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Outreach and Dissemination

Lo-Rig Project Mentioned in Kuensel Article on Gongdue Kha

04 July 2026

The Lo-Rig project was mentioned in a recent article in Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper, titled "Gongdue Kha going extinct in Mongar". The article discusses the endangered status of Gongdue Kha and highlights current efforts to document and preserve the language. The Lo-Rig project is mentioned as part of these ongoing documentation efforts.

This media coverage helps draw attention to the urgency of language documentation work in Bhutan and to the importance of sustained collaboration with speaker communities in documenting, preserving, and promoting endangered languages.

The article is available online through Kuensel:

Read the article on Kuensel Online

A PDF copy of the print article is also available here:

Download the Kuensel article PDF

Research Seminar on Speech Technologies for Under-Resourced Languages

17 February 2026

On 17 February 2026, Lo-Rig researcher Michael Bayona gave a talk titled “Speech Technologies for Under-Resourced Languages: From Development to Application” as part of the Trinity College Dublin Linguistics Research Seminar series.

The talk provided an overview of how speech technologies such as automatic speech recognition and forced alignment can be developed and adapted in under-resourced language settings. Drawing on previous work with Philippine languages, it discussed how speech and language data can support downstream applications such as linguistic analysis, closed captioning, reading tutors, and educational technologies.

The talk also considered methodological issues that remain important for under-resourced language technology development, including limited data availability, speaker variability, pronunciation dictionary development, model adaptation, and the use of newer self-supervised learning approaches.

This addressed questions closely connected to the project's work on AI-assisted workflows for language documentation, particularly the use of speech processing tools to support transcription, analysis, and language technology development.

More information about the seminar is available on the Trinity College Dublin website:

Speech Technologies for Under-Resourced Languages: From Development to Application

Presentation at the 58th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics

04 September 2025

On 04 September 2025, Lo-Rig Principal Investigator Tim Bodt presented on "Contact between Kusunda and Sino-Tibetan" at the 58th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL58), held at the Department of Linguistics, University of Bern, Switzerland.

The talk was attended by around 30 linguists working on the Sino-Tibetan (Trans-Himalayan, Tibeto-Burman) language family, to which Gongduk and Monkha also belong.

More information about ICSTLL58 is available on the University of Bern website:

58th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics

Conference Presentation on Qiangic and Macro-Gyalrongic Languages

18 August 2025

On 18 August 2025, James Engels of the University of Edinburgh and Lo-Rig Principal Investigator Tim Bodt presented a paper titled "Qiangic interrelatedness and Macro-Gyalrongic: new insights from Songlin" at the 27th International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Santiago de Chile, Chile.

The conference brought together around 500 historical linguists from around the world. The presentation contributed to ongoing discussions on the historical relationships among Trans-Himalayan languages, with particular attention to Songlin and its position in relation to Qiangic, Chamdoic, and Macro-Gyalrongic languages.

More information about the conference is available on the official conference website:

27th International Conference on Historical Linguistics

Proposed phylogenetic tree showing Songlin and related Chamdoic languages within the Trans-Himalayan language family

Proposed phylogenetic tree showing Songlin and its related Chamdoic languages within the Trans-Himalayan language family.