Dr. Wendy Lalhminghlui

ESKAS Scholarship

E-Mail
wendy.lalhminghlui@unibe.ch
Office
B 161
Postal Address
University of Bern
Dept. of Linguistics
Unitobler
Länggassstr.49
3012 Bern

Research profile

I am committed to researching the Trans-Himalayan languages of northeast India, particularly those in the South-Central Tibeto-Burman subgroup. My work focuses on the phonetic and phonological description of tones and segmental features. I am passionate about documenting endangered languages across India. Additionally, I am keen to collaborate with computational linguists and speech technology engineers to develop language technologies for low-resource and under-documented languages, with the broader goal of supporting their long-term preservation and vitality.

I am currently investigating the tonal system of Biate as a postdoctoral researcher working under Professor Linda Konnerth. This research aims to fill gaps in the description of Biate tone by providing a detailed phonetic and phonological analysis of its tonal patterns. The outcome of this work will refine our understanding of the Biate sound system and generate insights that will strengthen future grammatical descriptions and comparative work within the South Central Tibeto-Burman and broader Trans-Himalayan language family.

Publications

  1. Lalhminghlui, W., & Sarmah, P. (2025). Acoustic Correlates of Mizo Tones. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, pp. 1 - 34, doi:10.1017/S0025100325100716.
  2. Lalhminghlui W. and Sarmah P., (2021). Characterizing Voiced and Voiceless Nasals in Mizo. Proc. INTERSPEECH 2021, pp. 426 – 430, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2021-2104.
  3. Lalhminghlui W. and Sarmah P., (2020). Interaction of Tones and Voicing in Mizo. Proc. INTERSPEECH 2020, pp.1903 – 1907, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2020-2695.
  4. Lalhminghlui W., Terhiija V. and Sarmah P., (2019). Vowel-Tone Interaction in Two Tibeto-Burman Languages. Proc. INTERSPEECH 2019, pp.3970 – 3974, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2019-2808.
  5. Lalhminghlui W. and Sarmah P. (2018). Production and Perception of Rising Tone Sandhi in Mizo. Proc. 6th International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages 2018, pp: 114 - 118. doi: 10.21437/TAL.2018-23.

Teaching

Past courses taught

  1. Aspects of Semantics - BA Linguistics Hons, Tetso College (2021)
  2. Phonetics II - MA Linguistics, University of Delhi (2021)
  3. Phonetics I - MA Linguistics, University of Delhi (2022)
  4. Introduction to Morphology - MA Linguistics, University of Delhi (2022)

CV

2025:

Postdoctoral researcher, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Bern

2024-2025:

Subject Matter Expert, Tech Mahindra, Hyderabad, India

2023-2024:

Resource Person, Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages, Central Institute of Indian Languages Mysuru, India

2021-2022:

Guest Faculty, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

2021:

Assistant Professor, Dept. of Linguistics, Tetso College, Nagaland, India

2014 - 2023:

Doctor of Philosophy in Humanities and Social Sciences (Linguistics), Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India

2012 - 2014:

Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics, University of Hyderabad, Telangana, India

2009 - 2012:

Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English, St. Edmund’s College, Meghalaya, India