Zinan Liang / Tsinam Leung (梁梓楠)

Zinan Liang / Tsinam Leung (梁梓楠)

he/him

MA by Research in Linguistics @ NUS | Language documentation and low-resource language technologies

About Me

About

I am an MA by Research student in Linguistics at the National University of Singapore (NUS). My research interests connect digital humanities, language documentation and revitalization, and language technologies for low-resource languages. I am also interested in typological variation and language contact in Southern Sinitic and Southeast Asian languages.

My academic work is grounded in descriptive and historical linguistics, with computational methods used as research infrastructure: collecting and cleaning corpus data, organizing lexical resources, building dictionary infrastructure, and developing tools that make Yue language data easier to search, type, annotate, and share.

My MA thesis, The Sketch Grammar of Malaysian Lui Chiew (Leizhou Min), is supervised by Nala Lee. It describes phonology, word classes and syntax using material collected during fieldwork in Tiang Dua, Melaka, and Muar, Johor, in July 2026. I welcome enquiries and conversations about this research.

Research Interests

  • Digital humanities approaches to language documentation and revitalization
  • Exploring and adapting language technologies for low-resource languages
  • Typological variation and language contact in Southern Sinitic and Southeast Asian languages

Computational Methods

I use computational methods to support linguistic research and develop tools for low-resource languages. My work has involved:

  • collecting, cleaning, and structuring web-based Chinese and Cantonese text data
  • building Python workflows for corpus parsing, filtering, and lexical data preparation
  • time-aligning recordings in ELAN and using Praat for acoustic analysis
  • using speech recognition to locate passages in recordings, followed by listening and manual transcription
  • developing dictionary and input-method resources for Cantonese and Pan-Cantonese projects
  • supporting open-source language technology projects with Git-based collaborative workflows

Selected Projects

  • TypeDuck: Cantonese input method and multilingual dictionary project for Cantonese learners, including IME algorithm server and dictionary UI work.
  • Jyutping++: extended romanization and transcription work for Yue varieties.
  • CanCLID: corpus, language-model, classifier, IME, and Common Voice infrastructure work.
  • Lingnaam Jyutjam: Pan-Cantonese Dictionary, Yue classification discussion, Early-Qing Cantonese phonology, and Jyutping++ work.

Contact