Report on a Linguistic Mission to North-Western IndiaGeorg Morgenstierne tromped through the wild hinterlands of the NWFP, interviewing remote peoples in small villages, writing down their local languages and dialects. His favorite device was to go to the District Chairman and ask to have prisoners brought to him who were held in the local jails and who were from remote places. The prisoners were always happy to get a little baksheesh for their information and Morgenstierne got a few more words. After Morgenstierne completed his 1929 journey into the wild hinterlands of the NWFP, he went back to Oslo, where he spent the next forty years going over his data and publishing his findings. Nowadays the remote areas visited by Morgenstierne have become popular tourist destinations for such notables as Osama Bin Laden, so if you want to catch Osama (or if you want to join him) you have to read this book. |
