DiLaDi
Digital Latin Dialectology: Tracing Linguistic Variation in the Light of Ancient and Early Medieval Sources

Project

DiLaDi is an interdisciplinary project that aims to perform a novel comprehensive study on the variation of the Latin Language over the 1st millennium A.D. considering the geographical and chronological perspectives as well as the transition from Latin to Romance by processing and analysing textual errors (deviations from the norm) of ancient and early medieval primary documents with the help of the Computerized Historical Linguistic Database of Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age (LLDB).

DiLaDi aims to give a breakthrough impetus to relevant research by involving a group of sources that have so far not been adequately considered in research: original parchment charters predominantly of private law from mostly the 7th-8th centuries, that are available in large numbers and are very rich in data reflecting linguistic changes, the involvement of which could open up further perspectives for the research of history and dialectology of late Latin based on working with a Database which has so far relied mainly on inscriptions.

The project is realized through the collaboration of the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the Research Group for Latin Historical Linguistics and Dialectology of the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics in Budapest.
As a result, this research will allow for a better understanding of the processes that led to the development of Romance languages and determined the linguistic, ethnic, and even cultural features of medieval and modern Europe.

Outcomes

Publications
Events
  • Eighth International Workshop on Computational Latin Dialectology (20-21 March, 2025, Department of Humanities, Ca' Foscari University of Venice)

Past events

Team

Ca' Foscari section

Béla Adamik

Principal Investigator

Antonio Ferigo

Project manager

Other participating researchers 

External advisers