VERBA ALPINA. The Alpine culture area reflected by its multilingualism

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thomas Krefeld; Dr. Stephan Lücke
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Software Engineering and Programming Languages
• Term: from 2014 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 253900505

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

VerbaAlpina has developed a comprehensive geolinguistic-lexicographical system from October 2014 to October 2023. The database from three language families can be accessed via a multifunctional online portal. In a total of three project phases, specific vocabulary from selected conceptual domains typical of the Alpine region was systematically and structurally collected in a relational database. At the end of the project, the lexicographical core data in the database contained over 370,000 data records (individual utterances, morpholexical types, concepts). The database was extracted from language atlases and dictionaries and was supplemented with data contributed by internet users using a crowdsourcing tool. In addition to the lexicographical output, the originally developed project portal represents a substantial result of the project. The portal is based on a WordPress installation that has been expanded to include numerous functions, the most important of which are freely available and reusable in the form of WordPress plugins. VerbaAlpina data can be accessed on the project portal either via an interactive online map or text-based in list format. Data can also be retrieved in different formats and with variable filtering via an API. The use of a relational database and the selected data structure allow access from both a semasiological and onomasiological perspective. In combination with the interactive online map, VerbaAlpina is a language atlas and dictionary in one. As part of the project, there was also a detailed discussion of the consequences and challenges of the full digitalisation of the research process in all its facets - from data collection to publication. This reflection on methods is published in a separate methodology section on the project portal. The VerbaAlpina database was treated in accordance with the FAIR criteria. The structured core database was transferred to the research data repository of the LMU University Library, where it is permanently available for re-use by third parties under an open licence. The software code developed by the project is available on Github. The interactive project portal will continue to be operated by the ITG of the LMU as long as this is technically and staff-wise possible. There are still no standardised procedures or reliable infrastructures in Germany for the continued operation of 'living' systems beyond the end of project funding.

Publications

• Geoling 2.0 – Ein aktueller Bericht aus der Werkstatt der webbasierten Sprachgeographie, Berlin, in: Tosques, Fabio (Hrsg.), 20 Jahre digitale Sprachgeographie - Tagungsband (Berlin 02. bis 03. November 2012), 130-151
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• Quando l'etnolinguistica alpina va online: alcune esigenze metodologiche, Aoste, in: La géolinguistique dans les Alpes au XXIe siècle. Méthodes, défis et perspectives (= Actes de la conférence annuelle sur l'activité scientifique), Région Autonome de la Vallée d'Aoste, 39-51
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• VerbaAlpina – Der alpine Kulturraum im Spiegel seiner Mehrsprachigkeit. Ladinia, 38(2014), 189-211.
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• VerbaAlpina. Der alpine Kulturraum im Spiegel seiner Mehrsprachigkeit, München, online
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• 22 Monate – Arbeitsbericht des Projekts VerbaAlpina (31.7.2016). Ladinia, 40(2016), 259-272.
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• Alles in BUTTER im Alpenraum (aber nicht in der Wortgeschichte von Butter), Tübingen, in: Gerstenberg, Annette / Kittler, Judith / Lorenzetti, Luca / Schirru, Giancarlo (Hrsgg.), Romanice loqui. Festschrift für Gerald Bernhard zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, Tübingen, Stauffenburg, 155-160
  Krefeld, Thomas
  
• Geolinguistic documentation of multilingual areas. Studies in Language Variation (2017, 7, 14), 199-214. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  Oberholzer, Susanne & Kunzmann, Markus
  
• >>...und wie sagt man bei Euch daheim? <<, Tegernsee, in: Tegernseer Tal - Zeitschrift für Kultur, Geschichte, Menschen und Landschaft, vol. 168, Tegernseer Tal Verlag, 31-34
  Kunzmann, Markus & Mutter, Christina
  
• Bedeutung und Funktion von crowdsourcing im Projekt verbaalpina/The Meaning and Function of Crowdsourcing in the VerbaAlpina Project. Jezikoslovni zapiski, 22(2).
  Wiatr, Aleksander
  
• Berichte aus der digitalen Geolinguistik: Wörter – Sachen – Neue Medien. Akten der ersten Arbeitstagung des DFG-Langfristvorhabens VerbaAlpina und seiner Kooperationspartner am 20./21.6.2016, Korpus im Text, Band 6. Version 2 (18.06.2018)
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• The Virtual Research Environment of VerbaAlpina and its Lexicographic Function, Ljubljana, in: Jaka Čibej / Vojko Gorjanc / Iztok Kosem / Simon Krek (eds.): Proceedings of the XVIII EURALEX International Congress, University Press, Faculty of Arts Ljubljana, 775-785
  Mutter, Christina & Wiatr, Aleksander
  
• 54 Monate VerbaAlpina – auf dem Weg zur FAIRness. Ladinia, 43(2019), 139-155.
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• Visualising language in space - new approaches in linguistic cartography, Vancouver, in: Proceedings of the IEEE VIS 2019, IEEE Computer Society
  Mutter, Christina & Zacherl, Florian
  
• Dialektdatenerhebung neu gedacht: Vom Nutzen des Netzes für die Sprachwissenschaft, Mannheim, in: IDS Sprachreport, vol. 2, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
  Kunzmann, Markus & Mutter, Christina
  
• Interopérabilité des données géolinguistiques à l’exemple du projet VerbaAlpina. Bien Dire et Bien Aprandre (35), 131-146.
  Colcuc, Beatrice & Mutter, Christina
  
• La geolinguistica digitale e le sfide lessicografiche nell'era delle digital humanities: l'esempio di VerbaAlpina, in: Cristina Marras / Marco Passarotti / Greta Franzini / Eleonora Litta (a cura di): Atti del IX Convegno Annuale AIUCD. La svolta inevitabile: sfide e prospettive per l'Informatica Umanistica. Milano: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 15-17 gennaio 2020, Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale, 74-81
  Colcuc, Beatrice
  
• Cartography and interoperability of linguistic data: digital geolinguistics illustrated by the project VerbaAlpina, Paris, in: Études Digitales. 2021 – 1. n° 11. Ordre numérique et désordre digital, Classiques Garnier, 23-43
  Colcuc, Beatrice & Mutter, Christina
  
• Neues von den Sprach- und Sachatlanten. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 137(4), 1148-1164.
  Krefeld, Thomas
  
• VerbaAlpina – Digital Geolinguistics Dedicated to the Lexical Analysis of the Alpine Dialects, in: Thibault, André / Avanzi, Mathieu / Lo Vecchio, Nicholas / Millour, Alice (Hrsgg.), Nouveaux regards sur la variation dialectale | New Ways of Analyzing Dialectal Variation (Travaux de Linguistique et de Philologie), Strasbourg (Éditions de linguistique et de philologie) 2021, 153-171
  Lücke, Stephan
  
• Con parole tue. apropos [Perspektiven auf die Romania] (9), 187-212.
  Colcuc, Beatrice & Rodella, Anna
  
• L’Atlas des patois valdôtains (APV/1) in contesto alpino, Alessandria, in: A'Atlas des Patois Valdôtains: sguardi incrociati/regards croisés. Letture multidisciplinari del primo volume dell'APV (Le lait et les activités laitières), a cura di Paolo Benedetto Mas e Gianmario Raimondi, 119-123 / 174-177
  Krefeld, Thomas
  
• Tools for data processing and visualization in the project VerbaAlpina. Working Papers in Corpus Linguistics and Digital Technologies: Analyses and Methodology (2022, 9, 16), 55-70. University of Szeged.
  Colcuc, Beatrice & Zacherl, Florian
  
• Berichte aus der digitalen Geolinguistik (II): Vernetzung und Nachhaltigkeit. Akten der zweiten Arbeitstagung des DFG-Langfristvorhabens VerbaAlpina und seiner Kooperationspartner am 18.06.2019, Korpus im Text, Band 9. Version 30 (22.06.2023)
  Krefeld, Thomas; Lücke, Stephan & Mutter, Christina
  
• Berichte aus der digitalen Geolinguistik (III): User Interfaces/User Experience vor dem Hintergrund traditioneller Arbeitsweisen. Dritte Arbeitstagung des DFG-Langfristvorhabens VerbaAlpina vom 14.-15. Juli 2022, Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus (Zugspitze), Korpus im Text, Band 15. Version 1 (31.07.2023)
  Krefeld, Thomas; Lücke, Stephan & Mutter, Christina
  
• Sketching out a virtual framework for Romance geolinguistics. Studies in Corpus Linguistics (2023, 8, 15), 198-216. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  Krefeld, Thomas & Lücke, Stephan
  
• Strategie di resa grafica delle consonanti palatali nei contributi crowd del database VerbaAlpina
  Fiori, Stefano