Suhnu Ram Sharma was born in 1947 in Hamirpur- Kangra valley, Himachal Pradesh. He took his B.A. with honors in Sanskrit from Punjab University Chandigarh in 1968, and he received his M.A. in Linguistics with gold medal in 1970, his Ph. D treated the phonology of the Spiti language (Kurukshetra university 1975). He taught Hindi to American Peace Corps in a few programs during 1970-73. He worked as field linguist in the dialect survey of Haryana conducted by the department of Linguistics at Kurukshetra. From 1974 to 1980 Dr. Sharma worked as a Research Associate (linguistics) in Anthropological Survey of India, Calcutta, and now Kolkata. He conducted extensive fieldwork among the Wanchoo tribe in Arunachal, Onge language in Little Andamans, For his linguistic Traits survey he worked on the tribal languages of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
In 1980 Sharma became a Reader in Tibeto-Burman linguistics at the department of Linguistics of Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, now deemed university at Pune, where he teaches postgraduate students in Tibeto-Burman linguistics, morphology, semantics and sociolinguistics. Sharma has guided about half a dozen M Phil students and about a dozen Ph. D students. He became Professor of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics in 2004 at the same Institute at Pune. Prof. Sharma was also the Head of the department of linguistics at the same Institute for six years during 1996 to 2004.
As a part of social work in academics, Sharma managed the affairs of the Linguistic Society of India, Pune as the Secretary for fifteen years (1990 to 2005).
Professor Sharma retired from his teaching position (Professor of Tibeto-Burman Linguistics) at Deccan College on September 30, 2006. He was reappointed there on the same position till April 2007.
Professor Sharma joined IIAS as Gonda Fellow on May 1, 2007 and continued till September 30, 2007. During his term at IIAS he published his ‘Byangsi Grammar and Vocabulary', form Deccan College, Pune in August 2007. He continues to work on his Manchad Grammar.
Professor Sharma has been now offered a Senior Fellowship by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) Mysore, India to work on language contact and language change - a case study of Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman contact in western Himalayas. He will soon join at Patiala, Northern Regional Language Centre of the CIIL, when he returns to India in October 2007.
His major researches are on the Pronominalized Tibeto-Burman languages of western Himalayas. Byangsi book is the latest in the list of his publication. (cf. Publications)
He has published two books as a co-author, three edited vols. as co-editor and published about two dozens of research articles and half a dozen book reviews in national and international journals. (Cf. publication list)
His forthcoming book, ‘A Grammar of Manchad' from Brill, Leiden will be a major publication. ( 2008 )
He commands the knowledge of a number of Indian and foreign languages.
Kangri, (Mother tongue) Hindi, Panjabi, English, (Speaking, reading and writing skills) Sanskrit, Tibetan, (reading skills) and functional spoken knowledge of Esperanto, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi and Nepali.
Sharma was Co-Editor of Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate & Research Institute, from 1992 to 1999, and from 2002 to-2005. Member of Publication Committee, Indian Linguistics, Pune. (2006-08) He continues to be a Member of Editorial Committee of Linguistics of Tibeto-Burman Area, La Trobe University, Austalia and Berkeley, USA. since 1987. Member of the Editorial Board of the Himalayan Linguistics Journal, http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/HimalayanLinguistics since 2003.
Dr Sharma was Postdoctoral Fellow at Himalayan Language Project at Leiden University, Netherlands: May-August 1995 and May- July 1997.
From the year 1979 till date Dr. Sharma represented India in more than fifteen International conferences and seminars and forty national seminars and workshops. He delivered lecturers on Tibeto-Burman linguistics, at Nagaland university Kohima (November 2003), department of Linguistics, Delhi university, (March 2007) and taught a number of courses in Sanskrit linguistics at the university of Pune.
Publications:
Forthcoming publications:
- November 2007. Status of Bunan in Tibeto-Burman family: Proceedings of the 8th Himalayan Languages Symposium, Bern, Switzerland. 2007 Mouton de Gruyter. Berlin.
- Mid 2008. Grammar of Manchad language.Brill Leiden