Endangered languages: linguist creating written language in Nepal uses novel tactic to get villagers talking – an eye clinic to cure blindness
- Hong Kong-based linguist Cathryn Donohue wanted to preserve the language of the isolated, spread out Nubri people, but first she had to get them together
- Her solution? Free eye clinics specialising in cataract surgery, which gave back sight to many villagers who had been blind for years
Breathtaking images of snow-capped mountains taken in Nepal’s Nubri Valley, an isolated area 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) above sea level in the Himalayas bordering Tibet, cover the windows of Cathryn Donohue’s room at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
Donohue, an Australian who has been to the Nubri Valley about eight times, is well informed about the place and the Nubri people, who are believed to have settled in the valley from Tibet about 400 years ago. But her speciality is the language of Nubri, spoken only by about 2,000 ethnically Tibetan people and which has no written form.
“A quarter of the population in Nubri Valley is monolingual – there’s no English, no Nepali,” she says.
She explains that it is the isolation of the area – which was hit by a powerful earthquake in 2015 that either damaged or destroyed 80 per of the homes in its villages – that has long protected the Nubri language from being influenced by the national language.
“It’s very remote, about a week’s walk from one end to the other. The trek is challenging – narrow and steep – and unless you’re carrying something heavy like rice that requires mules, then it’s walking all the way, usually climbing about 500 metres a day.”
