Paul James Sidwell is an Australian linguist based in

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

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, who has held research and lecturing positions at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

. Sidwell, who is also an expert and consultant in forensic linguistics, is most notable for his work on the

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

of the Austroasiatic language family, and has published reconstructions of the Austroasiatic, Bahnaric, Katuic, Palaungic, Khasic, and Nicobaric proto-languages. Sidwell is currently the president of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS) and also regularly organises the International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL).

Career

In 2001, Sidwell was appointed as a collaborating scientist at the

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network. Well-known scientists currently based at ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. From 2001 to 2004, he was an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the

, remaining there from 2005 to 2007 as a visiting research fellow, funded by the Max Planck Institute. From 2007 to 2011 he was director of the Mon-Khmer Language Project at the Center for Research in Computational Linguistics at

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

, and from 2012 to 2016 an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the Australian National University, working on the Austroasiatic Lexicon Project. For the rest of 2016 he rejoined the Center for Research in Computational Linguistics, Bangkok, as a consulting linguist on the DARPA/LORELEI Project. Since 2017 he has been a partner at Language Intelligence, and in 2017/2018 was an honorary lecturer of the Australian National University. From 2019 to 2021 he was an honorary associate in the Department of Linguistics of the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

Personal life

Sidwell currently lives in Batemans Bay,

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

.Paul Sidwell

Publications

Books

* *Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell (eds). ''The handbook of Austroasiatic languages''. Leiden, Boston: Brill. *Sidwell, Paul. 2015. ''The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon''. Munich: Lincom Europa. *Sidwell, Paul and Philip Jenner. 2010. ''Old Khmer Grammar''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. *Sidwell, Paul. 2009. ''Classifying the Austroasiatic Languages: history and state of the art''. Munich: Lincom Europa. *Sidwell, Paul. 2005. ''The Katuic Languages: classification, reconstruction and comparative lexicon''. Munich: Lincom Europa. *Sidwell, Paul and Pascale Jacq. 2003. ''A Handbook of Comparative Bahnaric: volume 1 — West Bahnaric''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics 551. *Sidwell, Paul. 2000. ''Proto South Bahnaric: a reconstruction of a Mon-Khmer language of Indo-China''. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics 501. *Sidwell, Paul and Pascale Jacq. 2000. ''A Comparative West Bahnaric Dictionary''. Munich: Lincom Europa. *Sidwell, Paul and Pascale Jacq. 1999. ''Sapuan (Sepuar)''. Munich: Lincom Europa. *Sidwell, Paul and Pascale Jacq. 1999. ''Loven (Jruq) Consolidated Lexicon''. Munich: Lincom Europa.

Dissertation

*Sidwell, Paul. 1998. ''A reconstruction of Proto-Bahnaric''. Ph.D. dissertation.

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

References

*Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell (eds). 2015. ''The handbook of Austroasiatic languages''. Leiden, Boston: Brill. *Sidwell, Paul. 2015. ''The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon''. Munich: Lincom Europa.

External links

Paul Sidwell home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sidwell, Paul Linguists of Southeast Asian languages Historical linguists Academic staff of the Australian National University University of Melbourne alumni Linguists of Austroasiatic languages Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century Australian linguists 21st-century linguists People from Eltham, Victoria