It is our pleasure to welcome Prof. Rai as guest research at our center, where he will pursue his work on a study of Chamling mundhum rituals and ritual language.

Vishnu S. Rai, Ph.D. (University of Bern), is professor at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu (Nepal), where he has taught English Language Teaching (ELT) and linguistics. In ELT his expertise lies in language-literature interfaces and in linguistics his interests are in sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, semantics and morphology. He has carried out field research on various endangered languages of Nepal, such as Puma, Chamling and Tilung.

From 2004-2008 he was a member of the “Chintang and the Puma Documentation Project” (CPDP), jointly run by Leipzig University, and Tribhuvan University and funded by the Volkswagenstiftung as part of the DOBES (“Dokumentation bedrohter Sprachen”) programme. He has published many articles and books on language revitalization, Kiranti language and culture, as well as multilingual education. Dr. Rai is also a creative writer who writes both in Nepali and English.