Dr. Pema Wangdi

Dr. Pema Wangdi is a linguist, researcher, and translator with a rich interdisciplinary background in Linguistics, Economics, Public Administration, and Information Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from James Cook University, Australia, where he produced a comprehensive grammar of Brokpa, a Trans-Himalayan language of Bhutan. He also underwent three years of intensive training in all core linguistic subjects, including Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Dictionary-making, earning a Graduate Diploma and an MLing degree in Linguistics from the Australian National University.

With about two decades of public service, Dr. Wangdi played a pivotal role in language policy formulation, dictionary development, and natural language processing (NLP) initiatives at the Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC), in collaboration with the College of Science and Technology (CST) in Bhutan. He was also involved in planning, coordinating, and supervising numerous language-related projects at the DDC. Furthermore, Dr. Wangdi provided training courses on translation from Classical Tibetan and Dzongkha into English and vice versa, as well as courses on grammar, to Bhutanese scholars and multiple cohorts of Bhutanese civil servants until his resignation from public service in 2017.

He also served as First Secretary and Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Bhutan to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, during which he taught the bilingual Language and Literature International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme at Institut Le Rosey. A fluent speaker of Tshangla, Dzongkha, and several Bhutanese dialects, Dr. Wangdi has translated major religious and literary texts from Classical Tibetan and Dzongkha into English. He has also authored and published numerous scholarly articles on Bhutanese languages and delivered lectures on a wide range of subjects related to Bhutanese languages at both national and international conferences.

His current research interests include endangered languages, linguistic typology, and the cultural dimensions of language. Dr. Wangdi is presently an Adjunct Research Fellow at Central Queensland University, Australia.