On the Development of an Interdisciplinary Annotation and Classification System for Language Varieties – Challenges and Solutions

Abstract

Abstract:The Special Research Programme (SfB) 'German in Austria: VariationContact -Perception' is a project financed by the Austrian Science fund (fWf f60). Its nine project parts are collaboratively conducting research on the variation and change of the German language in Austria. The SfB explores the use and the subjective perception of the German language in Austria as well as its contact with other languages. Methodologically and theoretically, most SfB project parts are situated within variationist linguistics, others in contact linguistics and perceptionist linguistics. This paper gives an insight into the conception of a framework for the annotation and ultimately also classification of language varieties, which is being developed within the SfB. It outlines the requirements of the various project parts and reviews, whether and how standardised language codes (ISO 639) and language tags (following BCP 47) can be utilised for the annotation of language varieties in variationist linguistic projects.

Conception and Development of an Open Database System on Historical Multilingualism in Austria

“…GIS extension, JSON integration). Its entire development is open source and published on GitHub 4 , which allows developers to share their tools directly with the community, simultaneously strengthening the sustainability of these tools, since it provides the possibility for maintaining and developing them even after the project is finished.…”

“…For example, the census for Cisleithania did generally not distinguish Czech from Slovak and referred to speakers of these languages as Čecho-Slaven 'Czecho-Slavs' in 1880. Therefore, the information is not directly linked to a language (variety, see [4]) or religion (denomination) but rather to the name for the respective language or religion used in the source (see [a] in Fig. 3).…”

“…The database presents the joint work of the project parts of Task Cluster C of the SFB (PP05 and PP06, both concerned with language contact of German with other languages, particularly with Slavic languages. The project is being developed with PP11, which realizes the collaborative online research platform "German in Austria" (for another relevant collaboration of these projects see [4]).…”