The Himalayan Languages Project, launched in 1993, is a research collective based at Leiden University and comprising much of the world's authoritative research on the lesser-known and endangered languages of the Himalayas, in Nepal, China, Bhutan, and India. Its members regularly spend months or years at a time doing field research with native speakers. The Director of the Himalayan Languages Project is George van Driem; other top authorities include Mark Turin and Jeroen Wiedenhof. It recruits grad students to collect new field research on little-known languages as the topics for their Ph.D. dissertations. The Himalayan Languages Project was officially commissioned by the government of Bhutan to devise a standard romanization of Dzongkha. Since George van Driem's move to the University of Bern, many members of the Himalayan Languages Project are now based out of Switzerland. Languages studied Many of the languages studied by the Project are believed to be doomed to extinction in the next few years or decades, and might be lost to human knowledge but for the efforts of the Project. The Project has completed comprehensive grammars of the following languages: Limbu Dumi Dzongkha Wambule Kulung Jero The Project is currently working on comprehensive grammars of the following languages: Manchad Lohorung Thangmi Sunwar Lhokpu Sampang Gongduk Olekha Chɨlɨng Gyalrong Lepcha Chulung Dhimal The Project has completed grammatical sketches of the following languages: Bumthang Byangsi Puma Rabha Rongpo The Project is currently working on grammatical sketches of the following languages: Baram Dura Toto The Project also studied the fall into apparent extinction of the language Kusunda in Nepal, as its last speakers, who lived in the forest and subsisted by hunting, were absorbed and dispersed into the larger society. Himalayan Languages Symposium Members of the Himalayan Languages Project also regularly organise the Himalayan Languages Symposium, an annual conference on Trans-Himalayan languages. Conferences have been held annually since 1995. Below is a list of past conferences. See also Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus References External links Himalayan Languages Project official website The Kirat Rai Association's Web Portal Linguistic research Organizations established in 1993 Leiden University 1993 establishments in the Netherlands