VinKo: Language Documentation Through Digital Crowdsourcing

The region of Trentino-Alto Adige and South Tyrol in Italy is a multilingual border region which is home to a large number of linguistic varieties and languages. Here dialect varieties of the Romance type, like Venetian, Lombard, and Ladin, are spoken side-by-side with Germanic Tyrolean dialects. Additionally, there are two Germanic minority languages, Cimbrian and Mòcheno, and the national languages of the area are Standard German and Italian. The languages in the region exist in a constant state of language contact and language change, influencing and being influenced by neighboring varieties and the national languages. The grammatical systems of the Romance and Germanic languages families have profound differences, yet influence each other in environments of such long-term intensive language contact. Description and analysis of the languages and varieties of a complex linguistic environment will provide valuable insights into the processes of multilingualism and language contact. This project aims to collect data from this linguistically complex region with innovative data collection methods through a digital platform.
VinKo (Varieties in Contact) is an online platform for the collection of oral data from non-standard languages through crowd-sourcing. The platform is designed to collect oral data for the varieties spoken in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige. Speakers are asked to contribute data by filling out questionnaires on phonology, morphology, and syntax in their own local variety. One of the most original characteristics of VinKo is that it records oral responses, rather than written ones. This method of data collection has many advantages. Not only do speakers answer more spontaneously in a spoken register, but oral data also retains important features of spoken language, like prosodic properties. Additionally, it solves a myriad of problems which speakers of primarily oral varieties face when writing their local language in a digital environment. Many minority language and dialect varieties do not have a standard orthography in which to write their language or might need special characters not found on a standard keyboard. On the VinKo platform, data collection is done through a simple interface and in a quick manner, which facilitates easy collaboration with speakers and speech communities (Cordin et al., 2018).
The primary goal of the project is to provide further insight into the different aspects of multilingualism and microvariation. The contact between varieties of different language families, Romance and Germanic, makes this region particularly interesting for applications of the platform. For example, so far it has been used to acquire a complete inventory of obstruents (Alber, 2014) and to examine the syncretism of case on pronouns (Rabanus, 2018). Investigation into non-standard varieties can reveal a lot about the evolution of grammar, which research into standard languages with prescriptive traditions cannot. This type of microvariation research would be practically impossible using the traditional methods of field work, e.g. one-on-one interviews or paper questionnaires, since there is such a high level of variation and diversity in the area.
The platform is still undergoing development and hopes to achieve the following things in the near future. First of all, the area for which VinKo is configured has to be enlarged beyond the borders of the Trentino/Alto Adige region, especially to the Veneto region, and data needs to be collected for underrepresented or missing varieties. Secondly, additional data collection methods, including but not limited to questionnaires, have to be developed and employed. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the data collected through the platform must be given back to the community in a meaningful way.
Collaboration with local communities and active engagement of speakers with the data will play a crucial role in the larger aim of the project. Minority languages and dialect varieties are experiencing increasing pressure from standard languages, and in many regions, speaker numbers are dwindling. Having an online presence increases the visibility and heightens the prestige of a variety, and it can play an important part in the maintenance of the mother tongue (e.g. Eisenlohr, 2004). Increasing the local identity and pride by increasing awareness of the own language can be an important contribution for improving life conditions and slowing down out-migration from remote rural areas. The platform can help to actively engage speakers with not only the language, but also with other speakers and the local cultural institutes. The digital nature of the data collection encourages collaboration between speakers of different generations, as young and old speakers can bring their own specialized knowledge of language and new technology together.
The platform straddles the balance between academic and community goals, combining them to the benefit of both parties. It sets itself apart from existing language atlases and data bases by collecting oral data and providing community resources. It is also distinctly different from community focused platforms aimed at language teaching and cultural revival, by adding an academic purpose. The platform is open-sourced, which makes it possible for other low-resourced regions to benefit from this development in the future.
This talk aims to discuss and introduce the VinKo platform as a linguistics fieldwork tool and crowd-sourced data base, and hopes to inspire fruitful discussion with scholars with similar research aims, projects, or interests.

Bibliography

Alber, B. (2014). Obstruent Systems of Northern Italy.
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Cordin, P., Rabanus, S., Alber, B., Mattei, A., Casalicchio, J. and Tomaselli, A. (2018). VinKo. In Krefeld, T. and Bauer, R. (eds),
Lo Spazio Comunicativo Dell’Italia e Delle Varietà Italiane. Korpus Im Text, 34,
http://www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=13739&v=2 (accessed on 16 April 2019).

Eisenlohr, P. (2004). Language revitalization and new technologies: Cultures of electronic  mediation and the refiguring of communities.
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Rabanus, S. (2018). Varietà alloglotte – tedesco. In Krefeld, T. and Bauer, R. (eds),
Lo Spazio Comunicativo Dell’Italia e Delle Varietà Italiane. Korpus Im Text, 34,
http://www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=13187&v=1 (accessed on 16 April 2019).