LANGUAGE SERVICES
LADIN LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES
Projects for the computerization of the language, tools and language resources, a patrimony now also available online.
Over the last the two decades, the Ladin Cultural Institute has dedicated a large part of its linguistic activity to projects aimed at the computerization and modernization of the Ladin language, within a framework ofcooperation with other Ladin cultural institutions.In this context, the LCI took advantage of collaboration with prestigious partners, like the ITC-IRST of Trento, in order to fulfil these projects and advanced tools for the development and management of lexical and textual resources and for the automated processing of the language were created.
The infrastructure developed and the linguistic resources included and elaborated within it are now easy to access, thanks to the online publication of the technology and contents generated (www.ladintal.it).
THE LANGUAGE, A HERITAGE TO DEFEND…
The Ladin Cultural Institute has a central role in defending, supporting and promoting the Ladin language, the primary symbol of the identity of the Fassa community.
One of primary goals of the cultural activity entails protecting the language from being lost and preventing the loss of its patrimony of vocabulary. This conservation policy is put into effect by recovering and enhancing the value of the traditional vocabulary and is conducted by collecting and studying the available resources. T
he sources taken into consideration include lexographical collections, made up of dictionaries and lexicons compiled mostly in the second half of the 20th century, written sources, primarily texts by local authors who, in their activities, described and captured on paper the traditional heritage of culture, folklore, customs and trades in the Fassa Valley and, lastly, oral sources.
… AND AN OPPORTUNITY THAT NEEDS TO GROW
Another fundamental goal of the Institute’s activity is to make Ladin a modern language, suitable for use in all areas of communication, from administration and schools to literary and artistic production.
The goal of this effort, which stems, among other things, from the Institute's rich editorial production, is to make the Ladin language increasingly alive: not a language that belongs in a museum, nor, at the opposite extreme, a language of bureaucracy, but a language in which people can and want to communicate.
For this programme to be successful, interaction with the other cultural and economic situations in the territory is fundamental: schools, public bodies, the press, cultural institutions, tour operators and traders.
