Laboratoire d'Informatique de Grenoble

For almost a century, geolinguists have used cartography to visualize dialect data and thus understand the spatial structures of dialects. Geolinguists produces data resulting of field surveys conducted with identied speakers in a limited number of localities ; they are therefore textual and punctually spatialized.

Today, it is clear that the software tools for the cartographic exploration of geolinguistic data are not up to date : the geographic information systems (GIS) are poorly adapted to the processing of geolinguistic data. Our research attempts to propose geomatic methods and tools to enable the automatic production of interpretative and synthesis maps for exploratory spatial analysis of geolinguistic data. The proposed methods are implemented in two cartographic tools, ShinyDialect and ShinyClass, which enables the visualization and the exploration of the results.

Through these methods, we aim to integrate geographical elements (topographic, historical, cultural, administrative, etc.) in the processing of geolinguistic data. Our goal is to explore the potential links between these elements of context and the diffusion of dialects in a territory.

This work is a part of the ECLATS project, whose objective is to enhance the data from theLinguistic Atlas of France. Our proposals aim to transfer knowledge from computer science, spatial analysis and geography to geolinguistics. This research therefore fits into the paradigm of spatialized digital humanities and addresses transdisciplinary issues.