"Historical Pandemic Vocabulary and Linked Open Data (LOD)"

"Historical Pandemic Vocabulary and Linked Open Data (LOD): Lexical Changes and Cultural Reactions in the Context of Cholera"

Language is in a constant state of change, dynamically adapting to new social realities. In recent times, such profound shifts have been particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, as numerous neologisms, semantic changes, and Anglicisms have entered the German language. These linguistic innovations shaped communication for a period and, as seen with terms like Homeoffice, have in some cases remained in use to this day (Klosa-Kückelhaus & Kernerman 2022). The pandemic-related vocabulary of COVID-19 has been well studied (see the IDS Corona Glossary 2024; Jakosz & Kałasznik 2023). However, earlier pandemics, such as cholera or the Spanish flu, have received far less attention regarding their lexical characteristics (Lanza et al. 2021).

The study of historical pandemic vocabulary is particularly significant, as it reflects earlier linguistic responses to societal crises and threats, which can, in turn, have long-term effects on language development (cf. Ernst 2021: 30ff.).

In our contribution, we present a research project on historical pandemic vocabulary, conducted as part of the LODinG project at the University of Trier, funded by the Rhineland-Palatinate Research Initiative. The project examines language use during past pandemics, such as cholera and the Spanish flu. Our presentation focuses on the lexical characteristics of cholera-related vocabulary, highlighting methodological approaches in corpus generation and the integration of findings into the Linked Open Data (LOD) framework.