Project

Mapping Heritage Language Structure Through Sociolinguistic Cues: A Case Study of Swiss Tamil - a collaborative research project with Prof. Anita Auer, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Funded by Indian Council of Social Science Research and Swiss National Science Foundation. In the field of heritage linguistics, a prominent theory known as the "simplification hypothesis" posits that the linguistic structure of heritage languages, or minority languages in societies where language acquisition occurs primarily at home during childhood, is less complex and more straightforward than the same language spoken by native communities in their country of origin. By conducting a methodical linguistic comparison between Swiss Tamil and Tamil spoken in southern India and northern Sri Lanka, the study aims to examine the validity of this hypothesis from a cross-linguistic perspective.