In the mid-1980s, the young anthropologist-linguist Don Kulick arrives in Gapun, a remote small village of two hundred people in northeastern Papua New Guinea, in the middle of the tropical rainforest, having heard that the language spoken by its inhabitants, Tagiap, is fading away. This first encounter with the isolated microcosm of Gapun ultimately lasted three decades, and in this book, Kulick captures the chronicle of his research and his intensely experiential involvement in the life of the village and his deep emotional connection with its people.

The language is its speakers; it does not exist as an autonomous entity. To study it, one must familiarize themselves with their culture and daily life: how they speak to their children, how they discipline them, how they flirt, how they insult each other, how they worship their god, what they eat, and how they survive. The book describes this microcosm and its linguistic imprint, while also, through its narrative and experiential character, reconnecting anthropological and linguistic research with their humanitarian foundations. It is a firsthand testimony of how a society sees its culture declining and its ancestral language dying, while also illuminating how Western culture has irrevocably touched even the most remote corners of the planet.