Collecting the Pronunciation of Place Names

The Department of Linguistics at the Institute of Languages and Literatures works on the creation of a complete catalogue of Tyrolean field names. These are the names of mountains, meadows, valleys, etc., which serve the local population as an orientation aid and facilitate communication. These names are now part of the intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO. In order to preserve the field names for future generations, it is not only necessary to collect the names, but also to preserve the local pronunciation. This is often the key to reconstructing the former meaning of the names. Currently, the relevant data is being collected using dictation machines, which is a major hurdle for researchers. The time required to travel to the various valleys of Tyrol and personally record the specific pronunciation of the people living there with the dictation machines is immense.  Archiving the recordings, i.e. playing them back from the dictation machine, renaming and sorting them, also takes a lot of time, which could also be used for analyses of the recordings.

This bachelor’s thesis is intended to facilitate this procurement process and thus save the researchers some organisational effort. For this purpose a web application called Fluukasi (Flurnamenkarte der Sprachwissenschaft Innsbruck) is being developed. Flukasi will support precisely this project with the necessary recording function.