Digitising Collections of Historical Linguistic Data: The Example of The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland

John Monfries Kirk (1) , Christian Hessle

1 Universität Wien = University of Vienna

The paper provides a preliminary exploration of the possibilities and prequisites for digitising the lexical material of the Linguistic Atlas of Scotland. The survey by written questionnaire on which the atlas is based and also the editing and cartography of the published maps are each introduced and critiqued. Three prototypical maps for the North mid-Scots dialect area are presented. Their lexical content is discussed, especially the issue of lexical categorisation and the representation of extra-linguistic information. The mapping process is then presented, together with a discussion of various decisions which had to be made. The articles ends by recognising two central prerequisites which affect data input: data normalisation and machine readability. In these ways, the paper offers a critical perspective of the digitisation task, ahead of the full national coverage.

Mots clés: lexis; categorisation; synonymy; interactive maps; interactivity; cartography; linguistic topography; language continuum; visual representation; data normalisation; machine interpretation

Domaines: Linguistique

John Monfries Kirk, Christian Hessle. Digitising Collections of Historical Linguistic Data: The Example of The Linguistic Atlas of Scotland. Journal of Data Mining and Digital Humanities, In press. ⟨hal-02166186v1⟩