Speakers

Asmah Haji Omar

Faculty of Languages and Linguistics
University of Malaya

Asmah Haji Omar is Professor Emeritus of the University of Malaya, where she has been Professor (Chair) of Malay Linguistics, Founder Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Instrumental in the implememtation of the National Language Policy at the UM, Asmah was responsible for the changeover to Malay as official and main language of the university. She has worked on Malay communities, and on Malaysian aborigines and indigenous peoples of the Sabah and Sarawak. Asmah has also worked on the linguistics of the indigenous peoples of Malaysia, as well as the spread of Malay. Apart from books and articles, Asmah has produced two encyclopedias.

Hans Henrich Hock

Department of Linguistics
University of Illinois

Hans Henrich Hock is Professor of Linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from Yale University. His research interests include general historical and comparative linguistics, as well as the linguistics of Sanskrit. He currently teaches general historical linguistics, Indo-European linguistics, Sanskrit, diachronic sociolinguistics, pidgins and creoles, and the history of linguistics.

Susan Needham

Department of Anthropology
California State University