Preserving linguistic history
Inspired in part by shortcomings in the archiving system and threats to the continued functioning of provincial libraries, the 'Documenting old Abruzzese' (ANCABR) project set out to recover old manuscripts and prints. The initiative enabled the first gathering of a set of digital texts in Old Abruzzese and regional Italian spoken in the Abruzzo region. As such, the writings will be available online. The project encountered practical obstacles to retrieving materials, such as the collapse of the Chieti provincial library building in 2005 and building inaccessibility (due to the 2009 earthquake that affected the L'Aquila area). Consequently, a large part of its archive relies on rare or uniquely printed copies. The Chieti provincial library housed the most important collection of books on Abruzzo.ANCABR carried out its documental survey in 14 libraries and archives. Future work will include setting up collaborations with other private and public institutions in Atri (a comune in the Province of Teramo) and Penne (a town in the Province of Pescara), both in the Abruzzo region.Paper photocopies of the collected texts are currently being digitalised. So far, these include 21 theatre plays (1896–1946), over 100 newspaper articles (1891–1947), more than 400 manuscript letters (1820-1947), and around 240 edited folk stories. Several songs and proverbs, statutes, chronicles, religious plays, and four incunabula and two manuscripts from the 15th century are also a part of the collection.The collection, which also includes rare studies on Abruzzese, is being uploaded to the Ancient Abruzzese Texts Archive ATAA website. Photographic material combined with texts will be included in the web-based collection. Items marked as valuable for linguistic investigations, such as paper texts offering all the language variations, are being converted to optical character recognition (OCR) to make them searchable.Project efforts and activities have succeeded in rescuing the linguistic history of Abruzzo. The integration of known vernacular texts with rare ones and opportunities for new studies will enable the inclusion of Abruzzese among other Romance language varieties. Additionally, ANCABR outcomes may help build an epistemological basis for approaches to language preservation policies and necessary actions locally, nationally and internationally.
Keywords
Abruzzese, linguistic analyses, digital texts, language variations, old manuscripts