The Languages of Southern New Guinea, an unexplored Linguistic Hotspot

This project will carry out the first systematic investigation of the languages of Southern New Guinea, a region just kilometres from Australia’s borders, spanning PNG and Indonesia. With around 35 languages in 9 families, Southern New Guinea is a top ‘language diversity hotspot’, yet its languages have yet to receive significant scientific investigation. Deploying a team of 3 leading field linguists, a postdoc, and 4 PhD students, this project will put the region on the map with detailed grammatical descriptions of eight languages, shorter descriptions of two more, a linguistic handbook and comparative database of the entire region, and numerous specific papers.