Abhishek Avtans

Abhishek Avtans teaches Indic languages and linguistics at Leiden University (the Netherlands). He tweets at @avtansa.

Languages of the islanders in Southasia: Part 1

Linguistic diversity and study of endangered languages in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in Southasia can help our understanding of human history, cognition and the natural world

Apr 14, 2023

Beyond the binary 

Gender in Southasian languages.

Nov 22, 2022

The holy grail of language preservation

Bible translations in Southasia.

Jul 06, 2022

Seeing with fingertips

Braille in Southasia.

Mar 04, 2022

Sign languages matter

National and endangered sign languages of Southasia.

Nov 08, 2021

Shaking the melting pot

The role of contact languages in multilingual milieux.

Aug 24, 2021

It takes a village to save a language

Pidgins, creoles and mixed languages of Southasia.

Jul 13, 2021

Under the sun

Summer words and phrases in Southasian languages.

May 18, 2021

Translating a pandemic

The impact of COVID-19 terminology on Southasian languages.

Apr 07, 2021

Latest Articles

In Mizoram, a refugee crisis highlights Mizo tribal affinities and hostility

Shared Zo identity has Mizos extending hospitality to Chin and Kuki-Chin refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh. More remarkable is that Chakmas, mistreated by the Mizo majority in Mizoram, have welcomed Kuki-Chin refugees too

In ‘Agra’, a grim portrait of the repressed Indian man

Director Kanu Behl’s Hindi feature film examines the sexual obsession and frustration of men, mental health and the transactional nature of human relationships in a patriarchal society where space is in short supply

When neoliberalism came to the Indian farm

With a focus on agricultural policy since the 1990s, 'Distress in the Fields' demonstrates how neoliberal interventions sowed the seeds of the crisis faced by farmers today