Projektbeschreibung
Erforschung frühmittelalterlicher Sprachkontakte in Westeuropa
Das Team des ERC-finanzierten Projekts GLOSSIT konzentriert sich auf die Erkundung der Ursprünge des frühmittelalterlichen Sprach- und Geistesaustauschs in Westeuropa. Projektziel ist, anhand von Kommentaren oder „Randbemerkungen“, die in mittelalterlichen Handschriften als Primärquellen gefunden wurden, unser Verständnis der sprachlichen und kulturellen Verbindungen dieser Zeit zu vertiefen. Ungeachtet der reichhaltigen Einblicke, die diese Randbemerkungen bieten, konnte bislang nicht ihr volles Potenzial ausgeschöpft werden, da es an umfassenden Editionen mangelt. Zu diesem Zweck wird das GLOSSIT-Team digitale Editionen von Schlüsselmanuskripten der Werke von Beda Venerabilis und Priscian erstellen, die inselkeltische (bretonische, irische und walisische) und lateinische Randbemerkungen enthalten. Bei der Projektarbeit werden Methoden der vergleichenden Philologie, der historischen Linguistik, den digitalen Geisteswissenschaften, der Kulturgeschichte und Computerbiologie kombiniert, um die komplexen Zusammenhänge zwischen diesen Sprachen und ihren Sprechenden ins Licht zu rücken.
Ziel
Glosses are fingerprints of the society in which texts were composed, copied, and read. Most importantly, they play a much more significant role than previous research has acknowledged and offer insights about the multilingual and multi-ethnic environment of medieval manuscript and text production the principal texts cannot: they are first-hand testimonies of the close linguistic and cultural contacts between Insular Celtic (Old Breton, Old Irish, Old Welsh) and Latin speakers. GLOSSIT researches this largely neglected source for early medieval linguistic and intellectual exchange in Western Europe. This comparative study on the vernacular Insular Celtic and Latin glosses shows that the interlinear and marginal glosses (or paratext) of 9th–10th century manuscripts have a marginal character only at a first glance.
A striking lack of editions has so far been a strong obstacle for in-depth investigations. GLOSSIT addresses this shortcoming and produces digital editions to research the interrelationships between the languages involved (i.e. Latin/vernacular and intra-vernacular contact) as well as the knowledge transfer observable in early medieval glossing traditions. It tackles this issue through combining methods of comparative philology and historical linguistics, digital humanities (handwritten text recognition, network analysis, natural language processing), (cultural) history, and – in a first-of-its-kind approach – biological computation (applying DNA-sequence alignment methods to glosses).
The core sources are early medieval copies of the computistical works of Bede and Priscian’s Latin grammar with multiple manuscript witnesses transmitting Insular Celtic and Latin glosses. For the first time, GLOSSIT puts their glossing traditions at the centre of a large-scale investigation into language contact and knowledge exchange between the Celtic-speaking world and the Carolingian empire in an era that was foundational for Europe’s intellectual history until today
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
- humanitieslanguages and literaturelinguistics
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistory
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencenatural language processing
- humanitieslanguages and literatureliterature studieshistory of literature
- humanitiesother humanitieslibrary sciencesdigital humanities
Schlüsselbegriffe
Programm/Programme
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsGastgebende Einrichtung
8010 Graz
Österreich