Bio

Abhimanyu Sharma is an Assistant Professor in German Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He graduated with a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Cambridge in 2019. His dissertation was on a comparative analysis of language policies in the European Union and India. Prior to joining Cambridge, he completed an MA in German Linguistics at the University of Bern and another in Medieval German Literature at the University of Bremen. He has received several scholarships, including Cambridge International Scholarship and Swiss Excellence Scholarship, and been invited for Fellowships at Pennsylvania and Prague in the past. He is currently working on developing his dissertation into a monograph under the tentative title “Reconceptualising Power. Lessons from Comparative Language Policy Research”. In addition to comparative language policy, he has worked on language rights in Luxembourg and India, and the role of English as a facilitator of social mobility in India.

Project

During my stay at Faber, I will work on a comparative study of language policies in Northern Ireland and Manipur. Specifically, I will focus on comparing Ulster Scots and Meitei, the languages associated with the historically dominant groups in Northern Ireland (Protestants) and Manipur (Meitei) respectively. The aim is to compare the language movements led by these communities and the interplay of these languages in a post-conflict scenario with those that have been historically marginalised in these polities.

Note: I am working on this project with Dr Peter Gardner (York).