Drowning words: Documenting languages of the Nicobar Islands devastated in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

On 26 December 2004 the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami struck the remote Nicobar Islands, instantly erasing the traditional way of life of its indigenous people and setting the course for the demise of the Nicobarese languages. Fifteen years on, the languages are critically endangered and the elders who remember pre-tsunami life are passing away, taking with them their linguistic and cultural knowledge.

These undocumented and undescribed languages constitute an entire branch of the Austroasiatic language family of Mainland Southeast Asia—their loss would irreversibly undermine our ability to understand the linguistic diversity and prehistory of this region.

This interdisciplinary project creates multimodal documentation of two of these endangered languages—Nancowry and Chaura—in their cultural context. Unique film materials recorded prior to the disaster are repurposed as linguistic stimuli to elicit naturalistic speech documenting pre-tsunami life. The recordings are transcribed into linguistically and ethnographically annotated datasets, and along with supporting lexical and grammatical materials are archived for public access.

The project explores novel methodologies in the adaptation of archival visual documentation as reusable resources for multidisciplinary research. The output will contribute to scientific fields beyond linguistics, and serve the language communities as a resource for linguistic and cultural preservation.