Yeshes Vodgsal Atshogs
Distinguished Professor in Linguistics, Nankai University
Visiting Scholar, Harvard University

Yeshes Vodgsal Atshogs is Distinguished Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Sino-Tibetan Language Research Center at Nankai University, China. Currently he is also a Harvard-Yenching visiting scholar at Harvard University. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo and the University of Maryland. Atshogs’ research primarily explores language contact and the historical relationship between Tibetan, Chinese, and neighboring languages. He presents an alternative perspective to the mainstream “Sino-Tibetan language” hypothesis, proposing that Proto-Chinese was a mixed language, with Tibetan and Chinese potentially sharing only their basic lexicon. His work has also provided systematic and regular sound correspondences between Tibeto-Burman and Altaic languages regarding nominal gender, number, and case, as well as verbal tense, aspect, and word formation, which he termed “Tibeto-Altaic grammatical drift.” His prolific studies have received several academic awards, including the Mantaro J. Hashimoto  Award for Chinese Historical Phonology from the International Association of Chinese Linguistics (IACL), the National Award for Outstanding 100 Doctoral Dissertations in China, and the Outstanding Achievement Award for Research in Higher Education Institutions thrice from the Ministry of Education of China.

Moderator: Dr. Tashi Rabgey, Research Professor of International Affairs and Director of Tibet GovLab