Hello!
My name is Kellen Parker van Dam. I am a linguist specialising in Sino-Tibetan languages in the far Eastern Himālaya along the India / China / Myanmar border. I mostly work on historical phonology, language documentation, tonogenesis & tonoexodus, linguistic typology, the history of migration & social contact, the role of geography & maps in the context of language description, and the use of computational methods to those ends.
I also co-founded Phonemica 乡音苑, a platform for crowd-sourced oral history and linguistic documentation.
I am actively engaged in community-focused capacity building including development and management of workshops in and around Notheast India.
The languages I work with most are part of the Patkaian branch within Sino-Tibetan, including Tangsa-Nocte and Khiamniungic, however I'm also involved with a handful of communities elsewhere in Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh.
This page serves as a snippet of a résumé for the purpose of making myself a little more searchable, for those who may be interested in the relevant research topics. I am always happy to talk to new people with an eye toward the Eastern Himālaya.
publications
journal articles
to appear
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Thaam, Keen. (forthcoming). Wolam Ngio, a Khiamniungic variety of Nagaland. Longmailai, Monali; Zam Ngaih Cing. Linguistic Heritage of North-East India: An Exploration of Lesser Known Languages. 151–169. Guwahati. DVS Publishers. WolamKhiamniunganPatkaian
Thaam, Keen; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (forthcoming). De-Intensifying Intensifiers in North Khiamniungan. Bradley, David; Taylor, Jo. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 49. 1. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/ltba.25012.tha Khiamniunganintensifiers
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Thaam, Keen. (forthcoming). Developing a common orthography for Wolam Ngio. Language Documentation & Conservation. Honolulu. University of Hawai'i Press. WolamKhiamniunganPatkaian
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Muheim, Nora. (forthcoming). Reduplicated intensifiers in Tibeto-Burman and Tai: A possible Northeast Indian areal feature. Temsunungsang, T; Longmailai, Monali; Boro, Krishna; Brahma, Aleendra. International Journal of Tibeto-Burman Languages and Linguistics. 1. Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India. typologyintensifiers
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Thaam, Keen. (forthcoming). The hidden morphology of Khiamniungan: Uncovering once-productive gender marking & augmentatives. Singha, Dhiren; Haokip, Mary Kim; Longmailai, Monali. Under-Documented Languages of Northeast India. 2. Delhi. Mittal Publishers. historicalKhiamniungan
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Nieder, Jessica. (forthcoming). From tongue to language: Semantic shifts of mouth-related concepts in Maltese. Wojtylak, Katarzyna; Dolińska, Joanna. Embodiment in Cross-Linguistic Studies: The ‘Mouth’. Brill. semanticshistoricalMaltese
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Thaam, Keen. (forthcoming). Preliminary notes on Kingphu-Tsonkhao: An undocumented branch of Khiamniungan spoken in northern Sagaing Region Myanmar. Singh, Laishram Bijen; Imchen, Imenla. Exploring Naga Languages. KingphuKhiamniunganPatkaian
2025
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Rupini, Meri. (2025). Substratum effects in modern Rupini Kok: Is there evidence for a non-Tibeto-Burman origin of Old Rupini? Debbarma, Rabindra; Debbarma, Biman; Debbbarma, Daniel. Kokborok as a Look Out of Literature & Linguistics. 17–30. Delhi. Chanakya Publication & Distributors. 9789395055222. pdf historicalKokborokRupini
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2025). Novel computational methods for analysing languages: What Bayesian inference can and can not tell us about Kokborok. Debbarma, Rabindra; Debbarma, Biman; Debbbarma, Daniel. Kokborok as a Look Out of Literature & Linguistics. 2–16. Delhi. Chanakya Publication & Distributors. 9789395055222. pdf computational
— (2025). Nasal coda loss in Northern Naga: Revising W. T. French’s *–Vŋ rimes. Vaak Manthan. 10. 2. 37–49. Society for Endangered Languages (SEL) India. pdf historicalTibeto-BurmanPatkaian
— (2025). On the Independence of Tonogenesis in Patkaian Branches. Bradley, David; Taylor, Jo. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 48. 2. 163–192. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/ltba.25011.dam pdf link Patkaiantonetonogenesis
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Kelim Mossang, Wanglung. (2025). A Classified Account of J. F. Needham’s ‘A Collection of a Few Môshâng Naga Words’. Journal of Asian and African Studies. 2025. 109. 111–145. Tōkyō. The Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. 10.57275/ilcaajaas.2025.109_111 pdf legacy materials
Inman, David; Chousou-Polydouri, Natalia; Vuillermet, Marine; Dam, Kellen Parker van; Easterday, Shelece; Rose, Françoise; Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena; Baetscher, Kevin; Cocaud-Degrève, Oliver; Graff, Anna; Hardegger, Selma; Huber, Thomas; Hong; Tai; Krasovskaya D; Luffroy Raphael; Muheim, Nora; Müller, Andre; Nogina, A; Perrot, David; Steiger, Melvin; Bickel, Balthasar. (2025). The Areal Typology of Languages of the Americas (ATLAs) database. Scientific Data. 12. 1. 1–11. 10.1038/s41597-025-05169-4 pdf link typology
2023
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). Revisiting ‘Eye of the Day’: Tibeto-Burman evidence and arguments both for and against contact as the driver of innovation in response to Urban (2010) & Blust (2011). Bradley, David; Taylor, Jo. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 46. 2. 235–264. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/ltba.22011.van pdf typologysemantics
2021
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Rahman, Syed Iftiqar. (2021). Tangsa-Nocte as a Continuum: A diagnostic feature list for classification of varieties. Languages and Peoples of the Eastern Himalayan Region. 21. 2. 10.5070/h920253557 pdf historicaltypologyTangsaNoctean
2020
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2020). The syntax of intensifiers in Muishaung. Bradley, David; Taylor, Jo. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 43. 1. 19–36. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/ltba.19002.dam pdf intensifiers
— (2020). An Answer to Y. R. Chao’s Problem of Affricate Distributions in Wú. LACUS Forum. 41. Linguistics Association of Canada & the United States. 10.5281/zenodo.15193465 historicalSinitic
2019
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2019). Mapping the Frontier: Correlating Representations of Tangsa-Nocte Villages in Early British Survey Maps with Modern GIS Data. Mawrie B. L. Churuliyil M. Meyieho D. et al. Anthropology Today: An International Peer Reviewed Neira Journal. North East Institute for Research in Anthropology. 10.5281/zenodo.15208828 pdf TangsaNoctean
2018
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2018). A cross-varietal description of modifiers of basic colour terms in Tangsa-Nocte. Konnerth, Linda; Morey, Stephen; Teo, Amos. North East Indian Linguistics. 8. 47–64. Cambridge University Press. hdl.handle.net/1885/155280 pdf TangsaNoctean
2017
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2017). Written Standardization as a Precursor to Diglossia: A Case Study of Wú. LACUS Forum. 37. Linguistics Association of Canada & the United States. link
book chapters
to appear
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (forthcoming). Patkaian (Northern Naga). Hildebrandt, Kristine; Modi, Yankee; Peterson, David; Suzuki Hiroyuki. The Oxford Guide to the Tibeto-Burman Languages. Oxford. Oxford University Press. Patkaian
— (forthcoming). History of Sino-Tibetan (Trans-Himalayan). Zehentner, Eva et al. International Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 3rd Edition: Diachrony and Language Evolution. Elsevier. pdf historicalSiniticTibeto-Burman
2025
Vuillermet, Marine; Inman, David. Chousou-Polydouri, Natalia; Dam, Kellen Parker van; Easterday, Shelece. (2025). Is there a typological profile of isolates? Investigating language isolates: Typological and diachronic perspectives. Amsterdam. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 10.1075/tsl.135.01vui typology
outreach publications
2025
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2025). Digitizing Legacy Lexical Data of Muishaung for Computer-Assisted Language Comparison. Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice (CALCIP). 8. 2. 61–64. Passau. Universität Passau. 10.15475/calcip.2025.2.1 computationaltools & resourcesMuishaung
2024
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). Implementing Fuzzy Spelling Search in Dictionaries of Under-Described Languages Lacking Standard Orthographies. Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice (CALCIP). 7. 2. Passau. Universität Passau. 10.15475/calcip.2024.1.5 link computationaltools & resources
— (2024). Preparing Acoustic Pitch Data for Computational Analysis and Presentation. Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice (CALCIP). 7. 2. Passau. Universität Passau. 10.15475/calcip.2024.2.4 computationaltools & resourcestone
2018
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2018). Language or Dialect? The continuum of regional Chinese speech. Los Angeles Review of Books. Sinitic
proceedings papers
under review
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (under review). Automated Anomaly Detection for Ensuring the Quality of Fieldwork Data: Assessing Community-Driven Documentation of an Under-Resourced Language at the Myanmar Border. International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC). Mallorca.
2025
Snee, David; Ciucci, Luca; Rubehn, Arne; Dam, Kellen Parker van; List, Johann-Mattis. (2025). Unstable Grounds for Beautiful Trees? Testing the Robustness of Concept Translations in the Compilation of Multilingual Wordlists. 7th Workshop on Research in Computational Linguistic Typology and Multilingual NLP (SIGTYP). 10.48550/arXiv.2503.00464 typology
Rubehn, Arne; Rzymski, Chris; Ciucci, Luca; Dam, Kellen Parker van; Kučerová, Alžběta; Bocklage, Katja; Snee, David; Stephen, Abishek; List, Johan-Mattis. (2025). Annotating and Inferring Compositional Structures in Numeral Systems Across Languages. 7th Workshop on Research in Computational Linguistic Typology and Multilingual NLP (SIGTYP). 10.48550/arXiv.2503.01625 computational
2024
List, Johann-Mattis; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). EDICTOR 3. A web-based tool for Computer-Assisted Language Comparison. Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change. 1–11. Bangkok. Association for Computational Linguistics. aclanthology.org/2024.lchange-1.1.pdf pdf link computationaltools & resources
Sakhamo, Thüküvela; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). Social Structure of Porba. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Social Sciences (ICSS – I). Tharananellur Arts & Science College. 10.5281/zenodo.14017612 NagaChokri
talks
invited talks
2025
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2025). Legacy materials as a tool for modern documentation in the Northeast. Keynote 5rd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India (ICTiBLANEI-5). North East Hills University. Tura. link legacy materials
— (2025). Investigating tone in an undocumented language at the Burmese border. Linguistics Circle Seminar. L-Università ta' Malta. Msida. link tone
— (2025). Tonal Frontiers: Reconciling descriptive linguistic fieldwork with modern computational analyses. Phon Brown Bag series. National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Hsinchu. link tonetonogenesis
2024
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). Bridging the gap between computational methods and language documentation. Universität Regensberg. Department of General and Comparative Linguistics. Regensburg. computationaldocumentation
— (2024). Multilingual Computational Linguistics. Summer School of Linguistics. České Budějovice. computational
— (2024). Computationally-focused fieldwork with under-described languages. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Leipzig. computationaldocumentation
— (2024). Keynote: Novel computational methods for analysing languages: What Bayesian inference can and can not tell us about Kokborok. International Seminar on Kokborok as a look out of Literature & Linguistics. Government Degree College . Department of Kokborok. Khumulwng. link computational
2023
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). Research Methodology: Ethnography & Anthropological Linguistics. Nagaland University. Kohima. documentation
— (2023). Developing & Maintaining Community-Driven Language Resources: Dictionaries & Narratives. Workshop on Pedagogic Development. Longding. tools & resources
2022
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2022). Working with tone in Sino-Tibetan languages of Southeast Asia. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Department of Linguistics. Freiburg im Breisgau. toneTibeto-Burman
— (2022). The Cooperative Principle for academic writing: Grice's Maxims as a tool for authors. TiBLANEI. (online). link writing
2016
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2016). A crowd-sourced collaborative dictionary project for documentation of under-described languages. ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language Tools & Methods Summit. University of Melbourne. Melbourne. tools & resources
— (2016). Modifiers of Basic Colour Terms in Tangsa-Nocte. La Trobe University. Melbourne. intensifiers
2014
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2014). Fighting Language Loss in China – New Approaches to Dialect Preservation. Royal Asiatic Society. Shànghǎi. Sinitictools & resources
— (2014). Crowd Sourced Dialect Documentation & Preservation. TEDx. United International College. Zhūhǎi. Sinitictools & resources
— (2014). Grassroots dialect diversity preservation efforts in China and Taiwan. National Chiao Tung University College Of Hakka Studies. Zhúběi. Sinitic
2010
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2010). The Future of the Shanghai Dialects. Xīndānwèi. Shànghǎi. Sinitic
conference presentations
2025
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Nieder, Jessica; Thaam, Keen. (2025). An L1-Focused Approach To Concept Elicitation And Identification In Northeast India. 13th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Nagaland University. Kohima. documentationTibeto-Burman
Levy, Adam; Sakhamo, Thüküvela; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2025). Porba Chokri: A phonological analysis. 13th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Nagaland University. Kohima. NagaChokri
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2025). The texts of the Moka Garden Embroidery Mission in early 20th century Sūzhōu & Chángzhōu. Discussions on Legacy Materials – opportunities and challenges for descriptive linguistics. University of Bern Department of Linguistics. Bern. link legacy materials
— (2025). On the independence of tonogenesis in Northern Naga branches with new evidence from Khiamniungan. 58th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics - Workshop on Advances in Sino-Tibetan Historical-Comparative Linguistics. University of Bern Department of Linguistics. Bern. link tonetonogenesisKhiamniunganPatkaianTangsaWancho
— (2025). Phonetic realisation of ⟨r⟩ in Tangsa-Nocte varieties and the influence of community interpretations in orthography development. R-ATICS 8. L-Università ta' Malta. Valletta. link TangsaNocteanhistorical
— (2025). Computational methods for identification of roots and forms in Maltese verbs. Għaqda Internazzjonali tal-Lingwistika Maltija. Heinrich-Heine-Universität. Düsseldorf. computationalMalteseSemitichistorical
2024
Thaam, Keen; Meyan, Songmao; Thangjiu Methiam; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). Topographical sensitivity of verbs for “to go” in Thang Wolam & Pounyiu. 4th International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India. The English and Foreign Languages University. Shillong. link typologyWolamThangPounyiuKhiamniungan
Sakhamo, Thüküvela; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). The Structure of Chokrimi Society in Porba Village Nagaland. First International Conference on Social Sciences. Tharananellur Arts & Science College. Kerala. NagaChokri
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2024). Understanding J. F. Needham’s 19th century description of Muishaung as a record of language change in the Eastern Himalaya. Legacy materials as data sources for language description and documentation. Université Paris Cité. Paris. link historicallegacy materialsTangsa
— (2024). Hidden compounds and the importance of diachrony in synchronic description: The case of Khiamniungan. 21st International Congress of Linguists. Międzynarodowe Targi Poznańskie. Poznań. link historicalKhiamniunganWolam
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Rupini, Meri. (2024). Substratum effects in modern Rupini Kok: Is there evidence for a non-Tibeto-Burman origin of Old Rupini? International Seminar on Kokborok as a look out of Literature & Linguistics. Government Degree College . Department of Kokborok. Khumulwng. historicalKokborokRupini
2023
Karim, Shuan Osman; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). The potential areality of pitch-based word-level prominence marking in Kurmancî. 6th International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics. Frankfurt. link pitch
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). A Bayesian phylogeny of Patkaian (Northern Naga). 26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Heidelberg. link computational
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Muheim, Nora. (2023). A first description of Kaisan, a Tibeto-Burman language of Myanmar. 26th Himalayan Languages Symposium. Paris. link documentation
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). Toneme neutralisation in Tibeto-Burman iambic compounds. Speech Units Workshop. Zürich. link tone
— (2023). A Bayesian phylogeny of Bodo-Garo: Testing novel methods on established groupings. 12th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Guwahati. computationalBarish
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Rupini, Meri. (2023). The position of Old Rupini: Analysing the linguistic evidence for a substratum reflecting Palaungic origins. 12th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Guwahati. historicalKokborokrupini palaung
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Kanshouwa Susie. (2023). A reconstruction of proto-Maringic. 12th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Guwahati. historicalMaring
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). Reconstructing subtribe names for identification on early 20th century maps of the Patkai range. 3rd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India. Silchar. link historical
— (2023). Developing Bayesian language phylogenies from previously published data: A case study of Bodo-Garo. Workshop on New Results and Methods in Reconstructing Population History. Zürich*. computational
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Muheim, Nora. (2023). Reduplicated intensifiers as Northeast areal feature. 3rd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India. Silchar. intensifiers
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2023). Lexical phylogenies of under-described languages: Two case studies from Tibeto-Burman. Out of Asia workshop. Zürich. computational
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Thaam, Keen. (2023). A first description of Wolam Ngio, a Khiamniungic language of Nagaland and Myanmar. 56th International Conference on Sino–Tibetan Languages and Linguistics. Chulalongkorn University. Bangkok. descriptionWolamKhiamniungan
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Muheim, Nora. (2023). On the Reconstructability of a Sal pronominal system. 56th International Conference on Sino–Tibetan Languages and Linguistics. Chulalongkorn University. Bangkok. historicalSal
2022
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2022). Semantic Splits in Northern Naga: Lexical disambiguation through partial sound changes in polysemes. 2nd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India. Guwahati. link TangsaPatkaian
2021
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Kurabe, Keita. (2021). A comparative account of the Jinghpaw lexicon in China Myanmar and India: Evidence of the limited effects of language contact. 6th Workshop on Sino-Tibetan Languages of Southwest China. Kōbe*. historicalTibeto-Burman
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Das, Bishakha. (2021). Reduplication of intensifiers in Ollo (Laju) and Kasik (Khapa) Nocte. Workshop on ideophones and interjections. (online). link documentation
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Goswami Dipjyoti. (2021). Demonstratives as sentential comparatives in Pangwa Tangsa. 30th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. (online). link documentation
Inman, David; Natalia; Vuillermet, Marine; Chousou-Polydouri; Dam, Kellen Parker van; Easterday, Shelece; Rose, Françoise. (2021). Is there a typological profile of isolates? Societas Linguistica Europaea. Athens*. typology
Rose, Françoise; Vuillermet, Marine; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2021). Reassessing the areality of sociative causation. Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas. (online). areas
2020
Dam, Kellen Parker van; Rahman, Syed Iftiqar. (2020). A diagnostic featural list for classification of varieties within Tangsa-Nocte. 11th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Kokrajhar. typology
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2020). Borrowing and re-borrowing in Southeast Asia: Complicating factors in historical reconstruction. Workshop on Tracing contact in closely related languages. Universität Zürich. Zürich. link contact
2019
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2019). Developing software for collaborative community-driven dictionaries of under-documented languages: An example with a large-volume Tai Phake dictionary. Uppsala Language Documentation Group workshop. Uppsala. link tools & resources
Morey, Stephen; Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2019). Material culture and agriculture in Tangsa (Naga) languages – Evidence from Tai borrowings and traditional song texts. 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Australian National University. Canberra. link contact
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2019). Horsing around: The Complicated State of Tangsa-Nocte *aŋ Rhymes. 52nd International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics; 25th Himalayan Languages Symposium. Sydney. link historicalcontact
2016
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2016). Dealing with Tone in an Undocumented Tibeto-Burman Language. Australian Linguistic Society. Melbourne. tone
— (2016). A Cross-varietal Description of Modifiers of Basic Colour Terms in Tangsa-Nocte. 9th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society. Tezpur. intensifiers
2014
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2014). An Answer to Y. R. Chao's Problem of Affricate Distributions in Wú. Linguistics Association of Canada and the United States. Vancouver. historicalSiniticcontact
2010
Dam, Kellen Parker van. (2010). Written Standardization as a Precursor to Diglossia: A Case Study of Wú. 37. Hamilton. Linguistics Association of Canada & the United States. Sinitic