Preliminary Call: 3rd Workshop on the Languages of Papua, Jayapura, 11-15 Feb 2013

[David Gil]

Preliminary Call for Abstracts

The Third
WORKSHOP ON THE LANGUAGES OF PAPUA
(WLP3)

11-15 February 2013
Jayapura, Papua, Indonesia

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WLP3 focuses on the most linguistically diverse part of the world, 
Melanesia, which straddles countries of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. 
Melanesia contains around a fifth of the world’s 6,000 languages in 
under 3% of its land area and less than 0.2% of its population. The 
scope of the workshop includes all languages known as 'Papuan', plus the 
Austronesian languages that are spoken in the vicinity of Papuan 
languages in New Guinea plus parts of Indonesia, East Timor and the 
Solomon Islands.

These languages are astonishingly diverse, barely known to science, and 
face the threat of extinction without trace in the coming century unless 
concerted international efforts are made to meet the huge challenge of 
documenting them. WLP addresses the scientific issues raised by these 
languages, covering the whole gamut of linguistic questions from 
phonology to syntax to typology to historical linguistics, as well as 
topics bordering musicology, anthropology and prehistory; it also 
includes papers on digital archiving, documentary linguistics, 
scientific infrastructure and the training of linguists from minority 
language groups. In addition, WLP addresses various practical issues 
concerning the cultural and linguistic rights of minority groups in 
Indonesia, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea, including language support 
and maintenance, and, in particular, the need for education programs 
that allow children to receive part of their schooling in their 
mother-tongue.
***

Persons wishing to present a paper at the symposium are invited to 
submit a one-page abstract in electronic form (preferably pdf, but 
MsWord also acceptable) to David Gil at the following address:

gil AT eva.mpg.de

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 September 2012

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Further information: http://email.eva.mpg.de/~gil/wlp/3/index.html
Inquiries: gil AT eva.mpg.de

***

Nicholas Evans & David Gil
(on behalf of the organizing committee)

-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/