柯禕藍
Kellen Parker van Dam, PhD
Hello!
My name is Kellen Parker van Dam, 又叫作 柯禕藍. I am a linguist specialising in Sino-Tibetan languages in the far Eastern Himālaya along the India / China / Myanmar border. I mostly work on language documentation, historical phonology, tonogenesis & tonoexodus, typology, the history of migration & social contact, the role of geography in the context of language, the creation of maps for communities, and the use of computational methods to those ends.
I also 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 ("Northern Naga") 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.
To get in touch, see the links at the bottom of the page.
current positions
Chair assistant / Akademischer Rat auf Zeit (Assistant Professor equivalent)
Universität Passau Passau, DE
2023.10
Associate Academic Director
Training and Resources for Indigenous Community Linguists (TRICL)
2020.01
Adjunct Research Fellow
Department of Languages & Cultures
La Trobe University,Melbourne, VIC, AU
2019.04
brief résumé
A quick overview of what else I've been up to. This is only a selection of items, and is already probably too long.
upcoming talks
2025
The texts of the Moka Garden Embroidery Mission in early 20th century Sūzhōu & ChángzhōuDiscussions on Legacy Materials – opportunities and challenges for descriptive linguistics (DiLegMa).University of Bern, Department of Linguistics,Bern, CH2025.04.24On the independence of tonogenesis in Northern Naga branches with new evidence from Khiamniungan58th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics - Workshop on Advances in Sino-Tibetan Historical-Comparative Linguistics (ICSTLL58).University of Bern, Department of Linguistics,Bern, CH2025.09.15
recent conference presentations
Papers I've presented at conferences over the past few years, to give a better idea of some of my research interests.
2025
van Dam, K. P.,Nieder, J., Thaam, K.(2025)An L1-Focused Approach To Concept Elicitation And Identification In Northeast India13th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS13).Nagaland University,Kohima, NL, INLevy, A., Sakhamo, T.,van Dam, K. P.(2025)Porba Chokri: A phonological analysis13th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS13).Nagaland University,Kohima, NL, IN
2024
van Dam, K. P.,Rupini, M.(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.Tripura, INvan Dam, K. P.(2024)Hidden compounds and the importance of diachrony in synchronic description: The case of Khiamniungan21st International Congress of Linguists (ICL2024).Międzynarodowe Targi Poznańskie,Poznań, PL
—(2024)Understanding J. F. Needham’s 19th century description of Muishaung as a record of language change in the Eastern HimalayaLegacy materials as data sources for language description and documentation.Université Paris Cité,Paris, FR
Sakhamo, T.,van Dam, K. P.(2024)The Structure of Chokrimi Society in Porba Village, NagalandFirst International Conference on Social Sciences (ICSS-1).Tharananellur Arts & Science College,Kerala, IN
van Dam, K. P.,Thaam, K., Meyan, S., Thangjiu, M.(2024)Topographical sensitivity of verbs for “to go” in Thang, Wolam & Pounyiu4th International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India (ICTiBLANEI-4).Shillong, ML, IN
2023
van Dam, K. P.(2023)On the Reconstructability of a Sal pronominal system56th International Conference on Sino–Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL56).Chulalongkorn University,Bangkok, THvan Dam, K. P.,Thaam, K.(2023)A first description of Wolam Ngio, a Khiamniungic language of Nagaland and Myanmar56th International Conference on Sino–Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL56).Chulalongkorn University,Bangkok, TH
van Dam, K. P.(2023)Lexical phylogenies of under-described languages: Two case studies from Tibeto-BurmanOut of Asia workshop.Zürich, CH
—(2023)A Bayesian phylogeny of Patkaian (Northern Naga)26th International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL26).Heidelberg, DE
Karim, S. O.,van Dam, K. P.(2023)The potential areality of pitch-based word-level prominence marking in Kurmancî6th International Conference on Kurdish Linguistics (ICKL-6).Frankfurt, DE
van Dam, K. P.,Muheim, N.(2023)A first description of Kaisan, a Tibeto-Burman language of Myanmar26th Himalayan Languages Symposium (HLS26).Paris, FR
van Dam, K. P.(2023)Toneme neutralisation in Tibeto-Burman iambic compoundsSpeech Units Workshop 2023 (SUW2023).Zürich, CH
van Dam, K. P.,Kanshouwa S.(2023)A reconstruction of proto-Maringic12th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS12).Guwahati, AS, IN
van Dam, K. P.,Rupini, M.(2023)The position of Old Rupini: Analysing the linguistic evidence for a substratum reflecting Palaungic origins12th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS12).Guwahati, AS, IN
van Dam, K. P.(2023)A Bayesian phylogeny of Bodo-Garo: Testing novel methods on established groupings12th International Conference of North East Indian Linguistics Society (NEILS12).Guwahati, AS, IN
—(2023)Developing Bayesian language phylogenies from previously published data: A case study of Bodo-GaroWorkshop on New Results and Methods in Reconstructing Population History.Zürich, CH*
van Dam, K. P.,Muheim, N.(2023)Reduplicated intensifiers as Northeast areal feature3rd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India (ICTiBLANEI-3).Silchar, AS, IN
van Dam, K. P.(2023)Reconstructing subtribe names for identification on early 20th century maps of the Patkai range3rd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India (ICTiBLANEI-3).Silchar, AS, IN*
* Locations marked with an asterisk indicate talks which were attended remotely
selected publications
2025
van Dam, K. P.(2025). On the Independence of Tonogenesis in Patkaian Branches. In: Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. vol. 48:2.van Dam, K. P.,Kelim Mossang, W.(2025). A Classified Account of J. F. Needham’s ‘A Collection of a Few Môshângâng Naga Words’. In: Journal of Asian and African Studies. vol. 2025:109.pp.111-14510.57275/ilcaajaas.2025.109_111
2024
van Dam, K. P.(2024). Preparing Acoustic Pitch Data for Computational Analysis and Presentation. In: Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice. vol. 7:2.10.15475/calcip.2024.2.4Sakhamo, T.,van Dam, K. P.(2024). Social Structure of Porba. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Social Sciences (ICSS – I). 10.5281/zenodo.14017612
List, J.-M.,van Dam, K. P.(2024). EDICTOR 3. A web-based tool for Computer-Assisted Language Comparison. In: Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change. pp.1-11
van Dam, K. P.(2024). Implementing Fuzzy Spelling Search in Dictionaries of Under-Described Languages Lacking Standard Orthographies. In: Computer-Assisted Language Comparison in Practice. vol. 7:2.10.15475/calcip.2024.1.5
2023
—(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). In: Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. pp.235–26410.1075/ltba.22011.van2021
van Dam, K. P.,Rahman, S. I.(2021). Tangsa-Nocte as a Continuum: A diagnostic feature list for classification of varieties. In: Languages and Peoples of the Eastern Himalayan Region. vol. 21:2.10.5070/h920253557
2020
van Dam, K. P.(2020). The syntax of intensifiers in Muishaung. In: Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. vol. 43:1.pp.19–3610.1075/ltba.19002.dam—(2020). An Answer to Y.R. Chao’s Problem of Affricate Distributions in Wú. In: LACUS Forum. vol. 41.
2019
—(2019). Mapping the Frontier: Correlating Representations of Tangsa-Nocte Villages in Early British Survey Maps with Modern GIS Data. In: Anthropology Today: An International Peer Reviewed Neira Journal. 10.5281/zenodo.152088282018
—(2018). A cross-varietal description of modifiers of basic colour terms in Tangsa-Nocte. In: North East Indian Linguistics. vol. 8.pp.47–64recent invited talks
2025
Legacy materials as a tool for modern documentation in the NortheastKeynote, 5rd International Conference of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics Association of North East India (ICTiBLANEI-5).North East Hills University. Tura, ML, IN2024
Novel computational methods for analysing languages: What Bayesian inference can and can not tell us about KokborokKeynote, International Seminar on Kokborok as a look out of Literature & Linguistics.Tripura, INMultilingual Computational LinguisticsSummer School of Linguistics.Week-long seminar taught with Johann-Mattis List & Jessica NiederČeské Budějovice, CZ
Computationally-focused fieldwork with under-described languagesMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.Leipzig, SN, DE
Bridging the gap between computational methods and language
documentationDepartment of General and Comparative Linguistics, Universität Regensberg.Regensburg, BY, DE