SEALS 33

Southeast Asia is an area with great linguistic diversity, with speakers of five language families having been living together in this geographical area for several thousands of years. The five language families are Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Kra-Dai (or Tai-Kadai), Hmong-Mien (or Miao-Yao), and Sino-Tibetan. Although conferences devoted to research on each specific language family (e.g. International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL); International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (ICAL); International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (ICSTLL)) exist, scholars working on different language families in this area rarely have formal opportunities to interact with each other. 

In 1990, the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS, or the Society) was founded by Martha Ratliff and Eric Schiller. SEALS is formed for the purpose of facilitating and promoting contact and communication among scholars and students of Southeast Asian Linguistics, and for the dissemination of their scholarly works. SEALS welcomes contributions that deal with general and applied linguistic issues (as opposed to cultural or anthropological topics, or acquisition or teaching methodology). Presentations must relate directly to languages spoken in the region of Southeast Asia. The annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, normally held annually, provides an excellent platform for scholars and students working on languages from different Southeast Asian language families to share their research methods and results.