LL-MAP: Language and Location - A Map Annotation Project
LL-MAP is a project designed to integrate language information with data from
the physical and social sciences by means of a Geographical Information System
(GIS). The most important part of the project is a language subsystem,
which relates geographical information on the area in which a language is
or has been spoken to data on resources relevant to the language. Through a link
to the MultiTree
project, information on all proposed genetic relationships of the languages is
made available and viewable in a geographic context. The system walso includes
ancillary information on topography, political boundaries, demographics, climate,
vegetation, and wildlife, thus providing a basis upon which to build hypotheses
about language movement across territory. Some cultural information, e.g., on
religion, ethnicity, and economics, is also included.
The LL-MAP system encourages collaboration between linguists, historians,
archaeologists, ethnographers, and geneticists, as they explore the relationship
between language and cultural adaptation and change. We hope it will elicit new
insights and hypotheses, and that it will also serve as an educational resource.
As a GIS, LL-MAP has the potential to be a captivating instructional tool, presenting
complex data in a way accessible to all educational levels. Finally, as a free service
available online, LL-MAP increases public knowledge of lesser-known languages and
cultures, underlining the importance of language and linguistic diversity to cultural
understanding and scientific inquiry.
LL-MAP started as a joint project of Eastern Michigan University (EMU) and Stockholm University,
in collaboration with several projects and archives in the USA, Europe, and
Australia. Collaborators include PARADISEC, The Alaska Native Language Center,
The Tibetan-Himalayan Digital Library, and The WALS Project, as well as noted
documentary linguists. Technical development is directed by The Institute for
Geospatial Research and Education (IGRE) at EMU. The project was
funded by a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation.
The LL-MAP project is currently hosted and developed at Indiana
University in the Department of Linguistics at The LINGUIST List.
Contact the Project Managers:
See Contact information at The LINGUIST List.
Collaborating Institutions
Founding Partners
An outstanding group of international collaborators have furnished data for the project.
These include:
Alaska Native Language Center (ANLC)
The ANLC has provided LL-MAP with access to all of its geographic language data. Its archive
includes over 200 topographic maps of Alaska which contain isogloss information for the Athabascan
and Eskimo language families.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig
MPI furnished information from 2 projects: the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS),
which has mapped cross-linguistic structural variation across more than 200 languages and includes
an extensive database of geographical coordinates and the Loanword Typology project, which investigates
patterns of lexical borrowing.
Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC)
PARADISEC has contributed language materials from the Pacific region, defined broadly to
include Oceania and East and Southeast Asia. They have considerable textual data which is
especially relevant to this project.
Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library Project (THDL)
THDL provided extensive data on the languages and dialects of Tibet, as well as georeferenced
cultural and environmental data.
University of Stockholm
Öesten Dahl and his collaborators have provided LL-MAP with data from the Swedish National Atlas
as well as from his new GIS project mapping the languages of the Caucasus.
Advisory Board
The LL-MAP Advisory Board includes GIS and Language Technology experts, as well as distinguished linguists.
- Michael Batty
- Director and Professor, CASA (Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis), University
College London. Editor, Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design
- Steven Bird
- Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dept of Computer Science and
Software Engineering, University of Melbourne; Senior Research Associate, Linguistic Data
Consortium, University of Pennsylvania
- Barbara P. Buttenfield
- Professor of Geography, University of Colorado. Past President of the American
Cartographic Association. Fellow of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping
(ACSM). Editorial Board: Annals of the Association of American Geographers; Cartography
and GIS; Transactions in GIS; and the URISA Journal.
- Claire Bowern
- Asst Prof, Department of Linguistics, Rice University (after 7/2004); Affiliate of the
Centre for Research on Language Change, Australian National University.
- Lyle Campbell
- Professor of Linguistics, University of Utah
- Bernard Comrie
- Director, Dept. of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
and Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, University of California Santa Barbara
- Alan Dench
- Associate Professor, Linguistics; Head of School, School of Humanities, University of
Western Australia
- Andrew Garrett
- Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
- Spike Gildea
- Associate Professor and Head, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Oregon
- Ives Goddard
- Senior Linguist, Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution
- Alice Harris
- Professor of Linguistics, State University of New York Stony Brook
- Jeffrey Heath
- Professor of Linguistics, University of Michigan
- Gary Holton
- Assistant Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Associate Director, Alaska Native
Language Center
- Jay Jasanoff
- Professor and Chair, Dept. of Linguistics, Harvard University.
- Brian D. Joseph
- Distinguished University Professor of Linguistics & Kenneth E. Naylor Professor of
South Slavic Linguistics, The Ohio State University; Editor, Language
- Joseph Kerski
- Geographer, US Geological Survey, Rocky Mountain Mapping Center, Denver.
- Randy LaPolla
- Professor and Chair, Linguistics Department, LaTrobe University, Australia.
- Marianne Mithun
- Professor of Linguistics, University of California Santa Barbara
- Paul Newman
- J.D., Ph.D. Distinguished Professor, Linguistics; Adjunct Professor, School of Law,
Indiana University. Bloomington, Indiana
- Johanna Nichols
- Professor of Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
- Zhong-Ren Peng
- Associate Professor, Department of Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee and Director of the Center for Advanced Spatial Information Research at the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- Martha Ratliff
- Associate Professor of Linguistics, Wayne State University
- Sarah Thomason
- William J. Gedney Collegiate Professor of Linguistics, U. of Michigan
- Joe Salmons
- Professor of German, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Co-director, Center for the Study
of Upper Midwestern Cultures, UW-Madison; Editor, Diachronica
- Joel Sherzer
- Professor of Anthropology, University of Texas; Director of AILLA Project
- Doug Whalen
- Vice President of Research, Haskins Laboratories, Yale University. President,
Endangered Languages Fund
Senior Personnel
Initial PIs and researchers:
- Anthony Aristar
- Helen Aristar-Dry
- Yichun Xie
Current researchers and managers:
Former Team Leaders (Research Assistants)
- Sarah Fox
- Matt Lahrman
- Amy Brunett
- Erin Smith
- Hunter Lockwood
- Daniel Parker
- Susanne Vejdemo
- Megan Zdrojkowski
Student Team Members
- Fatemeh Abdollahi
- Catherine Adams
- Georgina Brown
- Qiaochu Chen
- Gin Cordon
- Brandon Devine
- Pamela Dixon
- Kristen Dunkinson
- Christine Evans
- Sarah Fox
- Jacob Henry
- Jacob Heredos
- Keri Holley
- Alex Isotalo
- Noah Kaufman
- Karrie Kuecker
- Ania Kubisz
- Okki Kurniawan
- Luiza Lukowicz
- Arjuna Mahenthiran
- Hannah Morales
- Stephanie Morse
- Steve Politzer-Ahles
- Nicholas Prokup
- Zac Smith
- Bethany Townsend
- Mfon Udoinyang
- Xiyan Wang
- Martin Warin
- Elyssa Winzeler
- Brent Woo
- Alison Zaharee
Technical Team (former and current)
Programmers
- Lwin Moe
- Damir Cavar
- Joshua Thompson
- Michael Appleby
- Ben Cool
- Chris Dibbs
- Ed Kmett
- Zongsha Sha
- Gayathri Sriram
Consultants
Data Contributors
- Andrea Berez
- Öesten Dahl
- Arienne Dwyer
- Veronica Grondona
- Gary Holton
- Ljuba Veselinova
Credits
The World Language Mapping System (WLMS) consists of Geographic Information
System (GIS) data mapping language locations. WLMS is the result of over 15
years of collaborative work between Global Mapping International (GMI) and the
Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), during the Language Mapping Project to
map the over 6,800 languages described in SIL's 14th edition Ethnologue. This
data set, adapted to work with either NGA's public domain Digtital Chart of
the World (VMAP Level 0) base map or GMI's companion Seamless Digital Chart of
the World, is now available to the broader community of GIS users.