James Neil Sneddon is an Australian linguist who specializes in Indonesian and

languages of Sulawesi On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, 114 native languages are spoken, all of which belong to the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian language family. With a total number of 17,200,000 inhabitants (2015 estimate, based on census data ...

Education

He studied Linguistics and Indonesian at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

. In 1974, he obtained a doctorate from the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

, where he completed his dissertation ''

Tondano Tondano is the capital of Minahasa Regency, mainly in the district of West Tondano (Kecamatan Tondano Barat), in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The city is located in the highlands on the shores of Lake Tondano near Mount Tondano, and enjoys cool tempe ...

Phonology and Grammar''. He was an associate professor at

Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

Career

Sneddon has written numerous works on the Indonesian language, including grammar textbooks. He is the author of the book ''Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian'', which describes the Jakarta dialect. In the book ''The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society'', he presents the history of the Indonesian language and its function in modern Indonesia. Sneddon's

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...

reconstructions include Proto-Minahasan and Proto-Sangiric.Sneddon, James N. (1984). ''Proto-Sangiric and the Sangiric languages.'' Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Books

* ''Indonesian Reference Grammar'' (1996) * ''Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar'' (1996) * ''Understanding Indonesian Grammar: A Student’s Reference And Workbook.'' (2000) * ''The Indonesian Language: Its History and Role in Modern Society'' (2003) * ''Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian'' (2006)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sneddon, James Living people Linguists of Austronesian languages Linguists from Australia University of Sydney alumni Australian National University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)