The icon on her mobile today is of a train journey between Geneva and Grenoble, but before that, she had had the image of very different waters: those of an Indonesian beach, where she has been doing fieldwork since 2018. Every year or two she travels there to study an Austronesian language in the process of extinction, totoli. She now captains the project from the University of Barcelona with ministerial funding.

The question surprises and amuses him at once. Marc Abrahams cannot remember his own WhatsApp profile picture. He tries to remember it for a few seconds, and a few more, until he concludes, "It's beyond memorable."