Exploring the crossroads of linguistic diversity: language contact in Southeast Asia

The complex linguistic diversity and endemic multilingualism represented in the cohabitating ethnolinguistic populations of Southeast Asia remain poorly understood. Until now, the phenomenon of language contact – whereby the languages of closely interacting communities influence each other’s grammatical structures and vocabularies – has not been systematically studied in this region. This ground-breaking project will address significant gaps in our knowledge by documenting four endangered languages while simultaneously exploring four language contact situations in Southeast Asia. The work will produce empirically-based predictive model of language contact that will inform linguistic theory and guide future research in the field, and the grammatical descriptions will preserve the languages for the communities that speak them and research scholars alike.

Team Members

Project Leader

Alexander COUPE
Associate Professor
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Interdisciplinary Research Facilitator

Halina GOTTLIEB
CEO
Digital Heritage Center Sweden AB

Digital Archive Designer

Hedren SUM
New Media Librarian Art Librarian (Design)
NTU Libraries

Project Officers

Amelia HONG
Elissa LOW
Rachel SIAO Jia Yu

Linguists

Gérard DIFFLOTH
Independent Researcher

Francesco CAVALLARO
Associate Professor
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
School of Humanities and Social Sciences

František KRATOCHVÍL
Assistant Professor
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
School of Humanities and Social Sciences

NG Bee Chin
Associate Professor
Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies
School of Humanities and Social Sciences

HSS Students

Benidiktus DELPADA
Bruno OLSSON
CHOI Yun Jung
Elvis ALBERTUS bin Toni
Hiram RING
Muhammad ZAKARIA
Priyanka KHARBANDA
Takashi NAKAGAWA
TAN Jian Han
Yutaka TOMIOKA

Art / Media Researchers

Astrid KENSINGER
Assistant Professor
School of Art, Design and Media

Ben SHEDD
Professor
School of Art, Design and Media

Galina MIHALEVA
Assistant Professor
School of Art, Design and Media

Joan Marie KELLY
Senior Lecturer
School of Art, Design and Media

Marijke VAN KETS
Assistant Professor
School of Art, Design and Media

ADM Students

Jonathan CHOO
NG Xiao Yan
ONG Han Yu
PEH Yang Yu
Rachel SIAO Jia Yu
TAN Yen Jun
TAN Lixing, Lesley
WONG Chun Sing
Zachary CHAN