After a long academic career in Australia, Hong Kong, the US, Japan, Germany and the UK, Austin is emeritus professor at SOAS University of London since retiring in December 2018.
After completing a BA degree with first class Honours in Asian Studies (Japanese and Linguistics) in 1974,[1] Austin earned his PhD with his thesis entitled A grammar of the Diyari language of north-east South Australia at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1978.
[5] He worked with Eli Timan on documenting Judeo-Iraqi Arabic, and with Sabah Aldihisi on Neo-Mandaic ritual language used by the Mandean communities of Syria, Iraq and Iran.
He first learned Diyari in 1974, from several fluent native-speakers, including Leslie Russell, Frieda Merrick, Rosa Warren, and Ben Murray, who he encountered in Marree, South Australia.
[9] In 2014 he published an article "And still they speak Diyari", in which he wrote of the unique place of the language, as the subject of intensive interest by outsiders as well as native speakers for nearly 140 years, and that not only is it not extinct, but it is living and being maintained for the future.