The Himalayan Languages Project, launched in 1993, is a research collective based at Leiden University and comprising much of the world's authoritative research on the lesser-known and endangered languages of the Himalayas, in Nepal, China, Bhutan, and India. Its members regularly spend months or years at a time doing field research with native speakers. The Director of the Himalayan Languages Project is George van Driem; other top authorities include Mark Turin and Jeroen Wiedenhof. It recruits grad students to collect new field research on little-known languages as the topics for their Ph.D. dissertations.
The Himalayan Languages Project was officially commissioned by the government of Bhutan to devise a standard romanization of Dzongkha.
Languages studied
Many of the languages studied by the Project are believed to be doomed to extinction in the next few years or decades, and might be lost to human knowledge but for the efforts of the Project.
The Project has completed comprehensive grammars of the following languages:
- Limbu
- Dumi
- Dzongkha
- Wambule
- Kulung
- Jero
The Project is currently working on comprehensive grammars of the following languages:
- Manchad
- Lohorung
- Thangmi
- Sunwar
- Lhokpu
- Sampang
- Gongduk
- Olekha
- Chiling
- Gyal-rong
- Lepcha
- Chulung
- Dhimal
The Project has completed grammatical sketches of the following languages:
- Bumthang
- Byangsi
- Puma
- Rabha
- Rongpo
The Project is currently working on grammatical sketches of the following languages:
The Project also studied the fall into apparent extinction of the language Kusunda in Nepal, as its last speakers, who lived in the forest and subsisted by hunting, were absorbed and dispersed into the larger society.
External links
- Himalayan Languages Project official website
- The Kirat Rai Association's Web Portal