Arunachal Pradesh

"Curled beneath the eastern ramparts of the Himalayas broods a wild land of unnamed peaks and unexplored forests: the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The largest and least populous of the Seven Sisters – septet of states that make up India's turbulent, tribal Northeast – it lies folded between the Tibetan plateau, the steaming jungles of Burma, the mountains of Bhutan and the flood-prone plains of the Brahmaputra Valley. Remote, mountainous and forbidding, here shamans still fly through the night, hidden valleys conceal portals to other worlds, yetis leave footprints in the snow, spirits and demons abound, and the gods are appeased by the blood of sacrificed beasts. More tribes live here, and more languages are spoken, than anywhere else in South Asia. A goldmine of flora and fauna, its unparalleled altitudinal range provides sanctuary to a fabulous array of exotic and alarming creatures. Snow leopards prowl along frozen ridges. Royal Bengal tigers pad through the jungle. Burmese rock pythons slither through the loam."

"Thanks to Indian democracy, all Buddhist monasteries in Arunachal Pradesh are preserved."

"Arunachal Pradesh consists of a chain of isolated languages, which have been on the southern edge of the core Tibeto-Burman area. A plethora of different contact situations have allowed both lexical borrowing and sometimes striking grammatical and phonological restructuring. But perhaps it would be useful to begin considering this region as more similar to the Amazon or NE Asia than Tibet."

"Arunachal Pradesh should be treated as a major priority on a global scale. Languages such as Basque and Burushaski have attracted high levels of scholarly interest over many decades precisely because of their status as language isolates. Those in Arunachal Pradesh have been completely bypassed. Moreover, although these languages are presently still spoken, their populations are small and pressure to switch to Hindi, promoted in both the media and via the school system, is growing. Probably by no coincidence, Arunachal Pradesh is also a major centre for biodiversity, something which attracts worldwide attention and resources. It is suggested that the little-known languages of Arunachal Pradesh should be given similar priority due to their uniqueness and endangered status."

"We share a border with Tibet, not China."