Studying the Birth of a New Language

The indigenous village of Lajamanu, population 600, sits on the southern edge of the subtropics of northern Australia. It’s the kind of place where a truck rumbles in once a week to deliver staples to the local store, and where electricity comes from diesel and solar generators. It’s so remote that the oldest members of the community still remember the first time they saw a white person in the 1930s.