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

语言之间的遗传关系可以对人类的文化、迁徙和接触提供相当大的见解。然而，到目前为止，很难找到和比较关于遗传关系的假设，因为它们只存在于学术书籍和论文中，并且只能单独访问。多树项目将开发一个关于语言关系的学术假设的数字图书馆，它将被充分记录并透明地追溯到它所基于的学术工作。关于相关语言组的假设将以熟悉的家谱图的图形方式显示，每个节点打开以显示有关所代表的语言或子组的附加信息。此外，关于同一语系的相互竞争的假设将显示为并排排列的两个或多个树，以便于比较。多树数据库也将与现有的LINGUIST List数据库整合在一起，该数据库包含了15年来为该学科建立电子基础设施所收集的关于语言和语言学的丰富信息。因此，多树项目在语言学领域和相关科学学科的研究和教育方面具有相当大的潜力。该项目将提供可访问的数据和语言分类的概述，这可以引发新的假设。它将使不太为人所知的语言之间的关系更加为人所知，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迷人的教学工具，用于从K-12到研究生教育。

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.