Language-Sites: Accessing Language Resources via Geographic Information Systems

1.    Language-Sites: Accessing Language Resources via Geographic Information Systems Dieter van Uytvanck, Alex Dukers, Paul Trilsbeek Jacquelijn Ringersma (Peter Wittenburg) MPI for Psycholinguistics DOBES Endangered Languages Project

2.    Little Background Information • In the MPI Archive we have • data for professionals in Computer Linguistics and Phonetics such • as the Dutch Spoken Corpus, the Second Learner Corpus, • Gesture corpora, etc. • but also • data about small languages, anthropological data etc • the users of the latter are mainly • linguists, ethnologists, musicologists, ethnobiologists etc. and • speech community members • overview of the “small languages” in the archive 

3.    DOBES Languages 40 language teams from the DOBES program documenting about 60 languages and working independently

4.    MPI Languages • about 100 researchers at the MPI • also increasing amount of deposits from external people

5.    User Interests • researchers have completely different interests compared to HLT • non-linguistic influences on language development • language contact effects (cognate sets) • music systems and relevance of patterns • cultural differences in parent-child relation • kinship and other relations between persons • cultural differences in relation between “language and thought” • etc • speech community interests • revitalize the language • find identity and bring it over to their children • document cultural knowledge encoded in language + music • get acquainted with modern technology • etc

6.    LAT Standard way of Access in LAT • standard way of accessing a large • archive is to browse and/or search • in a catalogue • MPI archive offers the IMDI • infrastructure • such a canonical catalogue needs • to be based on predefined • classifications by the researcher and • organization principles defined by the • archivist • some professionals like it since it is • neutral and offers atomic access • most users find it boring and not-functional • certainly for the speech community this presentation is completely • meaningless metadata browsing & searching

7.    LAT Offering new Views in LAT • 1. allow everyone to build his/her own virtual collection, • i.e. step away from canonical pre-defined hierarchy • 2. allow people to create community portals where metadata • queries are used to present the resources in a web-site • style • 3. allow everyone to access complex objects such as • annotated multimedia recordings • 4. allow people to start from a semantic conceptual space • 5. allow people to start from geographic information

8.    LAT Create own virtual Collections • recombining and linking • metadata descriptions • result is a new linked structure • of nodes • still the same “boring” style

9.    LAT Create Community Portals • creating “nice” web-sites with • categories according to some • criteria such as genre • take care: our genres are not • the same as community • genres • basis is a dynamic REST-based • query on the metadata registry • and properly filled in metadata • communities like this and it • is maintainable for archivist

10.    LAT Complex Access to Resources • navigate from resource to • resource by using content • links • resources can be annotated • media resources, lexicons • with multimedia extensions, • metadata descriptions etc. • nice, but very specific and • time consuming • (work in progress)

11.    LAT Navigation in Conceptual Spaces • creating conceptual • spaces with semantically • meaningful relations • allow people to navigate • in such spaces and jump • to detail information in • media, lexicons, photos, • etc • turns out to be very • attractive to researchers • and community members • (work in progress)

12.    LAT Geographic Views • for many users GIS view is very attractive • like to relate languages and cultures with regions • combining with other resources (geographical, historical, political, etc) • are creating GoogleEarth overlays (XML -> no dependency of big brother) • on the following slides some examples

13.    LAT GIS Link to Catalogue Node • as appetizer and entry point to • the appropriate catalogue node • then continuation in IMDI tree • automatic generation if • coordinates are filled in • (from Gunter Senft)

14.    LAT GIS Link to Complex Resources • as appetizer and entry point • to complex resources such as • annotated media or lexicons • (from Stephen Levinson)

15.    LAT GIS as organization Mechanism • some researchers • have organized their • material according to • field trips and visited • places • GIS overlay gives easy • links to all steps • from there link to the • IMDI nodes • (from Niklas Burenholt)

16.    LAT GIS for anthropological Marks • anthropologists like to set • marks about mythical places, • historical events and • sociologically relevant material • combination with material from • archeology for example • zooming in and out to see • geographic relations • (from G. Boden)

17.    LAT GIS as entry points for Communities • here an example from the • DOBES Beaver team • (Canada) • use to point to toponyms and • their ethymology with direct • links to resources, web-sites • etc. • (from J. Miller)

18.    LAT GIS as entry point to LR Archives • could be used to find regional • archives with interesting language • material • here the archive at CONICET in • Buenos Aires

19.    LAT Other known Usages • Jamieson: sounds of the world with Apple Hypercard • CNRS/Quai Branly: explanation of aspects of languages in • the world • WALS (Haspelmath): relating language typology features to • regions • trends to combine geological and time information • de Vriend: adding coordinates to lexemes for microvariation • studies

20.    LAT Pros and Cons • make GIS view one view on data amongst others • but maintain a proper repository structure • GIS is excellent for geographically oriented overviews • almost everyone is used to understand maps • equipment tuned to allow automatically adding coordinates • GIS methods allow easy visual correlations • geographic parameters influencing language contact • very easy to see that big swamps hampered influences • GIS optimal for bringing data from various disciplines together • take care that you are not dependent from big brother

21.    LAT Thanks for your attention.

22.    IMDI Data Organization, Metadata LAMUS Data Uploading and Management Access Management Data Archiving and Copying IMDI / GIS Metadata Browsing & Searching LAT ADDIT/VICOS/MEL Enrichments/Views Language Archiving Technology preparation ELAN/LEXUS/SYNPATHY Annotation + Lexicon Shoebox/CHAT Transcriber XML integration Archive Grid Federation utilization • LAT to support • operations during • resource life-time ANNEX/LEXUS/IMEX/ TROVA Complex Access via Web ODIT/ISOcat Ontology management framework