The research project "Towards a linguistic prehistory of eastern-central South Asia (and beyond)" at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel in north Germany, funded by the German Research Council (DFG) (PE 872/5-1), is currently seeking to fill a PhD position (E 13 TV-L, 65%) for a period of three years (36 months) to begin 1 January, 2018 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The primary goal of the project is to determine prehistoric language contacts and spreads in South Asia, especially in eastern-central South Asia, by examining distributional patterns and checking these for potential areal and genealogical trends, constantly viewing this information against the backdrop of what is known of the history of this region and South Asia in general and taking the oral traditions and historicizing myths of the individual ethnicities into consideration, where possible. To achieve this goal, the project team will compile a fine-grained morphosyntactic and phonological database on the languages of sub-Himalayan South Asia, including Austro-Asiatic, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages as well as language isolates, concentrating on eastern-central India, based on data from both published studies and original field work, thereby providing us with answers to many questions regarding the linguistic prehistory of this part of the South Asian subcontinent (and beyond).

 Duties include the following:

• Data collection from published resources on the languages of sub-Himalayan South Asia (Austro-Asiatic, Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Dravidian and language isolates)
• surveying typological work on select linguistic topics
• the development of questionnaires, as needed, for use in fieldwork
• extensive field work in India – ca. 11 months within the first two years of the project
• analysis of the raw data from fieldwork
• assisting the postdoctoral researcher with data mining and explaining the patterns identified in the data
• assisting the postdoctoral researcher with the organization of an international workshop at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel in connection with the project
• participation at various international linguistic workshops and conferences to present the project's results

The successful candidate will hold an MA in General Linguistics (or in a closely related field) with a background in language typology, language description and/or language documentation (preferably all three). Candidates with an MA in South Asian Studies / Indology will also be considered, provided that they have a similarly strong background in these areas. The ability to work well in a team is essential, as is the willingness to familiarize oneself with the basic tenets of statistical analysis, as required.

Field work experience as well as familiarity with at least one modern South Asian language, preferably Hindi, are a definite asset, but are not a prerequisite for this position. If chosen, a candidate who is not familiar with Hindi will be expected to obtain a basic knowledge of spoken and written Hindi within the first 9 months of the project.

The holder of this position will also have the opportunity to complete his/her PhD during this time. 

Kiel University aims at increasing the number of women in research and academic teaching and strongly encourages applications of accordingly qualified women. Women will be preferred, provided equal qualifications and scientific performance.

The CAU supports the employment of severely disabled persons. Therefore, severely disabled persons will be preferred, provided equal qualifications and scientific performance.

Applications by people with a migration background are particularly welcomed.

Please send applications containing a cover letter and a CV by 17 November, 2017, to the following email address: jpeterson@isfas.uni-kiel.de