Professor Dr. Selin Grollmann

Biography

Selin Grollmann is a researcher in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Bern. Her academic focus includes the study of languages in the Himalayas, particularly those spoken in Bhutan and Nepal, emphasizing linguistic diversity, diachronic linguistics, and anthropological linguistics. Currently, she is working on her PhD project, which aims to provide a grammatical description of the Nachiring language, a Kiranti language spoken in the eastern Nepal Himalayan foothills. This language is characterized by its morphosyntactic complexity and biactantial verbal agreement, which are typical features of Kiranti languages. Grollmann's research highlights the critical status of the Nachiring language, which is highly endangered with only around 100 speakers remaining, mainly from the grandparents' generation. The speakers of Nachiring face significant pressure to assimilate linguistically and culturally to the national language, Nepali. Grollmann integrates descriptive linguistics and linguistic relativity into her work, focusing on endangered languages and their preservation.

Research Interests