DHB: Collaborative Research: LL-Map. Language and Location: A Map Annotation Project

与花瓶或珠宝等物品不同，语言主要是在一群说它们的人迁移并定居在一个新的地区时移动的。因此，关于语言边界和语言关系的信息可以为人口的迁移、互动、文化和遗传学提供重要的见解。然而，只有在一个将语言信息与物理和社会科学信息融合在一起的系统中，才能实现这种见解。 最有效的方法是通过地理信息系统（GIS），它可以灵活地组织各种不同的数据，根据地理区域的地形呈现组合的信息。 这使得语言数据可以与地理、政治、人口、动物、植物和考古数据相结合，并以直观的方式立即解释。 LL-MAP项目将建立一个语言信息数据库，该数据库将纳入这一基于地理的系统，并通过基于互联网的工具免费提供。这将使用户能够生成定制的地图，显示语言与各种非语言数据之间的关系。 它们还将允许研究人员为面向地图的数据添加注释，并讨论系统所体现的关系。 通过这种方式，LL-MAP将鼓励语言学家，历史学家，考古学家，民族志学家和遗传学家之间的合作，因为他们探索语言与文化适应和变化之间的关系。因此，LL-MAP中体现的综合数据方法将促进创新的研究方法，而这些方法反过来可能会导致对人类种群之间史前关系的新见解。

Unlike objects such as vases or pieces of jewelry, languages move primarily when a group of people speaking them migrates and settles in a new area. Thus, information about language boundaries and language relationships can provide critical insights into the migrations, interactions, cultures, and genetics of populations. However, such insights can only be realized in a system that melds language information with information from the physical and social sciences. The most effective way to do this is through a Geographical Information System (GIS), which can flexibly organize a wide range of heterogeneous data, presenting the assembled information according to the topography of geographical regions. This allows language data to be integrated with geographical, political, demographic, zoological, botanical and archaeological data in ways which are immediately visually interpretable. The LL-MAP project will build a database of linguistic information which is integrated into such a geographically-based system and is made freely available through Internet-based tools. These will allow users to generate customized maps showing the relationships between language and diverse kinds of non-linguistic data. They will also allow researchers to add annotations to map-oriented data, and to discuss the relationships the system manifests. In this way LL-MAP will encourage collaboration between linguists, historians, archaeologists, ethnographers and geneticists, as they explore the relationships between language and cultural adaptation and change. The integrated data approach embodied in LL-MAP will thus promote innovative research methods, and these in turn may lead to new insights into the prehistoric relationships among human populations.