to document variation and linguistic change in ways that are locally relevant and academically rigorous. My methods combine:
- Participant-driven fieldwork and long-term community collaboration
- Spatial analysis of dialect variation and language contact
- Ethnographically-informed documentation, placing language in its social and geographic context
Support and Recognition
This project is supported by the ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship, which funds expansive approaches to dissertation research. I’m grateful to ACLS for supporting a project that bridges language documentation, spatial humanities, and community partnership.
I’m also thankful to my advisor, Prof. Hannah Haynie, and my external mentor, Dr. Kellen Parker van Dam, for their guidance and mentorship.
Learn More
You can follow along via the blog or explore more about my broader research interests here.