Sahiinii Lemaina Veikho | Humanities & Social Sciences

Sahiinii Lemaina Veikho

Sahiinii Lemaina Veikho
Assistant Professor
Linguistics
CV Summary: 

Sahiinii Lemaina Veikho is an Assistant Professor in Linguistics at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. His research interests include acoustic and articulatory phonetics, computational historical linguistics, and the application of technology in language documentation. His research primarily focuses on tone of the Trans-Himalayan languages spoken in the northeastern regions of India.

Contact Information

Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
Hauz Khas, New Delhi-110016

Office: MS 604-B
5th floor, MS Building

Email: sahiinii[at]iitd[dot]ac[dot]in

Research Areas

-Phonetics

- Tongue Imaging

-Technology for Language Documentation

-Trans-Himalayan Languages

NB: Prospective PhD candidates who are highly motivated and enthusiastic about acquiring new skills may reach out to discuss research plans. Basic programming skills (such as R and Python) are desirable.

Academic Background

-Postdoctoral Research Fellow : The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris

-PhD (Linguistics): University of Bern, Switzerland

Publications

Books:

-Grammar of Poumai Naga (Poula): A Trans-Himalayan Language of Northeast India (2021). Brill: Leiden. (https://brill.com/display/title/57482)

Peer Reviewed Articles:

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina. Poumai Naga (submitted) (2025). The Oxford Guide to the Tibeto-Burman Languages. Kristine Hildebrandt, Yankee Modi, David Peterson and Hiroyuki Suzuki (eds.). Published by Oxford University Press.

-Monsang, S., Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina. (2018). Sound System of Monsang. Himalayan Linguistics, 17(2). Published by University of California: California, USA (https://doi.org/10.5070/H917237811)

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina and Sarmah, Priyankoo (2018). Vowels and Tones in Poula. Linguistics of Tibeto-Burman Area, Volume 41:1. Published byJohn Benjamins Publishing Company: The Netherlands. (https://benjamins.com/catalog/ltba.16022.lem)

-Mushahary, Jitamoni and Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2016). A Note on Bodo phonology. Indian Linguistics, Volume 77, page 71-90.

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina and Barika, Khyriem (2015). Poula phonetics and phonology: An initial overview. North East Indian Linguistics Vol. 7: 45-60.Canberra, Australian National University: Asia-Pacifc Linguistics Open Access (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/156698443.pdf

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina and Mushahary, Jitamoni (2015). Preliminary Acoustics Study of Vowels and Tones in Kokborok. In Nepalese Linguistics Vol. 30:161-166. (https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepling/pdf/Nep_...)

Conferences

INVITED TALKS:

- Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2025), (invited speaker), “Significance of Linguistic Diversity in Northeast India" Feb 24th, 2025. Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University, organised the Northeast Students' Association (https://www.instagram.com/p/DGUrF3ZSTRZ/?igsh=MWJpOWZqZTdrMXA3dg==)

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2024), (invited speaker), “Preserving Linguistic Diversity: The Role of Technology in Northeast Indian Languages," August 30, 2024. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, organised by the Special Centre for the Study of North East India (SCSNEI), School of Social Sciences (https://www.jnu.ac.in/node/159896892).

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2024), (Invited Speaker) “Intersection of Technology and Indigenous Languages ” International Day of the World's Indigenous People, August 09, 2024. Berhampur University, jointly organised by the department of Linguistics and the department of English.

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2023), (Keynote Speaker) “Exploring the acoustic properties of tone in Trans-Himalayan languages” at the 27th International Symposium on Frontiers of Research in Speech and Music (FRSM-2023). Organized at National Institute of Technology, Surat, from the 4th to 5th August, 2023 (https://www.svnit.ac.in/conference/frsm2023/hit/index.php#speaker_part).

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2023), (Invited talk) “Diachronic Analysis of Angami-Pochuric languages Spoken in Northeast India” Jawaharlal Nehru University, Centre for Linguistics, February 20, 2023.

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2022), (Invited guest talk) “Angami-Pochuric languages,an understudied clade of the Sino-Tibetan family” University of Munster, Germany, December 20, 2022. (https://www.uni-muenster.de/Sprachwissenschaft/en/aktuelles/index.html)

-Veikho, Sahiinii Lemaina (2019), (Invited guest talk) “Poumai Naga languages under the Angami-Pochuri clade” University of Zurich, Switzerland, October 17,2019. (https://www.uzh.ch/de/events/agenda.html?event=44312&group=8)

Projects

Ongoing projects:
1) SonoSpeech: Towards Wearable Ultrasound-based Assessment of Speech Disorders .
Role: Principal investigator
Funding Agency: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), (₹ 89,93,121)
Duration: 3 years (2025-2028)

2) Speech data annotation and analysis of Oinam Speech Corpus.
Role: Principal investigator
Funding Agency: ELDP, Berlin (₹ 10,00,000)
Duration: 2 years (2024-2026)

3) A collaborative documentation of Two South-Central languages of the Cachar Cluster.
Role: Principal investigator
Funding Agency: ELDP, Berlin (₹ 96,53,014 )
Duration: 3 years (2024-2027)

4) Analysis of tongue movements in the production of tone using ultrasound imaging technology.
Role: Principal investigator
Funding Agency: Seed Grant, IIT Delhi ( ₹ 20,00,000) .
Duration: 3 years (2024-2027).

5) Bhagwan Birsa Munda Cell (BBMC) at IIT Delhi: To develop Techno Managerial Solution for Socio-economic Development of Tribal Communities in India (Speech Technology Development)
Role: Co-Principal investigator
Funding Agency: Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India (₹ 200,00,000)
Duration: 3 years (2024-2027).

Honours

-Major Documentation Project, Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Berlin (2024 to 2027), (Total amount: €105,850), grant reference no. MDP1024.

-The Young Faculty Incentive Fellowship, IIT Delhi (2023-2026)

-Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship, Endangered Languages Documentation Programme, Berlin (2022 to 2024), (Total Amount: €111805), grant reference no. IPF0383.

-Dr. Josephine De Karman Fellowship (2018-2019), Switzerland.

-Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant (USA). Amount: $7,025. Documentation of those endangered traditions of Poumai Naga. (2017-2018).

Courses

Website

Speech Lab IIT Delhi

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