Language Landscape

 

We are pleased to announce the launch of Language Landscape 

a language mapping website which enables everyone everywhere to map their language. Users of the site can upload recordings and pin them on the map where they happened. Each contribution helps us to build a better picture of where languages are really spoken around the world. Our aim is to provide a collaborative online environment where linguists and native speakers can work together to create useful and interesting maps which document the diversity of oral cultures and their geographic spread. We hope that the website will also contribute to greater awareness of language diversity and its precarious future in the public mind.

We are actively seeking contributions from researchers and native speakers, in particular recordings of smaller/endangered languages; recordings of minority languages in countries which have a large monolingual majority; recordings which document multilingualism on an individual or societal level, and groups of recordings made across a geographical area which document language variation. Please contribute your recordings and help us to grow!

With further funding/investment we plan to translate the site into other languages, develop a dedicated mobile app which will make it even easier to create and map recordings using a single mobile device, and gamify the upload process to encourage more contributions from non-specialists and young people.

We welcome feedback and suggestions for improvement of the site, please send us your thoughts at adminlanguagelandscape.org.

To visit our website, please go to:
http://languagelandscape.org

 

Source: http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-1871.html