Today’s episode is with Maaz Shaikh, a Junior Research Fellow pursuing his Ph.D. at the Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, India. Maaz is an emerging linguist having research interests primarily in language documentation and description, along with language revitalization, phonology, morpho-syntax, and historical linguistics. Last year, Maaz successfully defended his M.Phil. thesis at JNU on his heritage language Azamgarhi—a unique Indo-Aryan language, of which he is a semi-speaker. In this episode we will hear from Maaz on his experiences and opinions of “documenting” a language as an “insider” to the community. Besides his areal interests of his native Indo-Aryan region, he is also now documenting Zangskari, an endangered language of Ladakh (India). 

Things mentioned in this episode:

• Azamgarhi language 
• Bhojpuri language 
• Zangskari language
• Ladakhi language
• Balti language
• Hindi language 
• Urdu language
• Tibetic language family 
• Indo-Aryan languages
• CoRSAL at UNT
• A special presentation of documented Azamgarhi traditional stories on YouTube
• The Azamgarhi Community Resources Facebook Group
• The Azamgarhi Language Account on Instagram
• Maaz on Twitter: @gyani_jahil