[Lingtyp] NW New Guinea: the least documented region in the world?

[Jocelyn Aznar]

Dear John, dear everyone,

While I totally agree with the importance of doing fieldwork in Papua, 
I'd be a bit more nuanced than John regarding the current situation.

The region has been administered by Indonesia since 1963(? if I remember 
well), after Dutch colonial rule ended. Note that since 2022, there are 
actually six different provinces (Papua, Papua Barat, Papua Tengah, 
Papua Pegunungan, Papua Selatan, Papua Barat Daya), and the 
conflict/development situation between Papuan populations and the 
Indonesian government varies quite a lot from one region to another. As 
far as I'm aware, in particular in the central highlands, there is an 
active conflict. Coastal areas might be comparatively safe.

So fieldwork is possible and very important to the documentation of 
languages around the world, still I'd recommend anyone interested to get 
in touch with researchers already working in the area, for safety 
reasons, and also to know the current access situation.

Best regards,
Jocelyn

PS: I'm banned from Indonesia for having contributed to the organization 
of a colloquium that was discussing what's happening to the Papua 
population in the area (people are being displaced, concentrated into 
camps, disowned of their lands, killed when protested, if some people 
talk about a slow genocide, most people (except the Indonesian 
government) agree that there are crimes against humanity happening). And 
also, note that if you happen to take a public stance for the Papua 
population, not only you will have deal with the retaliations, but your 
institution as well, for instance if other researchers in your 
institution are working with/in Indonesia, they might get into trouble 
to get a VISA or something like that.

Le 09/08/2026 à 22:50, John Mansfield via Lingtyp a écrit :
> Dear all,
> 
> I would like to advertise the exceptional current potential for 
> fieldwork PhDs in Papua province, Indonesia. William Foley (2018: 435) 
> notes that this may be the least documented region in the world. There 
> are dozens of undocumented languages, including whole families that are 
> almost totally undocumented. Furthermore, the region is now quite easily 
> accessible, safe, and I would say there are almost ideal conditions for 
> fieldwork PhDs.
> 
>  From the little we know about languages in this area (see Foley 2018, 
> The languages of Northwest New Guinea), it is clear that they are 
> typologically unusual and morphologically complex. For example in the 
> Tor family, verbs inflect for time-of-day, proximity, elevation, and 
> gender/number of multiple participants.
> 
> There are still plenty of fluent speakers for most languages, and 
> communities that are very keen to welcome anyone who can help them write 
> their languages. However there is also rapid language shift in the 
> younger generations, so now is really the time to act.
> 
> To typologists who have potential PhD students looking for a fieldwork 
> location: please consider the exceptional potential and need of this 
> region. I would be happy to share more information, and local contacts, 
> with anyone who might seriously consider fieldwork here. I myself do not 
> have funding for any PhD positions at the moment.
> 
> John Mansfield
> 
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