Ｆｏｒｔｙ　Ｙｅａｒｓ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｖｅｓｔｉｇａｔｉｏｎｓ　ａｎｄ　Ｗｉｔｎｅｓｓ：Ｔｈｅ　Ｅｘｉｓ.docVIP

Ｆｏｒｔｙ　Ｙｅａｒｓ　ｏｆ　Ｉｎｖｅｓｔｉｇａｔｉｏｎｓ　ａｎｄ　Ｗｉｔｎｅｓｓ：Ｔｈｅ　Ｅｘｉｓ 　　As a researcher, I am convinced that it is aninevitableglobal mega trend for vulnerable languages to wither away. But this poses agravechallenge to the linguistic andculturaldiversity . It is a sacred responsibility of linguists with conscience to pay great attention to language in danger ofextinction. Under no circumstances can they afford to do nothing about it. 　　 Anong is a branch of the Nu ethnic group. Its population of about 75,000 is found mainly in Fugong County, Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The turbulent Nu River flows through the county from north to south. On the east bank of the river is the snow-capped Biluo Mountain and on the west bank is the Gaoligong Mountain. The Anong people live on the tableland on the banks. They border with the Union of Myanmar in the west and the Tibet Autonomous Region inthe north. They live together with people of the Lisu, Bai and Han ethnic groups. They call their language the Anong. The Anong is an independent language that belongs to the Jingpo language branch of the Tibeto-Burman language group of the Sino-Tibetan Family. It is similar to the Derung language, butvastly different from the Nusu language that is used by the Nusu people and belongs to the Yi language branch of the Tibeto-Burman language group of the Sino-Tibetan Family. The Nusu people dominatesthepopulation ofthe Nu ethnic group. 　　I conducted my first investigation on the Anong language in September-October 1960. I found a person of the Nu ethnic group who spoke the Anong language fluently. He was a primary school teacher. I noted down his languagewhich wasmainly had a basic vocabulary of over 2,000 wordsand a few sentences. The then statistics showed that over 800 people used the language. 　　My second investigation onthe language wasconducted in April 1965. I just tried to have some generalideaof the language and noted down some grammar examples. 　　Twenty years later I had my thir