1. Preliminary remarks

This article is about the creation of the linguistic atlas ALD ("Atlante linguistico del ladino dolomitico e dei dialetti limitrofi"), which is now (2024) available both in print (ALD-I: 1998, 7 volumes; ALD-II: 2012, 7 volumes) and in digital form (digitALD). The period under discussion here is exactly 52 years (1972-2024).

2. Idea, genesis, principles

I caught fire for linguistic geography as early as 1964, during my University studies in Vienna (1962-1967), in the context of an onomasiological seminar dedicated to the ALF under the direction of my revered teacher Carl Theodor Gossen (1915-1983). Subsequently, I also took note of the discussions that flared up around Ladin and the classification of the Upper Italian and Raeto-Romance dialects, and very quickly I recognised the conceptual and methodological weaknesses and errors hidden in them. In addition, at this time, I was already fascinated by the ever more powerful "electronic machines" and, above all, the scientific opportunities they opened up. Although I was a philologist, I was virtually "predestined" to work with these new "computers" due to my youthful background as a radio hobbyist and radio amateur. In fact, the brooding handling of radio tubes and transistors accompanied me throughout my high school studies.

My doctoral thesis on the language of Medieval charters of Normandy (Goebl 1970) may be considered the first emanation of this dual "endowment", where both the collection of medieval language data and its subsequent processing were largely realised with the help of the new IT equipment.

After completing my studies (teaching degree in French and Latin) in 1968, I took up the profession of a grammar school teacher in Vienna and – apart from a one-semester intermezzo at the University of Marburg in 1970 – continued to do so until I took up the job of assistant at the University of Regensburg (September 1973). During the period between 1968 and 1973, I was only able to devote a limited amount of time to long-term scientific projects such as the ALD.

Nevertheless, for the purpose of practical familiarisation with the exploratory work usually carried out for linguistic atlases, I conducted some independent surveys and participated as an observer in others during the holiday periods of 1971, 1972 and 1973 in France and Italy. The latter concerned the then ongoing inquiries for the regional linguistic atlases of Normandy (ALEN) and "Lorraine romane" (ALLR), as well as that of Friuli (ASLEF).

The actual spark that led to the ALD occurred – purely by chance – in the early afternoon of Friday, 18 August 1972. At the time, I was on my way back from an exploration trip in Umbria, Tuscany and Veneto and wanted to conclude it with a field work in Ladinia. This actually took place in the little village of Longiarú / Lungiarü / Campill (Val Badia). There, I was not only pointed out by the locals to the "most important specialist" of Ladin, namely to Dr. Lois Craffonara (then, like me, a professional grammar school teacher), but I also received the information that Dr. Craffonara "very much likes" to spend the afternoons in a certain bar in the neighbouring village of S. Martino in Badia. And there, in fact, the fateful encounter that led to the ALD took place.

The principles defined within two or three hours of intensive discussions for a new linguistic atlas included the following points:

• a close-knit survey of the central area of Raetoromania (Gartner 1883) and Ladinia (Ascoli 1873), respectively, while always taking economic and logistical factors into account;
• direct inquiries by trained linguists;
• methodological model: the Gallo-Romance linguistic atlas ALF (by Jules Gilliéron) other than the Italo- and Raeto-Romance linguistic atlas AIS (by Karl Jaberg and Jakob Jud). Due to the already very advanced decline of rural material culture in the 1970s, it would no longer have been possible to examine it across the board. This would have resulted in data gaps and thus a lack of intercomparability of the data collected in the field.
• integral sound recordings of all conducted interviews;
• as a conditio sine qua non for the subsequent processing (up to printing) of the data collected in the field: the obligatory use of the latest IT tools;
• spontaneous creation of the atlas abbreviation: ALD (later defined as "Atlante linguistico del ladino dolomitico [e dei dialetti limitrofi]").
• The basic dialectological concept: surveying the basilectal competences of basically 2- or even 3-lingual speakers under their "meta-linguistic guidance". This meant that the data provided by the dialect speakers during the inquiries should be always regarded as the "gold standard".

3. Periodisation of the ALD work

Apart from the general exploratory phase (1972-1984), the periods 1985-1998 (for the ALD-I) and 1999-2012 (for the ALD-II) are of primary importance here.

3.1. 1972-1984: Exploratory phase

In terms of my career, I ended my job as a secondary school teacher in Vienna in June 1973 and started work as an assistant at the University of Regensburg in September of the same year. I practised this profession until 1980, when I received a two-year scholarship from the DFG (German Research Foundation), before I was appointed Full Professor of Romance Philology (Linguistics) at the University of Salzburg on 1 December 1982 and soon after moved my private residence from Regensburg (Reifenthal) to Salzburg (Hallein-Rif).

The new job in Regensburg offered the opportunity to significantly increase the number, duration and intensity of the exploratory inquiries. From then on, I conducted these not only in the actual Dolomitic Ladinia (or: "Ladinia brissino-tirolese"), but also in its closer and further surroundings: thus in Trentino, in the Romansh-speaking parts of Grisons, and the eastern part of Lombardy, in Friuli and in the neighbouring parts of Veneto. Other young scholars interested in field research, such as Dieter Kattenbusch (who later became a professor at Humboldt University Berlin) and Thomas Stehl (who later became a professor at the University of Potsdam), also took part in some of these inquiries.

I used an abbreviated AIS questionnaire for this purpose and recorded all the interviews with one of the UHER magnetophones (4000 Report IC) that was common among field researchers at the time (recording speed: 4,75 and 9,5 cm/sec, always on 13 cm reels).

In the process, my geolinguistic ideas have taken shape in two dimensions:

a. with regard to the space under investigation: this is the area of about 25,000 km², bounded at right angles to the west, south and east, that can be seen on the maps of the ALD-I since 1998. The historical regions included are: on the northern edge: Upper and Lower Engadine, the proper Dolomitic Ladinia (called also "Ladinia brissino-tirolese"), the northern (Carnia) and central Friuli; on the southern edge: eastern Lombardy, the whole of Trentino and northern and middle Veneto.

Map of the ALD area of investigation

b. with regard to the exploration method:

In view of the relatively high average level of general education and culture of the local population, it seemed possible, when conducting the surveys, to ask the potential informants, with reference to their generally recognised multilingualism (standard language [acrolect], colloquial language [mesolect] and dialect [basilect]) to make a translation transfer between the question presented in acrolectal form and its respective basilectal equivalent.

Here, too, the principle defined by Jules Gilliéron (1854-1926) at the ALF has proven effective: trusting the spontaneously given initial answer (= premier jet) rather than pushing the informants to give "expected ideal answers" (= extorsion). Incidentally, these conditions also allowed for targeted inquiries in explicitly trilingual linguistic islands such as the Valle dei Mocheni, Luserna or Sauris.

But even then, I was very sceptical about two "innovative" concepts discussed by young German and Italian geolinguists: the idea of an atlante linguistico repertorio, which was mainly fostered by Sicilian researchers (https://www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=34845&v=1,¹ and the geolinguistica multidimensionale favoured by Harald Thun, a Romance linguist at Kiel University (ADDU; Radtke/Thun 1996). In both cases, it seemed impossible to me to guarantee the intercomparability of the collected data, which is indispensable in geolinguistics, or their equal status across the whole research area under the newly proposed survey conditions.

During my stay in Regensburg, the decision was also taken to operationally divide the overall project into two parts (ALD-I and ALD-II) and a network of potential friends and supporters of the ALD was established. These included the directors of the two Ladin cultural institutes newly founded in the mid-1970s (the doctors Lois Craffonara for the "Istitut ladin Micurá de Rü" and Fabio Chiocchetti for the "Istitut ladin cultural Majon di Fascegn"), but also some representatives of the provincial governments of North Tyrol and Trentino and the Vienna Ministry of Education who were involved in promoting culture and science.

In addition to these instances, the Austrian Science Fund FWF also provided very substantial support for my various (mostly Regensburg-based) test inquiries.

During this time, the questionnaire for the ALD-I was not only developed in terms of linguistic content, but also realised in a material and typographical way. The text, printed in A4 landscape format, consisted of some introductory sections (with items regarding the locality, informants and phonetic transcription) and the actual corpus of 806 Italian question items, distributed over a total of 103 pages.

In order to detect any sociolinguistically relevant variations, these 806 questions were to be presented to at least two informants in each locality. These were to differ from each other in two of the following five social properties: sex, age, religion, level of education and occupation.

Accordingly, three columns were provided for each of the 806 question items for later handwritten completion. The first two were to be used by the explorers to transcribe the answers of the two informants interviewed, while the third column was reserved for the entry of the answer to be considered definitive or "ready for printing". The explorers were to complete this third column only at home and after listening again to all the audio recordings made in the field.

As for the alphabetical order of the 806 questions on phonetics and elementary morphosyntax, I based myself on the ALF and ultimately fell victim to a regrettable error. It was only around 2016 that it became clear that the original ALF questionnaire used by the ALF-explorer Edmond Edmont was structured factually (or semantically) and had been presented to the informants in this form. As to the arrangement of the maps of ALF in alphabetical order, which is now considered typical of this linguistic atlas, it was, effectively, a (practical) decision taken by Jules Gilliéron just before the ALF went to press (in 1902).

Fortunately, the informants of the ALD were never confused by the alphabetical order of the questions and the associated pragmalinguistic zigzag course.

I took care myself of the reproduction of the resulting 103 A4 landscape pages and the binding of a total of 300 copies of this questionnaire.

3.2. ALD-I: 1985-1998

The periods required for the preparation of the two parts of the atlas (ALD-I: 1985-1998; ALD-II: 1999-2012) together covered almost the entirety of the 30 years (1982-2012) that I spent in Salzburg. 

3.2.1. Fieldwork 1985-1992

This began in the late autumn of that year in the Ladin Fassa Valley under the responsability of Dieter Kattenbusch (then at the University of Regensburg, and specifically as a successor in the assistant position that I had vacated in 1980) and were subsequently continued, each in a different sector of the ALD grid, by researchers from Austria (Tino Szekely, Helga Böhmer) and Italy (Elisabetta Perini, Silvio Gislimberti). The latter had been recruited through personal contacts among colleagues in the field of Romance studies.

The costs incurred for staff, travelling, accommodation and material were covered from the outset by combining the funds provided by the Vienna FWF and the Austrian Ministry of Education, as well as by South Tyrolean, North Tyrolean and Trentino cultural authorities. These had to be reapplied for by me every two years and accounted for accurately.

In addition, since the very beginning two traditions were established: a) that of the annual work reports on the ALD-I (mainly in the journal "Ladinia", founded in 1977) and b) that of the "transcription seminars" (SETRA: "Seminario di trascrizione"), which also took place annually at the beginning.

The latter usually lasted 3-4 days, were always held in St. Martin in Thurn (BZ) and usually brought together – always with my participation and under my leadership – the active explorers and the ALD collaborators working in Salzburg (such as Roland Bauer, etc.). A wide range of issues were discussed, from how to best conduct the admission interviews, the optimal transcription of complex sound utterances, the ergonomics of filling out the questionnaires, to logistical problems of travelling from place to place and finding suitable and affordable accommodation. Of course, the SETRA also resulted in a significant strengthening of group spirit and mutual collegiality. There were six SETRA at ALD-I and only four at ALD-II.

It should be noted that the explorers not only documented the local dialect, but also examined each of the visited localities on the basis of an ethnographic questionnaire and took meaningful colour photographs (called by us "ethnophotography") of both the interviewed informants and prominent features of the respective locality (such as church, cemetery, house fronts, landscape design, etc.). Initially, traditional roll film cameras (24 x 36 mm format) were used for this purpose, but these were only replaced by digital cameras in ALD-II. In this way, around 17,000 slides (in analogue and digital form) were created during ALD-I and ALD-II. The analogue slides, which make up the majority of them, were framed, carefully labelled and sorted into the well-known "ABODIA cabinets" which are ideally suited for this purpose, where the slides can be optimally viewed by anyone. These cabinets are now located in the (underground) ALD archive at the University of Salzburg, Of course, digital copies of all these slides also exist today, but unfortunately they cannot yet be viewed over the internet.

Since the average time difference between the recordings for ALD-I and ALD-II is around 15 years, this also applies to these two photo series. It is amazing to see how much the general habitat in many places has changed during this time.

The additional recordings made for the creation of the "Speaking Linguistic Atlas" should also be mentioned. The ultimate aim was to make available, using IT technology, particularly carefully collected and precisely edited "quality sound". The idea was to enter the numbers of a locality and any question into the computer and receive a high-quality acoustic answer that would also correspond as closely as possible to the transcription that can be seen in the printed ALD-I. In the years between 1998 (publication of the ALD-I) and about 2010, CD-ROM and DVD data carriers were initially used to implement the "Speaking Atlas" as well as the associated user programmes before the start of the real network presence, but CD-ROM and DVD soon proved to be obsolete.

The quality sound just quoted was re-recorded in 1992-1993 under "special conditions" by our field worker Helga Böhmer at the 21 Ladinian inquiry points. These consisted of Böhmer conducting the follow-up interviews on the basis of the questionnaires already filled up around 5-7 years earlier, paying particular attention to an acoustically and pragmatically calm recording atmosphere during her questioning and using a special technical equipment (directional microphone, recording by the DAT-technique [Digital Audio Tape]).

3.2.2. IT-supported data collection and data processing

The work associated with this began with the availability of the first fully completed questionnaires: this was the case in 1986. Three dimensions had to be taken into account:

1. the mastery of the theory and concept of the database (DB),
2. the local availability of a database on one's own University network,
3. the effective organisation of a data input chain running under these principles (mainly operated by student assistants).

All this work was initially coordinated and managed by my project collaborator Roland Bauer and, from 1990, by the externally recruited Scandinavianist (!) and computational linguist Edgar Haimerl. An essential point of this work was the definition of the IT capture of the ALD phonetic transcription. This largely followed the principles of those of the linguistic atlas AIS; this decision was done to ensure that the ALD data could be directly compared with that of the AIS. At least the glyphs of the AIS transcription, which goes back to the Italian linguist G. I. Ascoli (1829-1907), can be decoded and understood much better by laymen than those of the international phonetic alphabet (IPA), which uses numerous glyphs that do not occur in normal alphabets.

The IT work organised in this way had to be carried out in the same way and with the same precision for each of the 217 questionnaires that were expected, and was basically very "repetitive". However, these challenges were well met with the help of Edgar Haimerl's software CARD ("Cartography and Retrieval of Dialect Data").

An important aspect of this data entry was multiple correction loops, whereby the data to be corrected was first output on lists (in DIN A4 format) and then – after they had been duly reviewed three times and corrected – on sample maps (in DIN A2 format). On each map the 217 entries of the phonetic transcription appeared in blocks in the form of eight numbered "test paths" that stretched from Grisons (in the northwest) to the southeastern West Friuli (in the southeast of the ALD grid).

It should also be mentioned that in 1995, the two Ladin institutes in San Martino in Badia (BZ) and in Vigo di Fassa (TN) were given copies of all 217 completed questionnaires and C-90 cassettes of all the sound recordings made for the ALD-I. A similar donation was also made in 2001 to the "Museo degli Usi e Costumi della Gente Trentina" (MUCGT²) in S. Michele all'Adige (TN), but only for the 65 inquiry points of Trentino.

3.2.3. Printing the ALD-I: search for a publisher, printer and "patrons"

Around 1997, we began looking for a suitable publisher and raising awareness among the already existing patrons of the ALD's project for the assumption of the additional costs associated with printing the ALD-I.

After some exploratory work, we came across the editor Dr. Ludwig Reichert in Wiesbaden (D), which had already taken over the publication of the "Lessico etimologico italiano" (LEI) by Max Pfister at that time. The editor Reichert was cooperating with the Scheufele printing house in Stuttgart (also: D), which had the best technical equipment for realising large formats. The printing order handed over to Scheufele was for four large-format map volumes and three index volumes (in B5 format). The printing data for the four volumes of maps was sent to Stuttgart in electronic form (Postscript files on CD-ROM), while the data for the three index volumes was sent in the form of reprographic paper printouts. The latter had previously been produced on the printers of the Salzburg ALD archive on a special paper provided by Scheufele.

For the four volumes of maps, particular attention was paid to a particularly solid binding of the volume spines. In addition, the two covers of each of the four map volumes were each provided with two metal reinforcements to prevent early wear and tear by the readership. The colour of the binding of all seven volumes of the ALD-I: "navy blue".

Total printing costs for 300 copies of ALD-I: € 250,000 (converted from DM to Euro). This amount was raised viribus unitis by the FWF, a substantial contribution from the EU (mediated by the now defunct "Direction Générale XXII", Brussels), the two Ladin cultural institutes (in S. Martino in Badia [BZ] and in Vigo di Fassa [TN]), the Italian Region of Trentino-Alto Adige, the Austrian Province of (North) Tyrol and the Austrian Ministry of Education in Vienna.

In 1998/99, several information campaigns were launched from Salzburg to promote the ALD-I and stimulate its sale both within and outside the actual scientific community.

3.3. ALD-II: 1999-2012

Work on the ALD-II began without delay in 1999, shortly after the delivery of the printed copies of the ALD-I destined for Salzburg. In the process, new collaborators were recruited: Paul Videsott, a native-born Ladinian and specialist in Romance studies, to compile the new questionnaire for the ALD-II, as well as Brigitte Rührlinger (University of Salzburg) and Frank Jodl (Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen) for the fieldwork. In 1999 and 2000, several test inquiries could be carried out at various linguistic "hotspots" of the ALD grid with the participation of the aforementioned, to determine the content of the new questionnaire. For purely economic reasons, the proto-types of the new questionnaire created by Paul Videsott had to be shortened considerably.

The questionnaire of ALD-II should focus on the problems of elaborated morpho-syntax and the vocabulary, and thus supplement the grammatical areas already examined in the ALD-I. The copies of this questionnaire used in the fieldwork was again in DIN A4 landscape format and consisted again of two parts: a) a richly structured ethnographic and documentary introduction and b) an 181-page text section containing 1063 numbered questions in Italian. In terms of content, there were quite a few complex sentence questions, which appeared in the questionnaire broken down into several parts, but always numbered in a clear way. The Italian wording of the questions was accompanied by interlinear German and Ladin equivalents. In addition, it was noted for each question whether it was an "own invention" (eigene Erfindung = EF) or whether it had been borrowed from a previous work.

Naturally, this questionnaire was to be used in the same 217 villages already visited during the ALD-I, but with the theoretical restriction of only one respondent per inquiry point. In fact, 833 people were interviewed during the ALD-II, including 475 men and 358 women. This was also due to the complexity of the content and the length of the questionnaire: in many cases, both exceeded the capacities of a single respondent. The collective average age of all 833 respondents was almost 65 years. You can read all about this in detail in the preface of the ALD-II (Volume I, p. XXX). By way of comparison: for ALD-I, only 488 people were interviewed, whose combined age was less than 60 years (see preface to ALD-I, volume I, p. XXVIII).

Two (sufficiently wide) columns were provided on the right-hand pages of the questionnaire for the transcriptions created in the field and their definitive reelaborations. Similar to the ALD-I, the explorers had to supplement the initial transcription created in the field after listening to all the audio recordings with a revised version to be considered definitive (and ready for IT input).

###evtll Bild einer ausgefüllten Quest.seite?###

3.3.1. Regular fieldwork 2001-2007

Ten explorers participated in the fieldwork from 2001 to 2007 (three from Germany, four from Austria, three from Italy), two of whom (the Austrians Tino Szekely and Helga Böhmer) had already worked on the ALD-I.

Technical adjustments were made to the recording devices (first C-90 cassettes, then SONY MiniDiscs and finally fully electronic wave recorders) and to the cameras (passing from analogue to digital).

In contrast to the ALD-I, one "socio-technical" innovation must be mentioned: the increasing diffusion resp. popularity of the internet which has made it much easier for our explorers to prepare and carry out the inquiries.

One more curiosity should be added: the explorers working on ALD-II, especially in the south of the ALD zone, reported on several occasions that there was a very positive shift towards the local dialects, which had not yet been observed in this form during ALD-I.

In this context, the whole ALD staff received a special honour. In 2002, the cultural association "Accademia Aque Slosse", based in Bassano del Grappa, awarded the Institute of Romance Studies at the University of Salzburg the cultural prize "Alfiere d'Oro" for 2002. The official reason given was: "Per lo studio altamente qualificato di ricerca e pubblicazione sullo status linguistico del Ladino e dei dialetti limitrofi dell'area triveneta e lombardo-svizzera" ["For the highly qualified research study and publication on the linguistic status of Ladin and the neighbouring dialects of the area of Triveneto and Lombardy-Switzerland"].

This award was particularly valuable to us because in previous years it had been bestowed to two of the most prominent figures in Italian dialectology: to Manlio Cortelazzo (1918-2009) in 1996 and to Giambattista Pellegrini (1921-2007) in 1998. So we found ourselves in the very best of company.

3.3.2. IT-supported data collection and data processing

After an unsuccessful attempt to outsource the IT work for ALD-II to a professional IT company, we continued to entrust the IT matters to Edgar Haimerl, who received support from Andreas Wagner and Fabio Tosques. In 2010, this team was expanded to include the computer engineer Bernhard Schauer, who took over primary responsibility for the IT matters until the project was completed in 2012. The aim of the newly developed IT systems (DMG – "Dialect Map Generator" and SUBIRES – "Supplementary Book and Index Retrieval System") was to extend the dimensions of a fully-fledged project database to include all the materials available or collected at ALD-I and ALD-II (including all sound data and the approximately 17,000 slides taken in the context of "ethnophotography").

Furthermore, these two programs were to support the network presence of two user programs (IRS: "Index Retrieval System" and SDB(2): "Sound Data Base, 2nd Version) of the ALD-II — which was completely new compared to the ALD-I.

Several collaborators (Heidemarie Beer, Agnes Staudinger and Gertraud Klingler) were trained in the ongoing use of the DMG and SUBIRES programmes, and they carried out this task with great dedication and success until 31 December 2012.

The ALD Archive, as mentioned earlier, was initially located in a neighbouring building (address: Akademiestrasse 26) next to the ancient location of the Department of Romance Studies at the University of Salzburg (address: Akademiestrasse 24) and consisted of four relatively large rooms. In 2011, we had to move to the replacement building ("Unipark"), which had just been put into operation at that time, and had to make do with significantly less space. This also (and above all) affected the "ALD Library", which was founded in 1984 and had grown to around 6000 volumes through ongoing acquisitions.

The purpose of this collection, which is unique in Austria, was and is to bring together the scientific literature from the fields of linguistics, ethnography, regional history and geography that exists on the ALD Zone for interdisciplinary study. Today (2024), the majority of the ALD-materials and data collected since 1985 (questionnaires, audio documents, slides, recording devices, etc.) are located in a larger room in the basement of the "Unipark", while the ca 6000 books of the ALD library are unfortunately housed in rather cramped conditions on the second floor of the new "Unipark".

3.3.3. Printing the ALD-II: the search for a printer, publisher and "patrons"

These three points were solved much better and more elegantly than in ALD-I. This was mainly due to the discovery – made possible by a tip from dr. Fabio Chiocchetti, the former director of the "Istitut cultural ladin Majon di Fascegn" in Vigo di Fassa³ – of the Alcione printing company in Lavis (north of Trento) and then also the Barizza binding company in Loreggia (province of Padova). To my continuing surprise, it turned out that the production of high-quality printed matter south of the German-Italian language border near Salorno/Salurn, with absolutely identical quality of printing and binding, costs practically half of what is charged for the same work north of this language border.

From around 2010, the number of map- and index-volumes of the ALD-II could be planned and determined: the result was five map- and two index-volumes, which – to make the contrast to the ALD-I clear – were all provided with covers in Bordeaux red.

With a total print run of 300 copies again, the total costs amounted to only € 130,000, which is about half of the printing costs of the ALD-I. This sum was mainly covered by the FWF, which however demanded open access to the printed ALD-II in return. This can be accessed by anyone at the following link:

https://e-book.fwf.ac.at/search/?q=goebl&page=1&pagesize=10

The publishing house we worked with to distribute ALD-II was the Strasbourg-based "Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie" (ELiPhi), under the direction of Martin Gleßgen, a professor of Romance Philology at the University of Zurich.

4. Creation and demise of the IRS and SDB(2) network programmes

Fortunately, all the goals set at the ALD-II were achieved right on schedule by the time I retired (30 September 2012). The third-party funds I raised allowed the research operations to be maintained until 31 December 2012. After that, the entire ALD research team was disbanded and, unfortunately, the technical maintenance of the IRS and SDB(2) programmes that had previously been put online was also discontinued. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any support in this regard at the University of Salzburg's computing centre. Strangely enough, they referred me to the Institute of Romance Studies at the same University, where, of course, neither the necessary expertise nor the necessary funds were available for the long-term maintenance of IT programmes.

So, it came as it had to come: the two network programmes (IRS and SDB[2]) initially ran into technical difficulties and finally ceased completely from around 2018. Although Bernhard Schauer launched a few initially successful rescue attempts, these only lasted for a short time. It should be added that IRS worked on the basis of the Flash programme and SDB(2) on that of Java 7.

5. On the way to digitALD

The fact that it was possible to find a more than adequate replacement for the defunct IRS and SDB(2) programmes in a relatively short period of time after 2018 is again the result of fortunate coincidences. First of all, I came into direct contact with an institution called the "LMU Center for Digital Humanities" ("IT-Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften" [ITG]) at the University of Munich in my state of emergency. The deputy head of the ITG, Dr. Stephan Lücke, and Prof. Thomas Krefeld of the LMU institute for Romance Philology pointed me in the direction of two young Bavarian computer scientists, namely the twin brothers David and Tobias Englmeier. With the help of Bernhard Schauer, they quickly found their way through the meanders of the databases created at the ALD and created a genial concept for a totally renewed ALD website (= ALD-I and ALD-II), initially focusing on three functions. These three functions initially concerned:

• The optically very variable view of all 1950 linguistic maps in both parts of the ALD
• The precise search (using three fonts) in the 1950 linguistic maps (although separated into ALD-I and ALD-II)
• The targeted listening to all audio recordings made in the years 1985-1992 and 2001-2007 (also separated into ALD-I and ALD-II)

In 2020, I succeeded in getting the necessary financial support from the FWF in Vienna.

After the successful implementation of these three functions, it turned out that the "Speaking Linguistic Atlas", which had been conceived at the time of ALD-I and was then languishing on shaky IT legs, should also be incorporated into this new network concept. After a second grant was obtained from the Vienna FWF, this new challenge could also be mastered in the best possible way by the brilliantly acting Englmeier brothers. The resulting "digitALD" has been available online since the end of 2023 at the following link:

https://www.ald.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/

The digitALD can be operated in five languages: German, Italian, French, English and Standard Ladin.

It has four clearly marked entry portals, each in a different colour:

• Red: Search (in the 1950 linguistic maps),
• Blue: (consultation of the 1950 linguistic) Maps,
• Green: (browsing in the two) Questionnaire(s),
• Violet: listening to the "Speaking Atlas" of ALD-I

In addition, digitALD includes useful heuristic tools (such as "silent maps" of the ALD grid, with and without polygonisation) to optimise the geolinguistic evaluation and processing of the 1950 linguistic maps of the ALD, as well as numerous bibliographic references.

6. The current status of the ALD

6.1. Availability in bookshops

The print versions of the two parts of the ALD are still available in bookshops at very reasonable prices:

• Complete ALD-I (= 7 volumes): € 200 (excluding shipping)
• Complete ALD-II (= 7 volumes): € 300 Euro (excluding shipping)
• Order: verlagservice@lila-logistik.com
• Silent maps for the philological evaluation and processing of the 1950 linguistic maps of the ALD, downloadable at:

https://www.ald.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/en/stummekarten/?db=ald1

6.2. Dialectometry

The dialectometrisation of the two parts of the ALD was carried out by Prof. Roland Bauer (University of Salzburg) during the last two decades. For the results obtained using the ALD-I, see Bauer 2009 and for those obtained also with ALD-II see the following link:

https://www.kit.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/?p=40502&v=2⁴

6.3. Full quotations of the cover pages of ALD-I and ALD-II

6.3.1. Full quotation (Italian version) of the cover page of ALD‑I

Atlant linguistich dl ladin dolomitich y di dialec vejins, 1a pert / Atlante linguistico del ladino dolomitico e dei dialetti limitrofi, 1a parte / Sprachatlas des Dolomitenladinischen und angrenzender Dialekte, 1. Teil, Wiesbaden: Dr. L. Reichert Verlag, 1998, 4 voll. con carte linguistiche (vol. I: 1-216; vol. II: 217-438; vol. III: 439-660; vol. IV: 661-884); 3 voll. con indici (in ordine alfabetico progressivo: X, 823 pp., in ordine alfabetico inverso: X, 833 pp., indice etimologico: X, 177 pp.), con tre CD-ROM (a partire dal 2002: con un DVD).

• Materialia collegerunt:⁵ Helga Böhmer, Silvio Gislimberti, Dieter Kattenbusch, Elisabetta Perini, Tino Szekely
• Materialia collecta elaboraverunt: Irmgard Dautermann, Susanne Heissmann, Ulrike Hofmann, Anna Kozak, Heide Marie Pamminger, Judith Rössler
• Programmata electronica excogitaverunt: Roland Bauer, Edgar Haimerl
• Opus omne curavit: Hans Goebl

6.3.2. Full quotation (Italian version) of the cover page of ALD‑II

Atlant linguistich dl ladin dolomitich y di dialec vejins, 2^a pert / Atlante linguistico del ladino dolomitico e dei dialetti limitrofi, 2^a parte / Sprachatlas des Dolomitenladinischen und angrenzender Dialekte, 2. Teil, Strasbourg: Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie, 2012. 5 voll. con carte linguistiche (vol. I: 1-202; vol. II: 203-420; vol. III: 421-635; vol. IV: 636-850; V: 851-1066), 2 voll. con indici (Volumen supplementarium, 174 pp.; Index generalis, 213 pp.).

• Materialia collegerunt:⁶ Ilaria Adami, Helga Böhmer, Axel Heinemann, Frank Jodl, Liza Klinger, Daniele Rando, Brigitte Rührlinger, Walter Strauß, Tino Szekely, Paul Videsott
• Materialia collecta elaboraverunt: Heidemarie Beer, Gertraud Klingler, Agnes Staudinger
• Programmata electronica excogitaverunt: Edgar Haimerl, Bernhard Schauer, Fabio Tosques, Andreas Wagner
• Opus omne curavit: Hans Goebl

7. Literature on the two parts of the ALD

This can be found in a very comprehensive way in the two prefaces ("Introductio") of the first map volumes of ALD-I (1998, pp. XX-XXI) and ALD-II (2012, pp. XXI-XXII) as well as in the section of my homepage dedicated to Raeto-Romance:

https://goebl.ads.plus.ac.at/people/prof/goebl/publik_r.htm

8. Abbreviations and sigla used ad hoc in this text

• • BZ: Bolzano/Bozen
  • DB: Datenbank, data base
  • CARD: Cartography and Retrieval of Dialect Data
  • DFG: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bonn / Berlin) [German Research Foundation]
  • DMG: Dialect Map Generator
  • EDV: Elektronische Datenverarbeitung
  • ELiPhi: Éditions de Linguistique et de Philologie
  • FWF: Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung in Österreich (Vienna) [Austrian Science Fund]
  • IPA: International Phonetic Alphabet
  • IRS: Index Retrieval System
  • ITG: IT-Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften der LMU (LMU Center for Digital Humanities)
  • SDB(2): Sound Data Base, 2nd Version
  • SETRA: Seminario di trascrizione
  • SUBIRES: Supplementary Book and Index Retrieval System
  • TN: Trento