Philologist

I'm sort of in my training, like philologist rather than linguist.

So linguist is sort of like, you know, you're, you're going into the really hardcore structural stuff, and you're reconstructing languages that we don't have any evidence for.

Philologist, you're looking at the texts that survive and the, the literature, you know, the language, the, you know? So it's-

Mm

... it's, it's more the, the, the literature and the manuscripts than the mechanics, so to speak.

Geographers speculated about unknown upland plateaus.

Philologists, working from limited sources, tried to line up Buddhist prophecies with known dynasties and battlefields.

And slowly, the phrase Lost Kingdom attached itself.

Lost Kingdom is a very European frame.