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Project News

Lo-Rig Now Housed in the Trinity Long Room Hub

01 June 2026

From 1 June 2026, the Lo-Rig project is housed in the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute at Trinity College Dublin.

Trinity Long Room Hub logo

The Trinity Long Room Hub is Trinity's research institute for the Arts and Humanities. Its research community spans more than twenty disciplines, including languages, literatures, cultural studies, linguistics, history, education, and the University Library. Its current research priorities also include human-centred approaches to technology.

This makes the Hub a supportive institutional setting for Lo-Rig's work on language documentation, linguistic description, community collaboration, and AI-assisted workflows for under-resourced languages.

Following its initial setup period with the School of Linguistic, Speech and Communication Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Lo-Rig is grateful for the support received during that stage and looks forward to continuing its work within Trinity's wider arts and humanities research community.

The move gives the project a clear institutional base within Trinity College Dublin as it continues its work on the documentation and description of Gongduk and Monkha, and on the development of AI-assisted workflows to support language documentation.

More information about the Trinity Long Room Hub is available on its website:

About the Trinity Long Room Hub

Settling into Academic Life at Trinity College Dublin

28 April 2026

The Lo-Rig project's PhD student, Tshering Om Tamang, arrived at Trinity College Dublin on 28 April 2026. In her first week, she has been settling into life on campus, meeting fellow researchers at the Trinity Centre for Asian Studies (TCAS), and completing key administrative steps such as obtaining her student ID card. Her arrival followed delays related to visa procedures and flight restrictions. She has also begun familiarising herself with Trinity's academic systems, libraries, and research facilities, as well as navigating life in Dublin. Looking ahead, she hopes her four years at Trinity will be intellectually rewarding, offering opportunities for meaningful research, collaboration, and personal growth. She particularly looks forward to advancing her research on the Monkha language as part of the Lo-Rig project.

PhD student, Tshering Om Tamang, at Trinity College Dublin

PhD student, Tshering Om Tamang, at Trinity College Dublin (April 2026).

Tshering Om Tamang Registers as PhD Student at Trinity College Dublin

01 March 2026

On 01 March 2026, Tshering Om Tamang officially registered as a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin.

Tshering's doctoral research will focus on the preparation of a descriptive grammar of the Monkha language as spoken in the Riti and Cungseng speech communities in Sarpang district, Bhutan. Her work will form a central component of the Lo-Rig project's long-term documentation and description of Monkha varieties.

Tshering Om Tamang at the Royal University of Bhutan

Tshering Om Tamang at the Royal University of Bhutan.

While Tshering received her visa for Ireland after a four-month wait in early March, she is still waiting for her passport to be returned and is also unable to travel to Dublin due to travel restrictions in the Middle East. The project team looks forward to welcoming her in person once the necessary arrangements have been completed.

The Lo-Rig project is delighted to have Tshering formally join the team and anticipates a productive collaboration in the years ahead.

Michael Bayona Joins the Lo-Rig Project

01 February 2026

On 1 February 2026, Michael Bayona joined the Lo-Rig project as a postdoctoral research fellow.

Michael specialises in speech processing and artificial intelligence. Within the project, he will apply and further develop computational methods for the analysis of Gongduk and Monkha, with a particular focus on accelerating the transcription and processing of recorded materials. His work will also contribute to the development of digital tools and applications that speakers can use to support and promote their respective languages.

Michael Bayona, Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Lo-Rig project.

Michael Bayona, Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Lo-Rig project.

The Lo-Rig project team warmly welcomes Michael and looks forward to a productive collaboration over the coming three years.

Start of the Research Assistants

August-September 2025

The two Research Assistants of the Lo-Rig project, Sonam Lhamo and Rinchen Wangdi, officially took up their positions on 01 August 2025.

They started their work by conducting a linguistic survey of their respective speech communities, Monkha and Gongduk. This linguistic survey has already resulted in valuable data on the total number of speakers of these languages and their proficiency, the inter-generational transmission of the languages, and the reasons for the decline in the speaker populations.

While the situation of Monkha was found to be more positive than expected, the Gongduk language was found to be in a more dire position than was initially assumed.

Formal Commencement and Set Up of the Project

July-September 2025

The Lo-Rig project officially commenced on 01 July 2025.

In the subsequent months, the project was formally set up at Trinity College Dublin and at the Centre for Bhutan and GNH Studies (CBS) in Bhutan.