Questions · Contexts · Methods
Research
My research asks how multilingualism shapes language vitality, how social institutions influence language maintenance and shift, and how the documentation and archiving of language can be made accountable to the people whose knowledge is represented. These questions connect my research in the Nilgiris with work on verbal art, linguistic resources, and digital infrastructures elsewhere in India.
Multilingualism, vitality, and endangerment
The study of language endangerment often begins by counting speakers or examining intergenerational transmission. These measures matter, but they do not by themselves explain the place of a language in a multilingual society. My work investigates how people distribute language use across social relationships, institutions, and practices; how language choices are shaped by unequal access to resources and recognition; and how communities sustain multilingual repertoires. My research with Toda and Kota speakers in the Nilgiris offers a context for questioning simplified associations between multilingualism and language decline. This line of research is developed in my 2025 monograph.
Documentation, description, and verbal art
Linguistic documentation involves more than accumulating recordings or transcriptions. It requires attention to genres, performance settings, interactions, and the knowledge relationships within which language is used. My work has included documentation and study of Toda oral literature and participation in descriptive and documentary initiatives in Himalayan language contexts. I am particularly interested in approaches that allow linguistic materials to remain intelligible and useful in their social and cultural settings, including through careful metadata, annotation, attribution, and access arrangements.
Digital archiving and community-centred stewardship
A language archive is not only a technical repository. Decisions about what is collected, how material is described, who may access it, and how it may be reused are also social and ethical decisions. My work in digital archiving has included SiDHELA and subsequent archival collaborations. I am interested in participatory archives, the relationship between preservation and community authority, and governance arrangements that account for the responsibilities attached to linguistic and cultural data. Digital tools should support careful stewardship rather than obscure the relationships through which data are created.
Orthography, resources, and language technology
Orthography development and the creation of digital language resources raise questions that are simultaneously linguistic, educational, social, and technological. Script and spelling choices require attention to sound systems, learnability, existing practices, community preferences, and available technologies. My work and collaborations in this area connect linguistic analysis with documentation workflows and language-data infrastructures. I am especially interested in the conditions under which communities can make informed choices about the creation, use, and governance of their language resources.
Languages and regions
My sustained research with Toda and Kota communities is grounded in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. Documentary and archival appointments have also involved Rongpo and Spiti-related work in Himalayan contexts and language collections at Sikkim University. North-East Indian language-resource work connects to my prior orthography-development role at the Central Institute of Indian Languages.
These contexts encompass different kinds of engagement: sustained field research, institutional appointments, and collaborative support.
Methods and commitments
- Sociolinguistic and ethnographic fieldwork
- Language documentation and verbal-art analysis
- Phonetic and phonological analysis; linguistic annotation
- Archival design, metadata, and digital preservation
- Collaborative language resources
- Participation, attribution, and culturally appropriate access
Documentation and preservation require care for the people and relationships through which knowledge is shared. This site presents scholarship and project descriptions; access to primary materials follows the arrangements of the relevant archive or project.