Interdisciplinary in Areal Documentation: Experiences from Lower Fungom, Cameroon

The Lower Fungom region of Northwest Cameroon is noteworthy for its exceptional linguistic diversity. Seven languages are spoken in its thirteen recognized villages within an area about the size of the city of Amsterdam. This situation raises the question: What factors have allowed Lower Fungom to develop and maintain its extreme linguistic diversity? This paper considers the ways in which the standard documentary linguistic toolkit has been augmented by an interdisciplinary approach to studying the region, allowing for the creation of a documentary record which covers both the synchronic features of the target languages and offers sufficient ethnographic and historical context to allow us to model its language dynamics. In addition to outlining key results of this interdisciplinary research, concrete recommendations are provided for linguists interested in engaging in similar kinds of work.