Northeast India is regarded as a treasure trove for researchers from different fields due to its linguistic and cultural diversity. A large number of the languages in India is found in this region: languages which belong to the Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai and Tibeto-Burman language families. According to the Census of India (2011), Northeast India has a total population of about 45 million inhabiting eight states. This population is less than 4% of the total population of India, which stands at around 1.2 billion. Thus, less than 4% of the Indian population speak 70% of the languages in India.
Seeing the need to train linguists who would be able to work on the vast number of undocumented and lesser known languages and mother tongues of India and Northeast India in particular, the Shillong campus of The English and Foreign Languages University started the department of Linguistics in the year 2015.
At present, the department offers the following courses: