The Barrier Islands Languages project is a project funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP230102019) titled: “Languages of Barrier Islands, Sumatra: Description, History and Typology”. This project will run between 2023 and 2027 and investigate under-/undocumented Austronesian languages of the Barrier Islands, including Mentawai, Nias varieties (particularly Tello Nias), Devayan, and Sigulai, as well as neighbouring Northwest Sumatra languages, such as Mandailing Batak. New knowledge will be generated into the languages, cultures and societies of the region and be made freely available to the public. Research will uncover past migration patterns in Southeast Asia, advance language theory, such as linguistic typology and language change, and support the computational modelling of Austronesian for future language technologies.

Find out more