The project titled "Digital Latin Dialectology (DiLaDi): Tracing Linguistic Variation in the Light of Ancient and Early Medieval Sources” submitted with the leadership of Béla Adamik, scientific advisor at the ELKH Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics (NYTK) has been awarded a grant of €2,337,500 in the HORIZON ERC program. The research, conducted in international collaboration, will span five years and it aims to perform a novel comprehensive study on the variation of the Latin Language over the 1st millennium A.D.
DiLaDi is an interdisciplinary project that aims to perform a comprehensive and innovative study on the variation of the Latin Language throughout the 1st millennium A.D., considering the geographical and chronological perspectives as well as the transition from Latin to Romance by processing and analyzing textual errors (deviations from the norm) found in ancient and early medieval primary documents with the help of the Computerized Historical Linguistic Database of Latin Inscriptions of the Imperial Age (LLDB), employing a revolutionary method of data analysis. DiLaDi aims to provide a breakthrough impetus to relevant research by involving a group of sources that have thus far received inadequate attention: original parchment charters of private law primarily from the 7th-8th centuries. These charters are abundant in number and contain valuable data reflecting linguistic changes. Their inclusion in the research could yield further insights into the history and dialectology of late Latin, supplementing the existing Database that has primarily relied on inscriptions. The project will be implemented by a 10-person research group with the support of a large data collection team through international collaboration. 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.