Contact Information

Prof. Dr. George van Driem
Himalayan Languages Project
Languages and Genes of the Greater Himalayan Region
Leiden University
P.O. Box 9515
2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands

E-mail:
<dzongkha@compuserve.com>
telephone +31 71 527 2510
facsimile line +31 71 527 7569

Positions Held and Professional Experience

George van Driem has conducted field research in Nepal, Bhutan, northeastern India and
the western Indian Himalayas since 1983 and produced several in-depth grammars, a
number of grammatical sketches and coordinated the endangered language documentation
of the research team of the Himalayan Languages Project since 1993. Since 2001 he also
participates in Languages and Genes of the Greater Himalayan Region, a European
research programme which he conceived in 2000. Since 2002, he coordinates the
Austroasiatic languages research programme between Leiden University and l’École
française d’Extrême-Orient at Siem Reap. At Leiden he teaches undergraduate and
graduate students and gives guidance to Ph.D. fellows and post-doc scholars.

• December 1999 to present Professor (hoogleraar)
  
• April 1996 to November 1999 Reader (hoofddocent)
  
• April 1995 to March 1996 Lecturer (universitair docent)
  
• April 1990 to March 1995 Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of
  Sciences (Akademie-Onderzoeker)
  
• April 1986 to April 1990 Lecturer (universitair docent)
  
• August 1984 to March 1986 Research Assistant (wetenschappelijk assistent)
  
  

Programmes Established

• 1987     Founder and Head of the Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Programme in
  Tibeto-Burman Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics at Leiden University.
  
• 1993     Founder and Director of the Himalayan Languages Project, a research
  programme of Leiden University for the documentation of endangered
  languages of the greater Himalayan region.
  
• 1995     Founder and Permanent Secretariat of the Himalayan Languages Symposium,
  an annually convening international open scholarly forum.
  
• 2001     Languages and Genes of the Greater Himalayan Region, an ESF-funded
  interdisciplinary and international research programme to reconstruct Asian
  population prehistory.
  
• 2002     Euro-Asian Cooperation in Austroasiatic Linguistics, a Franco-Dutch research
  and exchange programme centred at l’École française d’Extrême-Orient at
  Siem Reap and at Leiden University.
  
  

Bibliography

• http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/driem/publications.html
  

Invited Lectures

• http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/driem/lectures.html
  

Honours and Awards

• 1996 Rolex Awards for Enterprise for setting up the Himalayan Languages Project
  
• 1998 Elected Honorary Member of the Kirant Yakthung Chumlung at Kathmanduhttp: www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/driem/lectures.html
  
  

Education

• Leiden University, 1983-1987 (PhD, A Grammar of Limbu)
  
• Leiden University, 1981-1983 (MA Slavic, BA English, MA General Linguistics)
  
• Leiden University, the Netherlands, 1979-1981 (BA Slavic)
  
• University of Virginia at Charlottesville, 1975- 1979 (BA Biology)
  
• Katholieke Universiteit te Nijmegen, 1978-1979
  
• Watling Island Marine Biological Station on San Salvador in the Bahamas, 1977
  
• Duke University at Durham, North Carolina, 1976
  
  

Sojourns as Visiting Sholar

• 1988 The University of Hong Kong
  
• 1990-’93 Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Leningrad
  
• 2001 City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon
  
• 2002 Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taipei
  
• 2003 Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, Leipzig
  
• 2004 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
  
  

Meetings Organized

• 1995     Old Chinese Seminar, Leiden
  
• 1995     1st Himalayan Languages Symposium, Leiden
  
• 1996     29th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics,
  Noordwijkerhout
  
• 1996     Old Chinese Forum, Noordwijkerhout
  
• 1996     2nd Himalayan Languages Symposium, Noordwijkerhout
  
  

Advisory

• Dzongkha Development Authority, Royal Government of Bhutan, 1989-present
  
• Commission for Nationalities Languages, Royal Nepal Academy, 1995-1998
  
• Comité Scientifique de l’Unité Propre de Recherche «Langues et Civilisations à Tradition
  Orale», Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1995-1999
  
• Visiting Committee, Linguistics Institute of the Academia Sinica at Taipei, 2001
  
• Selection Committee for the Indology Chair, Uppsala University, Sweden, 2003
  
• Parket van de Procureur des Konings, Antwerpen, Belgium, 2003
  
  

Grant Applications Reviewed

• European Science Foundation (ESF), Strasbourg
  
• Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Vienna
  
• National Science Foundation (NSF), Washington DC
  
• Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), The Hague
  

Visiting Scholars at the Himalayan Languages Project, Past and Present

• William Hubbard Baxter, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  
• Suhnu Ram Sharma, Deccan College, Poona
  
• Sergei Starostin, Moscow University of the Humanities, Moscow
  
• Karma Tshering, Himalayan Languages Project, Bhutan
  
• Dr’âsho Sanggä Dorji, Dzongkha Development Commission, Bhutan
  
• Hâp Tsentsen, Dzongkha Development Commission, Bhutan
  
  

Editorial

• Editor, Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region (Brill, Leiden), 1998 to present
  
  

Admisintration

• Director, Himalayan Languages Project, Leiden University, 1993-present
  
• Head, Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Programme in Tibeto-Burman Descriptive
  and Comparative Linguistics, Leiden University, 1983-2003
  
• Permanent Secretariat Himalayan Languages Symposium, 1995-present
  
  

Summer Courses

• Summer Institute of the Linguistic Society of America, University of California at Santa
  Barbara, 2001
  
  

Training: Research Fellows Having Completed Their Ph.D.

Training: Current Ph.D. Candidates