Bert Remijsen

Bert Remijsen serves as a Reader (equivalent to Associate Professor) in the Linguistics and English Language department at the University of Edinburgh's School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. He teaches Phonetics and Laboratory Phonology courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and leads a Guided Research seminar on Shilluk linguistics while coordinating ethics for the department.

His academic credentials include:

• PhD in Linguistics from Leiden University (2002)
• MA in Linguistics from Leiden University (1994-1996)
• First degree in Slavic Languages with distinction (1992-1994)

Remijsen's research focuses on two interconnected domains: descriptive analysis of the Shilluk language (a West Nilotic language of South Sudan) and suprasegmental systems involving pitch, duration, voice quality, and vowel length. His work establishes typological boundaries for suprasegmental phenomena globally, with documented contributions regarding tone-stress coexistence, three-level vowel length, and contrastive tonal alignment in contour tones. This research naturally evolved from Dinka to Shilluk through fieldwork in West Nilotic language communities.

Analysis of his 2020-2025 publications reveals consistent emphasis on West Nilotic languages (Shilluk, Dinka, Nuer, Sengwer) with methodological integration of laboratory phonology techniques and field documentation. Key thematic threads include morphological-phonological interfaces, floating features in prosodic systems, and acoustic analysis of voice quality as an independent contrastive dimension. His work bridges theoretical linguistics with urgent language preservation needs for endangered communities.

Remijsen actively mentors six PhD students as lead or second supervisor and secures significant research funding including Leverhulme Trust support for suprasegmental studies in three West Nilotic languages (2020-2023), British Academy funding for Sengwer language documentation (2023-2024), and University of Edinburgh grants for Thuri language data collection and Shilluk literacy development.

His research infrastructure includes extensive audio-visual documentation and lexical databases hosted through Edinburgh DataShare, developed collaboratively with native speakers like Otto Gwado Ayoker and interdisciplinary researchers including Umberto Noe for acoustic analysis components.