Collaborative Research: Multi-Tree: A Digital Library of Language Relationships

语言之间的遗传关系可以提供对人类人口的文化、迁徙和接触的相当大的洞察。然而，到目前为止，很难找到和比较关于基因关系的假说，因为它们只存在于学术书籍和论文中，而且只能单独访问。多树项目将开发一个关于语言关系的学术假说的数字图书馆，其中有充分的文件记录，并可透明地追溯到其所依据的学术著作。关于相关语言组的假设将被图形化地显示为熟悉的家谱图，每个节点打开以显示关于所代表的语言或子组的附加信息。此外，关于同一语言家族的相互竞争的假设将显示为两棵或更多树并排排列，以便于比较。多树数据库还将与现有的语言学家名单数据库相结合，这些数据库储存了在为该学科建立电子基础设施的15年期间收集的关于语言和语言学的丰富信息。因此，多树项目有相当大的潜力促进语言学领域和相关科学学科的研究和教育。该项目将提供可查阅的数据和可引发新假设的语文分类概览。它将使鲜为人知的语言之间的关系变得更为人所知，从而刺激对少数民族语言的研究。最后，在线搜索设施将构成一个引人入胜的教学工具，供K-12至研究生教育使用。

Genetic relationships among languages can provide considerable insight into the culture, migrations, and contacts of human populations. However, it has so far been difficult to find and compare hypotheses about genetic relationships, since they exist only in scholarly books and papers, and can only be accessed individually. The Multi-tree project will develop a digital library of scholarly hypotheses about language relationships, one which is fully documented and transparently traceable to the scholarly work upon which it is based. Hypotheses about groups of related languages will be displayed graphically as familiar diagrams of family trees, with each node opening to display additional information on the language or subgrouping represented. Moreover, competing hypotheses about the same language family will be displayed as two or more trees aligned side by side for easy comparison. The Multi-Tree database will also be integrated with the existing LINGUIST List databases, which house a wealth of information about language and linguistics collected over a 15-year period of building electronic infrastructure for the discipline. The Multi-Tree project thus has considerable potential to contribute to research and education both within the field of linguistics and in related scientific disciplines. The project will provide accessible data and an overview of language classification which can trigger new hypotheses. It will make relationships between lesser-known languages better known, stimulating research on minority languages. Finally, the online search facility will constitute a captivating instructional tool, for use in K-12 through graduate education.