Roland Bauer, University of Salzburg

Dialectometric Analysis of the Linguistic Atlas of
Dolomitic Ladinian and Neighbouring Dialects


Dialectometry (DM) is a scientific procedure to synthesize data of linguistic atlases by means of statistical methods. Its primary goal is the explicit presentation of those latent patterns which are hidden in linguistic atlas data.

DM treats problems of human dialect management of geographic space (i.e. dialect merging, dialect transition, dialect borders). Its results can also be used for global or inter-disciplinary research.

Basically, DM proceeds in the following way:
1) measurement: the linguistic atlas data are encoded for subsequent computer treatment.
2) statistics: the encoded data are treated and condensed by numeric statistic methods.
3) visualization: the numeric results are visualized by means of computer cartography in a clear and suggestive way.

The tasks of this new dialectometric project will be the taxation of all data (about 1 million) of the new Linguistic Atlas of Dolomitic Ladinian and Neighbouring Dialects, ALD I (published in 1998/99 in seven volumes and three CD-ROM), the treatment and condensation of the data-input, the visualization of the numeric results and the upgrading (i.e. improvement) of existing computer-aided dialectometric tools such as IRS (Index Retrieval System of ALD I) and VDM (Visual DialectoMetry).

Back to ALD-DM, Roland Bauer (E-Mail, #43-662-8044-4485)