Data Capture and Presentation in the Romanian Online Dialect Atlas

Sheila Embleton, Dorin Uritescu, Eric Wheeler

RODA,the Romanian Online Dialect Atlas (Embleton, Uritescu, and Wheeler 2002, 2004,2006, in press), is a two-stage project involving (I) the transfer of data from a hard copy atlas of the Crisana dialect of Romanian (Stan and Uritescu 1996,2003) to an online system for general availability, and (2) the application of innovative statistical methods to the data. Romanian, as the prime exemplar of the eastern Romance languages. has had scholarly attention, including the detailed work of Stan and Britescu (1996,2003) and Uritescu (l984a, 1984b) on the dialects of the Crisana region in north-west Romania. In digitizing this data to make it more broadly accessible, and in successfully digitizing a hardcopy dialect atlas of Finnish (Embleton and Wheeler 1997b, 2000), we encountered several situations worth highlighting to others who may be considering parallel projects.