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With a history spanning thousands of years, the Silk Road has witnessed the evolution of the languages and dialects used by countries and regions along its route and fostered their contact. The International Symposium on Silk Road Linguistics, organised by T.T Ng Chinese Language Research Centre (CLRC) of the Institute of Chinese Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), takes place on 30-31 May 2024, bringing together nearly a hundred participants to actively discuss linguistics research topics along the Silk Road.

The opening ceremony of the Symposium was graced by the presence of Professor Alan K.L. CHAN, Provost of CUHK, who delivered the opening address. Professor TANG Sze Wing, Director of CLRC, delivered the welcoming address. The seven keynote speakers were from China, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, and the United States, namely Professor Benjamin BROSIG (Nazarbayev University), Professor Hilary CHAPPELL (École des hautes études en sciences sociales / CUHK), Professor Yen-hui Audrey LI (University of Southern California), Dr. Erika SANDMAN (Helsinki University), Professor Shuangcheng WANG (Shanghai Normal University), Professor Dan XU (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz), and Professor Yonglong YANG (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences).

The Symposium featured four parallel sessions, where over forty scholars shared their research and insights on topics such as phonology, lexicology, grammar, sociolinguistics, and language contact. The presentations sparked lively discussions among participants. The presenters demonstrated a diverse representation, including France, Japan, Morocco, and a wide range of provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, and a special administrative region of China, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Henan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang, and Hong Kong.

This Symposium built on the success of the Maritime Silk Road Suite, the first international linguistics event devoted to the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road under the Belt and Road Initiative, which was organised by CLRC in 2017. According to Professor Tang, the previous event focused on the Maritime Silk Road and the current Symposium covering the Silk Road Economic Belt together provide a complete picture of the linguistic research along the Belt and Road routes. He hopes that these events could serve as a platform to boost the visibilities of the findings on language phenomena in specific regions, enhance exchanges in relevant studies, and broaden the academic community’s understanding of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The International Symposium on Silk Road Linguistics, sponsored by the CUHK Research Summit Series, is one of the academic events celebrating the 60th anniversary of CUHK.