Quick Facts
Biography
Mark Turin (born 1973) is a British anthropologist, linguist and broadcaster of Italo-Dutch origin who specialises in the Himalayas. He serves as Chair of the First Nations and Endangered Languages Program and Acting Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the Digital Himalaya Project.
Biography
After completing his undergraduate studies in Anthropology and Archaeology with First Class Honours from the University of Cambridge (1995), Turin documented the Thangmi (Thami) language spoken in Nepal and northern India for his doctoral research through the Himalayan Languages Project at the University of Leiden. From May 2007 until May 2008, he served as Chief of the Translation and Interpretation Unit in the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN).
Turin continues to direct the Digital Himalaya Project, which he co-established in December 2000, based jointly at Cambridge and Yale universities. In 2009, he set up the World Oral Literature Project supporting the documentation and preservation of oral literatures and endangered cultural traditions, affiliated to the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Turin was elected to a Fellowship at Hughes Hall, Cambridge in March 2011 and made a Quondam Fellow in March 2014.
From August 2011 to June 2014, Turin held the posts of Lecturer and Associate Research Scientist and Program Director of the Yale Himalaya Initiative at the MacMillan Center for International & Area Studies, Yale University. From 2013, together with Sienna Craig, he has served as Editor of Himalaya, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies. His BBC Radio 4 series entitled Our Language in Your Hands on linguistic diversity and language endangerment in Nepal, South Africa and New York aired in December 2012, and his second series On Language Location on the linguistic landscape of Bhutan and Burma/Myanmar aired in October 2014 on BBC Radio 4 and in March 2015 on the BBC World Service.
Publications
Books
- 2012. A Grammar of Thangmi with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and their Culture. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region, Volume 6. Leiden: Brill. 996 pages, 2 volumes. ISBN 978-90-04-15526-8.
- 2009. Grounding Knowledge/Walking Land: Archaeological Research and Ethno-historical Identity in Central Nepal, by Christopher Evans, with Judith Pettigrew, Yarjung Kromchain Tamu and Mark Turin. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. ISBN 978-1-902937-50-2. 223 pages, 116 illustrations, 12 tables.
- 2007. Linguistic Diversity and the Preservation of Endangered Languages: A Case Study from Nepal 42 pages, maps, colour plates. Talking Points, 4/07, ISBN 978-92-9115-055-7 (printed) & ISBN 978-92-9115-074-8 (electronic).
- 2004. Nepali – Thami – English Dictionary, by Mark Turin with Bir Bahadur Thami. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari. ISBN 99933-812-4-1. 115 pages.
Edited volumes
- 2014. Perspectives on Social Inclusion and Exclusion in Nepal, edited by Om Gurung, Mukta Singh Tamang and Mark Turin. Kathmandu: Central Department of Sociology / Anthropology, Tribhuvan University. ISBN 9789937524506. 242 pages.
- 2013. After the Return: Special Issue of Museum Anthropology Review, 7 (1–2). Edited by Joshua Bell, Kimberly Christen and Mark Turin.
- 2013. Oral Literature in the Digital Age: Archiving Orality and Connecting with Communities, edited by Mark Turin, Claire Wheeler and Eleanor Wilkinson. Cambridge: Oral Literature Series, Open Book Publishers. 190 pages. ISBN 9781909254305 & 9781909254312.
- 2011. Himalayan Languages and Linguistics: Studies in Phonology, Semantics, Morphology and Syntax, edited by Mark Turin and Bettina Zeisler. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library, 5. 323 pages. Brill: Leiden. ISBN 9789004194489 & 900419448 7.
- 2010. Language Documentation and Description, Volume 8, Special issue: Oral Literature and Language Endangerment, edited by Mark Turin and Imogen Gunn. London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project, Department of Linguistics, School of Oriental and African Studies. 175 pages. ISSN 1740-6234.
- 2003. Themes in Himalayan Languages and Linguistics. Edited by Tej Ratna Kansakar and Mark Turin. Kathmandu: South Asia Institute (SAI) Heidelberg and Tribhuvan University. 293 + x pages. ISBN 9993354163.