Relish: Rendering Endangered Languages Lexicons Interoperable through Standards Harmonization

• Fachliche Zuordnung: Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Experimentelle Linguistik, Typologie, Außereuropäische Sprachen
• Förderung: Förderung von 2009 bis 2012
• Projektkennung: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Projektnummer 126094888

When a lexicon constitutes the only record of a dying or already extinct language, it can contribute unique linguistic and cultural information to our store of scientific knowledge. And making it interoperable with other lexical data becomes a critical research priority. The project proposed here will promote language-oriented research by addressing a two-pronged problem: (1) the lack of harmonization between digital standards for lexical information in Europe and America, and (2) the lack of interoperability among existing lexicons of endangered languages, in particular those created with the Shoebox lexiconbuilding software. The project will harmonize key European and American digital standards whose divergence has hitherto impeded international collaboration on language technology for resource creation and analysis, as well as web services for archive access. Focusing on six to eight lexicons of endangered languages, the project will establish a unified way of referencing lexicon structure and linguistic concepts, and develop a procedure for migrating these heterogeneous lexicons to a standards-compliant format. Once developed, the procedure will be generalizable to the large store of lexical resources involved in the LEGO and DoBeS projects.

• DFG-Verfahren: Digitalisierung und Erschließung (Wiss. Literaturversorgung und Informationssysteme)
• Internationaler Bezug: USA
• Antragstellende Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main; Fachbereich Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften; Institut für Empirische Sprachwissenschaft; Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
• Partnerorganisation: National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
• Kooperationspartnerin: Professorin Dr. Helen Aristar-Dry