CRLAO

The Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale belongs to the Sciences du langage section (section 34) of the Institut des sciences humaines et sociales (INSHS) of the CNRS, and is an integral part of both the centers of the Division aires culturelles of the EHESS and the research teams of the Ecole doctorale de l'Inalco.

Created in 1960 within the former Sixth Section of the EPHE as the Centre de linguistique chinoise, it changed its name in 1971 to the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale. This new title better reflected the extension of the geographical area covered by its activities, but also, and above all, referred to a typological, comparative and historical approach, aimed at studying the four languages of the cultural area concerned that are (or have been) linked by the Chinese script: Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese. The main activities of CRLAO's members concern the "hard core" of linguistics, i.e. the study (synchronic and diachronic) of the phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of East Asian languages (Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, Japanese, Korean, as well as Altaic, Austronesian and Austroasiatic). Beyond the linguistic and semiological issues that underlie them, work on writing remains linked to philological and paleographic reflection.