Giulia Cabras (Principal Investigator)
Giulia Cabras is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions post-doctoral fellow at Freie Universität Berlin. She holds a PhD in Language Sciences (2016) from the Paris National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO). Her research addresses a number of questions concerning multilingualism in Northwest China, particularly the impact of local and global social and political changes on language practices and language ideologies. In addition to her research monograph “Alternance codique entre le ouïghour et le chinois: Une étude de cas sur la communauté linguistique ouïghoure de Ürümchi” (Lincom, 2018), she has published peer-reviewed articles in The International journal of Multilingualism, The International Journal of the Sociology of Language, Central Asian Affairs, Chinese Perspectives and the International Journal of Chinese Linguistics.
Judith Meinschaefer (Supervisor)
Judith Meinschaefer is Professor of Romance Linguistics at the Free University of Berlin. She studies word structure and its interfaces with sound and meaning in the Romance languages from a theoretical perspective. She occasionally works on Asian languages such as Chinese and Vietnamese. She is particularly interested in the methodological aspects of gaining knowledge and the possibilities of modeling findings on language systems, on languages in contact and on linguistic knowledge. Her publications include work on lexical semantics, on morpho-phonological variation and on the phonological integration of loanwords.
Tsering Wangdue (Tibetan language consultant)
Tsering Wangdue studied achariya (equivalent to a Master’s degree) in Tibetan culture and language at the Central University for Tibetan Studies (CUTS), Varanasi, India. He was a professor of Tibetan language for seven years in India and currently teaches Tibetan at the Paris National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations (INALCO).
Giovanni Meccia (Student assistant)
Giovanni Meccia is a student of Mandarin Chinese preparing to graduate in Languages, Cultures, and Societies of Asia and Mediterranean Africa at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. He has a particular interest in so-called “minority languages”. Throughout his university studies, he has been studying Cantonese, Classical Tibetan, and Modern Khalkha Mongolian. This linguistic journey led him to explore the Wutun language and culture. Giovanni spent five months studying at Renmin University of China (中国人民大学), during which he traveled extensively across north-west China. He also had the unique opportunity to visit the Wutun village in Tongren (Rebkong), Qinghai province. His dream is to become a photojournalist and researcher specializing in minority languages, traveling to discover and document minority cultures, customs, and traditions. He aims to learn these lesser-known languages to communicate authentically with local communities, deepen his cultural understanding, and contribute to preserving their linguistic heritage.