Interview with K. David Harrison, Ph.D.

K. David Harrison, Ph.D. is a linguist, author and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages teaching at Swarthmore College, and affiliated with the National Geographic Society. He presented this research at the 2012 AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Recent Research Papers | About K. David Harrison, Ph.D.

Recent Research Papers

Literacy, orality and the extinction of languages. In B. Jabor (ed.) Encontro Internacional de Educação: Arte e

Analfabetismo Funcional. Rio de Janeiro: Casa Daros. Language as an Emergent System. (with Eric Raimy) Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Ethical concerns in Documentary Linguistics: With Special Attention to Language Endangerment. Anthropology News. (Sept. 2007) 31-32

Na(t)ive orthographies and endangered language documentation. (with Gregory Anderson) Linguistic Discovery. 4(1)

Ös tili (Middle and Upper Chulym Dialects): Towards a comprehensive documentation. (with Gregory Anderson) Turkic Languages. 10(1) 47-71.

Ethnography in Documentary Linguistics. In Peter Austin (Ed.) Language Documentation and Description Vol 3. 22-41. London: SOAS.

About K. David Harrison, Ph.D.

K. David Harrison, Ph.D. is a linguist, author and activist for the documentation and preservation of endangered languages teaching at Swarthmore College, and affiliated with the National Geographic Society.

His research focuses on the Turkic languages of central Siberia and western Mongolia. He co-starred in Ironbound Films' Emmy-nominated 2008 documentary film The Linguists. He serves as director of research for the non-profit Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.

Dr. Harrison has done field work on endangered languages in Siberia and Mongolia Tuvan, Tsengel Tuvan, Tofa, Ös, Tuha, Monchak, Munda, and also in Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, and India.

He specializes in phonology, particularly vowel harmony, and in the study of language endangerment, extinction, and revitalization.

He presented this research at the 2012 AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.