Cooperative Dictionary of The Rhinelandic Colloquial Language - Scientific Background

Scientific Background

In its scientific work of the past, the linguistic section of the ALR, first under Dr. Fritz Langensiepen, later under Dr. Georg Cornelissen, originally mainly researched the local languages, which are collectively called "dialects" in Germany. Since the 1970s they put an additional focus on the supra-dialectal regional language variety and colloquial language of the Rhineland. These, after World War II, had gradually begun to replace the older local languages (dialects) in large areas causing a notable shift of everydays spoken language. In order to research and document the colloquial language of the Rhineland in various publications, regular polls were made over the years, always asking for both specific and more general linguistic information on language use from a large number of volunteers via pre-compiled questionnaires focusing of varying types of information. So, among many others tasks, new maps of word use could be drawn and published, and both stability, and movement, of several isoglosses could be shown. In part, research results were published on the ARLs website, too.

The Cooperative Dictionary is the first attempt to replace, or supplement, such scientific polls of a larger number of volunteers by an ongoing monitoring and surveillance of linguistic evidence. The makers hope to increase the number of individuals in their probe while at the same time, since data is being collected electronically from the very beginning, decrease labour and manual work needed for data entry and, in part, analysis, compared to the previous, predominantly paper based work.

There are no published indications regarding the quality of the data collected anonymously over the internet. Editor Dr. Peter Honnen points out that past observations of wikis dedicated to collect information of a specific kind, such as Wikipedia, and Wiktionary, in part helped the Cooperative Dictionary of the Rhinelandic Colloquial Language on its way by proving that useful data could be colleced cooperatively in the internet. Also reception of the publications of the linguistics section of the Amt für Rheinische Landeskunde on the web, and the growing number of Rhinelanders participating in polls sending their questionnaires by e-mail did lend themselves to support an online project.