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- Historical Linguistics, Old Germanic Languages, Germanic linguistics, Etymology, Onomastics, Runology, and 12 moreGermanistik, Lexical Semantics, Loan Words, Old High German, Gothic Language, Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Corpus Linguistics, Middle High German language and literature, Indoeuropean Studies, Lexicography, and Epigraphyedit
- Research Interests: German linguistics, historical linguistics, language change, etymology, semantics, lexicography,... moreResearch Interests:
German linguistics, historical linguistics, language change, etymology, semantics, lexicography, incunabula, manuscripts, writing systems, corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropolgyedit
Recent developments in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software make it possible to produce accurate, semi-automated digital transliterations of the first European prints created with Gutenberg’s 15th-century movable type printing... more
Recent developments in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software make it possible to produce accurate, semi-automated digital transliterations of the first European prints created with Gutenberg’s 15th-century movable type printing press. Prior to these developments, the digital recognition of these first prints or incunabula is challenging due to the difficulty in training models using inconsistent and complex typesets. This research documents the employment of this new OCR technology in the creation of a resource of 15th-century medical texts printed in Augsburg called the German Medical Incunabula Corpus (GeMedIC). The study first introduces key prior research and the socio-historical background information necessary in preparation for various linguistic studies. It then explains the process of GeMedIC’s digital creation and the requirements for its compilation. Thereafter, the raw text corpus is applied to multiple questions in historical linguistics. The first section of the analysis comprises a lexicological study in which a glossary of the key nouns used in GeMedIC is created and explored further using corpus linguistic methods. The next portion of the study focuses on the word formation processes of the key vernacular terminology in the corpus unattested prior to the Middle High German period. This section then discusses the morphological features of these unattested nominal compounds and derivations in GeMedIC along with their inflectional phenomena. The research concludes by exploring textual variation and multilingualism within the corpus in various sections. The first section consists of a glossary of key nouns falling into the categories of foreign words, loan words, loan translations, and loan renderings. This is followed by assorted studies measuring the amount of Latin in GeMedIC and then delves into the possible motivation behind in-text translations, intertextuality, and code-switching within the corpus. The closing chapter emphasizes the continued use of GeMedIC to not only answer scientific questions in linguistics, but also those in history and historical medicine. This research ultimately documents the creation of a specialized corpus of German medical jargon and explores its lexicon in a time in which Latin remains the lingua franca for the genre.
Research Interests:
Recent developments in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software make it possible to produce accurate, semi-automated digital transliterations of the very first European prints created with Gutenberg's improved moveable type printing... more
Recent developments in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software make it possible to produce accurate, semi-automated digital transliterations of the very first European prints created with Gutenberg's improved moveable type printing press. Prior to these developments, the digital recognition of these incunabula is challenging due to the difficulty in training recognition models using inconsistent and complex typesets. This research documents the employment of this new OCR technology in the creation of a resource of 15th-century medical texts printed in Augsburg called the German Medical Incunabula Corpus (GeMedIC).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The RuneS Project “Runische Schriftlichkeit in den germanischen Sprachen – Runic writing in the Germanic languages” RuneS is a long-term research project under the umbrella of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities... more
The RuneS Project
“Runische Schriftlichkeit in den germanischen Sprachen – Runic writing in the Germanic languages”
RuneS is a long-term research project under the umbrella of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities which seeks to give a comprehensive linguistic analysis of all known Germanic runic inscriptions. While previous research has focused on understanding individual texts and their historico-cultural features, the RuneS project aims to analyze runic writing in a more holistic manner that goes beyond the boundaries of the traditionally studied Older fuþark, Younger fuþąrk and Old English fuþorc writing systems. By synthesizing previous research and applying new methodologies and technologies to all of the available data, project members are creating a body of resources which will lead to a deeper understanding of these earliest writing systems. The project consists of three modules:
1 – Editorial basics; corpus creation
2 – Runic Graphemics
3 – Runic Text Grammar and Pragmatics
The project is currently engaged in the second of these modules and making discoveries with the aid of technological resources unavailable to previous researchers, such as microscope cameras and 3D photography. A prime example of these findings and their implications was made by members at the Eichstätt-Munich research center, a team responsible for the Pre-Old English and Old English runic corpus. They recently analyzed an artifact, the Bergakker Scabbard Mount, and found conclusively that a runic character in the inscription had been misidentified. The application of such rigorous analyses and the creation of a unified runic corpus is an unprecedented effort that shows great promise.
“Runische Schriftlichkeit in den germanischen Sprachen – Runic writing in the Germanic languages”
RuneS is a long-term research project under the umbrella of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities which seeks to give a comprehensive linguistic analysis of all known Germanic runic inscriptions. While previous research has focused on understanding individual texts and their historico-cultural features, the RuneS project aims to analyze runic writing in a more holistic manner that goes beyond the boundaries of the traditionally studied Older fuþark, Younger fuþąrk and Old English fuþorc writing systems. By synthesizing previous research and applying new methodologies and technologies to all of the available data, project members are creating a body of resources which will lead to a deeper understanding of these earliest writing systems. The project consists of three modules:
1 – Editorial basics; corpus creation
2 – Runic Graphemics
3 – Runic Text Grammar and Pragmatics
The project is currently engaged in the second of these modules and making discoveries with the aid of technological resources unavailable to previous researchers, such as microscope cameras and 3D photography. A prime example of these findings and their implications was made by members at the Eichstätt-Munich research center, a team responsible for the Pre-Old English and Old English runic corpus. They recently analyzed an artifact, the Bergakker Scabbard Mount, and found conclusively that a runic character in the inscription had been misidentified. The application of such rigorous analyses and the creation of a unified runic corpus is an unprecedented effort that shows great promise.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Bergakker Scabbard Mouthpiece is an early 5th century runic artifact found in Bergakker, the Netherlands, on April 12, 1996 by D. Jansen of Wychen. The four-part runic inscription on the back of this object bears a number of... more
The Bergakker Scabbard Mouthpiece is an early 5th century
runic artifact found in Bergakker, the Netherlands, on April 12,
1996 by D. Jansen of Wychen. The four-part runic inscription
on the back of this object bears a number of graphemic
abnormalities leading to disagreement on its transliteration,
translation, and assignment of a Germanic daughter language.2
This paper gives a basic archaeological overview of the
scabbard mouthpiece, lists an account of prior interpretations
highlighting this inscription’s complexity, and introduces new
evidence obtained with the aid of modern technology showing
a possible misinterpretation of the first grapheme. The article
concludes with a summary of all of the graphemic peculiarities
in the inscription, paying special attention to double as well as
double-lined runes, and gives suggestions for future linguistic
research.
runic artifact found in Bergakker, the Netherlands, on April 12,
1996 by D. Jansen of Wychen. The four-part runic inscription
on the back of this object bears a number of graphemic
abnormalities leading to disagreement on its transliteration,
translation, and assignment of a Germanic daughter language.2
This paper gives a basic archaeological overview of the
scabbard mouthpiece, lists an account of prior interpretations
highlighting this inscription’s complexity, and introduces new
evidence obtained with the aid of modern technology showing
a possible misinterpretation of the first grapheme. The article
concludes with a summary of all of the graphemic peculiarities
in the inscription, paying special attention to double as well as
double-lined runes, and gives suggestions for future linguistic
research.
Research Interests:
The symposium Language in Contact; Yesterday–Today–Tomorrow took place June 21–23, 2017 and was organized by The Graduate School Language & Literature Munich - Class of Language. Scholars using interdisciplinary approaches were invited to... more
The symposium Language in Contact; Yesterday–Today–Tomorrow took place June 21–23, 2017 and was organized by The Graduate School Language & Literature Munich - Class of Language. Scholars using interdisciplinary approaches were invited to Munich and conveyed both traditional and innovative insights into the vast field of language contact. This included both diachronic (Yesterday) and synchronic contributions (Today) as well as papers discussing the future of contact linguistics (Tomorrow). At the symposium, language contact was defined in a broad sense as the language that emerges when speakers of different languages influence one another’s speech; this brought together multiple areas of linguistic study ranging from language change and language policy to language acquisition and language processing. Key to the conference was connecting what we can learn from past instances of language contact that will help us understand language phenomena in present and future research.