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. Project members include Mark Turin and Jeroen Wiedenhof. The project recruits graduate students to collect field data on little-known languages for their Ph.D. dissertations.
The Himalayan Languages Project was officially commissioned by the government of Bhutan to devise a standard romanization of Dzongkha.
Since George van Driem's move to the University of Bern, many members of the Himalayan Languages Project are now based out of Switzerland.
Languages studied 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 Gyalrong Lepcha Chulung Dhimal
The project has completed grammatical sketches of the following languages: Bumthang Byangsi Puma Rabha Rongpo
Members of the project are currently working on grammatical sketches of the following languages: Baram Dura Toto
The project has also studied Kusunda, a language isolate of Nepal.
Himalayan Languages Symposium Members of the Himalayan Languages Project also regularly organise the Himalayan Languages Symposium, an annual conference on Trans-Himalayan languages.Himalayan Languages Symposium.. Himalayan Languages Project. Conferences have been held annually since 1995.
Below is a list of past conferences.
Event Location Country Date Year HLS 1 Leiden June 16–17 1995 HLS 2 Noordwijkerhout October 11–12 1996 HLS 3 Santa Barbara, California July 17–20 1997 HLS 4 Pune December 7–9 1998 HLS 5 Kathmandu September 13–15 1999 HLS 6 Milwaukee, Wisconsin June 15–17 2000 HLS 7 Uppsala September 7–9 2001 HLS 8 Bern September 19–22 2002 HLS 9 Mysore December 9–12 2003 HLS 10 Thimphu December 1–3 2004 HLS 11 Bangkok December 6–9 2005 HLS 12 Kathmandu November 26–29 2006 HLS 13 Shimla October 22–24 2007 HLS 14 Gothenburg August 21–23 2008 HLS 15 Eugene, Oregon July 30–August 1 2009 HLS 16 London September 2–5 2010 HLS 17 Kobe September 6–9 2011 HLS 18 Varanasi September 10–12 2012 HLS 19 Canberra September 6–8 2013 HLS 20 Singapore July 16–18 2014 HLS 21 Kirtipur November 26–28 2015 HLS 22 Guwahati June 8–10 2016 HLS 23 Tezpur July 5–7 2017 HLS 24 Lucknow June 8–10 2018 HLS 25 Sydney June 28–29 2019 HLS 26 Paris September 4–6 2023 HLS 27 Guwahati June 12–14 2024 HLS 28 Eugene, Oregon August 2–3 2025 HLS 29 New Delhi October 30–November 1 2026HLS 29. IIT Delhi. Accessed 22 May 2026.
See also Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics
References
External links official website The Kirat Rai Association's web portal