Language Mapping Worldwide: Methods and Traditions

The chapter provides an overview about methods and traditions of linguistic cartography in the past and present. Mapping language and mapping language-related data meets an increasing interest not only in disciplines such as dialectology and language typology, which are the classical domains of linguistic cartography, but also in sociolinguistics and theoretical linguistics. The chapter is structured in three main parts. First, the purposes of language mapping are introduced, ranging from visualization of the position of linguistic features in geographic space (the basic purpose of language mapping) through issues in language classification to correlations between linguistic and nonlinguistic features. Second, a formal typology of language maps based on their symbolization is given, distinguishing point-related maps, line-related maps, area-related maps, and surface maps. Third, major language mapping traditions worldwide are sketched in as much detail as possible in a short overview. The descriptions consider examples from all areas of the world (including reprints of maps and map details). A section on the effects of computerization on language mapping concludes the chapter.