Independent documentation project

Lost in
Transit.

A long-term attempt to listen to words, worlds and ways of knowing that are quietly disappearing.

Field of attention

Northeast India

About the project

Words that refuse to be reduced.

Lost in Transit is an independent, long-term documentation project we two linguists and friends have been quietly building over the past several years.

The project began from a shared awareness: that what indigenous communities in Northeast India are losing through language erosion should matter far beyond academic circles.

At the heart of our work are untranslatable words — terms so deeply rooted in land, memory, and communal experience that they defy direct translation. These words carry entire worldviews, ecologies, and relational ways of being.

What we are trying to do

Let the words breathe.

Our aim is to create a space where these words are not simply archived, but allowed to breathe — to be felt, seen, and remembered.

Through a growing digital archive and an upcoming illustrated book series, Lost in Transit invites people to listen to what is being lost, and to care.

This is not just a linguistic project. It is a call for attention, and for tenderness.

Words

Terms whose meanings are inseparable from place, memory and experience.

Worlds

The ecological and cultural knowledge carried inside language.

Memory