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

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Villagers from Nepal’s Nubri Valley who can now see after being partially or completely blind for years thanks to free eye clinics set up as part of a language preservation project. Photo: Cathryn Donohue

Published: 10:07am, 7 Nov 2019Updated: 10:25am, 7 Nov 2019

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).

“Mount Manaslu is the world’s eighth tallest peak and it’s so beautiful, especially when the sun lights it up like a volcano,” says Donohue, assistant professor of the university’s linguistics department, pointing to a picture of the mountain that presides over the valley. “Nubri Valley is on the Manaslu circuit trek, and while it’s not on travellers’ radar like the well-worn Annapurna circuit in central Nepal, it’s getting more popular.”

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.