Introducing the Historical African Languages Database: A Translingual Resource of Crosslinked Dictionaries

Abstract

The earliest written documentation of most African languages comes in the form of dictionaries and field notes prepared by European missionaries and linguists, with the assistance of African informants, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These resources have been difficult to access and compare, existing only in either print or unprocessed scans. We present a fully searchable and interconnected online database that makes such resources more easily accessible for study. It currently contains seven bilingual dictionaries, with many more sources to be added as they are processed. We explain the database’s design, in which processed entries are separated and their fields tagged according to a consistent structure, maximizing query options and facilitating translingual connections. We describe the functionality of the website through which users can access the data in a variety of ways. We discuss the database’s construction process, including particular challenges related to these historical data sources, and outline the development of a scalable procedure for its future expansion. We also present three case studies illustrating potential uses of the database by historians, linguists, and educators. Finally, we identify a roadmap for the resource’s continued improvement through additional features.