Projects

Our dear friend and colleague Michel Ferlus passed on March 10th 2024. Michel was one of the pioneers who presented at the First International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics in Hawaii in January of 1973 and a part of the generation who carried on the torch of Austroasiatic languistics through the quiet decades that followed the 1978 Second International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics until the resumption of regular meetings in 2007. He was a gentle man who never hesitated to share what he had while shunning spectacle or formalities and simply preferred the company of those who shared his passion for linguistic inquiry. His quiet brilliance and unwavering dedication helped to shape our understanding of Southeast Asia’s linguistic landscape, often in remarkable and creative ways.

At the 12th meeting of the International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 12), there was a suggestion that ICAAL should Michel memorialized Michel’s life and work with an edited volume, continuing the tradition begun the year before with Austroasiatic Linguistics, in honour of Gérard Diffloth (1939-2023). Paul Sidwell agreed to serve as editor, and Austroasiatic Linguistics, in honour of Michel Ferlus (1935-2024) was completed bythe end of 2025. Participants of ICAAL 13 were given the option to purchase a physical copy of the volume and contributing authors were each given a hard copy. The pdf version is available free of charge here on icaal.net.

In the book, readers will find thirteen chapters on a wide variety of topics in Austroasiatic linguistics submitted by colleagues and friends from the ICAAL community, a biography of the honoree, and a bibliography of Michel’s publications.

It was with considerable shock that we learned of Gérard Diffloth’s passing in mid-August of 2023. Subsequently that October, at the 11th meeting of the International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 11), there was no hesitation at the suggestion that Gérard should be memorialized with an edited volume produced under ICAAL auspices. Paul Sidwell agreed to serve as editor, and the volume was assembled in time for publication and release at ICAAL 12, held Oct. 23-25, 2024. Participants at ICAAL 12 and contributing authors were each given a hard copy of the book, and a pdf version has been made available free of charge here on icaal.net.

In the book, readers will find fourteen chapters on a wide variety of topics in Austroasiatic linguistics submitted by colleagues and friends from the ICAAL community, two personal tributes, a brief tour of the more than 400 folders of Gérard’s papers held at the Cornell University Library, a bibliography of Gérard’s publications, and even a previously unpublished study by the honoree himself: Proto-Vietic Glottal Features in Kri.

This handbook offers a survey of the field of linguistics in the early 21st century for the Southeast Asian Linguistic Area. The last half century has seen a great increase in work on language contact, work in genetic, theoretical, and descriptive linguistics, and since the 1990s especially, documentation of endangered languages. This book provides an account of work in these areas, focusing on the achievements of SEAsian linguistics, as well as the challenges and unresolved issues, and provides a survey of the relevant major publications and other available resources. The following issues are addressed in this volume:

• Survey of the languages of the area, organized along genetic lines, with discussion of relevant political and cultural background issues
• Theoretical/descriptive and typological issues
• Genetic classification and historical linguistics
• Areal and contact linguistics
• Other areas of interest such as sociolinguistics, semantics, writing systems, etc.
• Resources (major monographs and monograph series, dictionaries, journals, electronic data bases, etc.)
• Grammar sketches of languages representative of the genetic and structural diversity of the region.

Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective elevates historical morpho-syntax to a research priority in the field of Southeast Asian language history, transcending the traditional focus on phonology and lexicon. The volume contains eleven chapters covering a wide range of aspects of diachronic Austroasiatic syntax, most of which contain new hypotheses, and several address topics that have never been dealt with before in print, such as clause structure and word order in the proto-language, and reconstruction of Munda morphology successfully integrating it into Austroasiatic language history. Also included is a list of proto-AA grammatical words with evaluative and contextualizing comments.

The handbook provides essential reference for the Austroasiatc languages, with both descriptive and comparative-historical content. Previously there a complete lack of such an essential scholarly resource on the non-Munda Austroasiatic languages – a much needed companion to the (2008) Munda Languages (Gregory D S Anderson (ed.) Routledge volume.

Austroasiatic is one of the big and important language families of South and Southeast Asia with about 170 languages spoken in nine countries stretching from India to Vietnam. The Austroasiatic languages spoken in South and Southeast Asia belong to two typologically clearly distinct groups, namely the Munda languages in central and eastern India and the group traditionally called Mon-Khmer in northeastern India and Southeast Asia. Both groups are well integrated in their linguistic environments, sharing many features with their respective neighboring languages. Geographically and typologically apart are the Nicobarese varieties, a group of languages that are poorly documented and largely inaccessible to outsiders. The Aslian languages spoken in peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand are on the fringes of the Southeast Asian sprachbund, but show marked structural influence from Malay varieties.

With Khmer in Cambodia and Vietnamese in Vietnam only two Austroasiatic languages today serve as national languages. All other members of the family are spoken by smaller or bigger minority groups in South and Southeast Asian countries, including southwestern China. Historically the Austroasiatic languages are of great importance, as Mon and Khmer are among the earliest attested languages of Southeast Asia with epigraphic documents dating to the 6th century.

The handbook brings together international experts in the field, covering all eastern branches of the Austroasiatic family in short language sketches designed to provide maximum comparability without sacrificing linguistic adequacy. Topics covered by the language sketches include phonology, morphology and syntax. Each chapter also gives a short glossed sample text with translation. In order to guarantee maximum usefulness for linguists with different theoretical background the grammar part of the language sketches are written in a framework independent way, applying functional typological descriptive methods.

Introductory chapters about the geographical, historical, and social setting of the Austroasiatic languages, the history of Austroasiatic studies, the typology of the Austroasiatic languages, make this handbook an important source not only for linguists, but also historians and other scholars interested in South and Southeast Asia.

The introductory overview chapters as well as the descriptive language sketches, together with the additional on-line resources, make this book an important contribution to the linguistic literature in general and particularly of Asian studies.