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Dear Visitors

This site was created in the project P21706 "An interactive online etymological dictionary of Lepontic", funded by the FWF – Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, the Austrian Science Fund. The funding ran from Sept. 1, 2009 until June 30, 2011, but work on the project continues after that date. When finished, the website can be expected to host a multimedia lexicon of the remnants of Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish, the Celtic languages spoken in the first millennium BC in northern Italy and southern Switzerland. The heart of the lexicon are an edition of all objects bearing Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish inscriptions, and an etymological dictionary of the attested words. A detailed overview of all currently existing pages of the lexicon can be found in the Table of Contents.

Project initiator and responsible for the content: Prof. Dr. David Stifter (Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge, National University of Ireland Maynooth).
Executive project director: PD Dr. Stefan Schumacher (Dept. of Linguistics, University of Vienna).
Current staff and research fellows: Martin Braun, Chiara Dezi, Mag.^a Corinna Scheungraber, Mag.^a Michela Vignoli.
Previous staff: Mag.^a Anna Adaktylos, Eva Lettner, DI DI DI Mag. Marcel Schwarz.

Schedule

The Past

• In the experimental phase 1 of the project, Sept. 1, 2009-Feb. 12, 2010, the technical possibilities of the website were tested and the system MediaWiki was adapted to the requirements of the lexicon. The hard-core technical work was done by Marcel Schwarz and Martin Braun. The conceptual groundwork, carried out in particular by Martin Braun, consisted mainly in developing the formal structures and routines that enable the automatised functions of the lexicon. The primary goal of Eva Lettner during this time was to compile a basic list of Lepontic inscriptions. David Stifter and Eva Lettner presented the project at national and international conferences. At the end of phase 1, the experimental version of the lexicon was deleted.

The Present

• We are now in phase 2 of the project. At its start, at the beginning of February 2010, the system was recreated from scratch. Since then we have been occupied with entering the basic data about the archaeological objects carrying the inscriptions, the inscriptions themselves, and the dictionary headwords. This work is carried out by Martin Braun and Michela Vignoli. Against our initial expectations, technical questions still and regularly crop up. Martin Braun is constantly applying his ingenuity to refining and advancing the technical backbones of the site.
  • Entering the fundamental data about the objects that bear the inscriptions was finished by the end of July 2010.
  • In December 2010, administrative reasons made it necessary to transfer the official direction of the project from David Stifter to Stefan Schumacher. With the start of 2011, two new colleagues joined the project team, Mag. Michela Vignoli and Chiara Francesca Dezi, and two more colleagues added further support (Anna Adaktylos from Jan. 24-Feb. 28; Corinna Scheungraber from May-June).
  • Entering the inscriptions into the database was finished in February 2011, under the responsibility of Martin Braun. Pages for the words were set up by Michela Vignoli, and these pages will now be filled with content by herself and David Stifter. Meanwhile, Chiara Dezi is filling the bibliography. It is the chief responsibility of Anna Adaktylos and Corinna Scheungraber to check the entries on the site for grammatical correctness.

The Future

• Phase 3: the full version of the lexicon that will allow to retrieve basic information about the remains of the Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish languages will be finished by the beginning of summer 2011, when the financial support for the project runs out.
• Phase 4: It is planned for the future to visit all museums, to examine all inscriptions ourselves and to take our own photographs for the lexicon where we are granted this right.