A Curated Database for Linguistic Research: The Test Case of Cimbrian Varieties

In this paper we present the definition of a conceptual approach for the information space entailed by a multidisciplinary and collaborative project, “Cimbrian as a test case for synchronic and diachronic language variation”, which provides linguists with a test bed for formal hypotheses concerning human language. Aims of the project are to collect, digitize and tag linguistic data from the German variety of Cimbrian – spoken in three areas of northern Italy: Giazza (VR), Luserna (TN), and Roana (VI) – and to make available on-line a valuable and innovative linguistic resource for the in-depth study of Cimbrian. The task is addressed by a multidisciplinary team of linguists and computer scientists who, combining their competence, aim to make available new tools for linguistic analysis.