This is an announcement to invite you to the CSEAS Colloquium for October 2013.

Date & Time: 24 October (Thu) 2013, 16:00~

Place: Middle-sized Meeting Room (No.332), 3rd Floor, Inamori Foundation Building, Kyoto University

Speaker: Dr. Gérard Félix Diffloth, Visiting Research Fellow of CSEAS.

Title: Austroasiatic languages, sinking cathedrals

Abstract:
Nathan Badenoch and I are currently reconstructing the pre-history of languages that have never been written down and hardly ever studied. They form the Khabit-related group of languages of the Austroasiatic family, spoken mostly in Northern Laos, and also in China and Vietnam.
Like hundreds of other languages word-wide, they will probably disappear before most of humanity notices and decides to care. As a matter of fact, administration and economic development will be made simpler when they do vanish. So why bother? By drawing attention to these historical relics, aren’t we, historical linguists, perpetuating problems instead of helping in their solution ?
In this talk, I suggest some answers to such questions.
The KhaBit and other languages verbalize the unique experiences of dozens of generations, their observations, their tribulations, their unwritten arts. They are like the strange sculptures and the luminous stained-glass windows of ancient cathedrals, but they are sinking.

Bio-note:
Born in Châteauroux, France, in 1939; studied Mathematics, Journalism and Persian in France. Obtained PhD in Linguistics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). PhD dissertation: “The Irula language, a close relative of Tamil”.
Became “Professor of Linguistics” at the University of Chicago, “Professor of Linguistics and Asian Studies” at Cornell University, and active member of the Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) in Cambodia. Now living in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Has done linguistic field-work and research in more than one hundred languages of the Austroasiatic family, in India, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Author of three books and many articles in the Historical Linguistics of Austroasiatic languages.

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