Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150101024
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$373,000.00
Summary
High-definition carbon-dating of linguistic pasts. This project aims to harness the insights of dissipating information, to discover language histories by bringing together two high-definition technologies: powerful, computational statistical engines pioneered in genetics; and fine-grained, statistically optimised observations of language structure. It seeks new insight into how languages reveal history, and how cultural groups speaking the Uralic languages of Eurasia and Australian Aboriginal l ....High-definition carbon-dating of linguistic pasts. This project aims to harness the insights of dissipating information, to discover language histories by bringing together two high-definition technologies: powerful, computational statistical engines pioneered in genetics; and fine-grained, statistically optimised observations of language structure. It seeks new insight into how languages reveal history, and how cultural groups speaking the Uralic languages of Eurasia and Australian Aboriginal languages diverged, spread and interacted, from a distant past to the recent present.Read moreRead less
The languages of Southern New Guinea. This project will investigate, analyse and record the barely-known languages of Southern New Guinea, stretching across Papua New Guinea and Indonesia just kilometres from Australia's borders. It will produce grammatical descriptions for ten of the thirty languages of the area, plus a comparative database and handbook of the languages of this strategic region.
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL130100111
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$3,163,655.00
Summary
The wellsprings of linguistic diversity. A quarter of the world's languages are spoken in our region. This project tackles the riddle of why there are so many languages in parts of the world like Australia and New Guinea, and so few in others. Understanding the causes of language diversity will help the countries and communities in our region maintain their rich linguistic heritage.