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Seminar ‘Descriptive paradoxes in Dhao: Experiences of a linguist on Ndao Island (East Indonesia)’
10/12/2015 @ 15:30 - 17:00
Dhao is an endangered minority language spoken by about 3000 people on Ndao Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. It is member of the Sumba-Hawu subgroup in the Austronesian language family and displays intensive contact with nearby Kupang Malay and the Rote dialects.
The challenging characteristics of this virtually unknown language force linguist researchers to rethink their theoretical premises and redefine the traditional basics of language. A such, Dhao provides an innovative contribution to the tradition of language research in East Indonesia and specifically in the Timor Region. After a state-of-the-art introduction on language documentation, this presentation will elaborate three apparent paradoxes in Dhao in sounds, words and sentences.
Jermy I. Balukh is a PhD student at LUCL, supervised by Prof. Maarten Mous and Dr. Aone van Engelenhoven. His main research interest covers descriptive linguistics, language typology, and language documentation. He has done a Language Documentation Project on Dhao in 2008-2009 funded by Bill Bright Awards, Endangered Language Fund (ELF), USA.
If you wish to attend please register with Yayah Siegers: [email protected]