More than 800 Papuan languages spoken on and around the island of New Guinea today, but the proportion of unknown or poorly documented Papuan languages is still one of the highest in the world. Due to the huge number of Papuan languages and the unprecedented speed of their decline in recent decades, much of the effort of linguists in the area has focused on the documentation and description of individual languages or small groups of languages. Great strides have been made in their documentation and these descriptive improvements have, in turn, allowed many new studies into different aspects of Papuan languages.

The "Current Trends in Papuan Linguistics" colloquium focuses on taking stock of the latest research into Papuan languages, discuss what has been achieved, and what the focus of future research should be. It strives to bring together researchers working on Papuan languages from different sub-fields of linguistics, including, but not limited to, linguistic anthropology, language acquisition, historical linguistics, language description and documentation, contribution to theoretical linguistic, sociolinguistic or typological syntheses, data aggregation and management, etc. The colloquium will also welcome contributions on the wider Melanesian Linguistic Area, dealing with such issues as Papuan language contact with and shift to Austronesian languages.

This year, CTPL particularly welcomes submissions from early career researchers. At least half of the available slots will be reserved for PhD students and early career post docs.