OUTOFPAPUA database: Lexicons of the West Papuan language area

The OUTOFPAPUA database: Lexicons of the West Papuan language area is an expanding online database of lexical materials of languages located on and around the Bird’s Head of New Guinea. The OUTOFPAPUA database is being compiled as part of the ERC-funded project “Papuans on the move. The linguistic prehistory of the West Papuan languages.” See here for more details on the project.

Citing the OUTOFPAPUA database

The OUTOFPAPUA database is a curated collection of contemporary and historical lexical materials on and in many languages. The database is a work in progress. The current pre-release can be cited as follows:

David Kamholz, Anne van Schie, Allahverdi Verdizade, Maria Zielenbach, and Antoinette Schapper. 2024. OUTOFPAPUA database: Lexicons of the West Papuan language area. Version 1.0. Available online at https://database.outofpapua.com/.

Each source in the database is provided with its original citation information. For example:

Original citation: Coenen, Jules. 1953. De Ihandin taal, gesproken op het schiereiland Onin, aan de westkust van N-Guinea. Unpublished typescript.

Sources in the database vary significantly in size, structure, orthography and gloss language. The database compilers have edited sources individually to fit the online format, the data model of the database, provided them with English translations of entries (where these are not in the original) and a unified IPA transcription. Therefore, when referring to data in the OUTOFPAPUA database, we recommend citing the original source in the following way:

Coenen, Jules. 1953. De Ihandin taal, gesproken op het schiereiland Onin, aan de westkust van N-Guinea. In David Kamholz, Anne van Schie, Allahverdi Verdizade, Maria Zielenbach, and Antoinette Schapper. 2023. OUTOFPAPUA database: Lexicons of the West Papuan language area. Version 0.1. Available online at https://database.outofpapua.com/. Accessed on 26-09-2022.

For information on the data model and how to browse and search the database, see here.