Beyond the Heterotrophic in the Sino-Tibetan Language Relationship: Tibeto-Altaic Grammatical Drift Theory and Other Advances in Tibetan Linguistics

Yeshe Vodgsal Atshogs
Professor of Linguistics, Nankai University

Thursday, February 9, 2017

2:30pm-4:00pm

Sigur Center 5F Seminar Room

Elliott School of International Affairs

Yeshes Vodgsal Atshogs（Yeshe Woeser Atsok, ཡེ་ཤེས་འོད་གསལ་ཨ་ཚོགས།）is Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Chinese at Nankai University.  He has won national awards for his ground-breaking research on the comparative study of Sino-Tibetan languages. He obtained his Ph.D. in Linguistics at Nankai University in 2003. His research interests include the philosophy of linguistics, language contacts, language acquisition and endangered languages. His current research focuses on the historical relationships between Tibetan and neighboring languages, such as Chinese, Mongolian. He also focuses on mixing languages of Tibetan and Chinese called Daohua and Wutun. Dr. Atshogs has published many articles in leading academic journals such as Journal of Chinese Linguistics. Dr. Atshogs was awarded the Mantaro J. Hashimoto Award for Chinese Historical Phonology and the Young Scholar Award by International Association of Chinese Linguistics in 2004. He is Executive Director of the China Minority Linguistics Association. Besides linguistics, Dr. Atshogs has also published books and articles in philosophy on Tibetan and neighboring languages. He held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Endangered Language Documentation Programme at SOAS of University of London in 2004. He is also a respected faculty mentor to Tibetan undergraduate students and a promoter of intercultural dialogue. He has been a Research Fellow at the University of Maryland for four years.