Lexical Information System for Low German (LIND)

Dialect dictionaries such as the Mecklenburgisches Wörterbuch (Mecklenburg Dictionary), the Westfälisches Wörterbuch (Westphalian Dictionary), and the Hamburgisches Wörterbuch (Hamburg Dictionary) belong to the so-called large-scale regional scholarly dictionaries through which the vocabulary of the German dialects has been documented in an almost comprehensive manner since the early 20th century. Preliminary work in the form of collection appeals and field research activities dates back in part even to the 19th century. For the northern German linguistic area, a total of 8 major dictionaries covering the large regional and urban dialect varieties of Low German are either already available or currently in progress. In addition, three further dictionaries integrate Low German vocabulary in areas of Low German–High German contact and Central German linguistic regions, namely the Hessen-Nassauisches Wörterbuch (Hesse-Nassau Dictionary), the Rheinisches Wörterbuch (Rhenish Dictionary), and the Mittelelbisches Wörterbuch (Central Elbe Dictionary). In this way, the traditional dialectal vocabulary in the Low German core areas and in the Low German–High German transition zones has been captured with complete diatopic coverage.

Owing to the period in which they were created, the Low German dictionaries are products of the analogue age. Their digital processing represents one of the most pressing tasks of contemporary dialect lexicography today. This is intended not merely to ensure improved access to the dictionaries, but also to make it possible to pose new, innovative research questions to the data incorporated within them. This is where the project comes in.

The goal of the project is a network of digital large-regional dictionaries of Low German and adjacent areas, integrated within the Trier Dictionary Network (Wörterbuchnetz) while also maintaining visibility as an independent platform. Through the development of a grammatical and onomasiological meta-system as well as digital research and presentation tools, this network is to be expanded into a "Lexical Information System for Low German (LIND)." Over two project phases, the 8 large-regional dictionaries of Low German as well as 3 dictionaries covering Low German–High German contact areas are to be integrated into this network. In this way, for the first time, one of the three major dialectal regions of German (Low German, Central German, Upper German) will be presented in its entirety in a digitally networked lexicographic form.

By incorporating the Mittelelbisches, Rheinisches, and Hessen-Nassauisches dictionaries into the information system, the project aims to overcome the conceptually determined restriction of dictionary corpora to rigidly defined dialect areas and dialect boundaries, thereby enabling the observation of language contact phenomena and levelling processes in linguistic transition zones, phenomena that manifest, among other things, in the existence of synonyms or Low German–High German doublets/competing forms. In this way, the project situates itself within the context of recent research on multilingualism and language contact, while at the same time taking into account the demands and findings of modern regional language research.

For the same reasons, over the course of the project, possibilities for cooperation with Dutch dictionary institutions are to be explored, with the aim of also capturing the Low Saxon and Low Franconian dialect areas of Dutch, and possibly parts of the Central Franconian dialect areas, within the network in a follow-up project. From a historical-linguistic perspective as well, such a combined view of Low German and Dutch dictionaries is of great interest, since in particular the East Low German dialect areas show lexical substrate formations from Dutch dialects, owing to settlement history.