About Me

Hi! I am John Oliver Monghit, but you can just call me Oliver (he/him). I am a Ph.D. candidate in East Asian Studies at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. My current research focuses on the phonological description and historical development of Philippine Hokkien, a Sinitic language spoken by the Chinese diaspora in the Philippines. I also work as a researcher on the Early Manila Hokkien (EMHo) project funded by the German Research Foundation and the Austrian Science Fund.

Languages have always fascinated me and I am particulary interested in how they vary across regions and evolve over time. Ever since my undergraduate years, I have been passionate about dialectology and historical linguistics. I believe that documenting languages is an essential part of a linguist’s responsibility, which has inspired me to conduct fieldwork with diverse speech communities and dive into archives to uncover historical texts. Along the way, I’ve also explored fields like digital humanities, language teaching, translation, and artificial intelligence.

When I’m not immersed in academic work, I enjoy traveling, listening to music (especially Asian and Latin genres), watching queer media, singing, dancing, trying out new cuisines, and hitting the gym.