The project has two interrelated objectives: to produce a database-backed website on the Inner Asian Sprachbund languages, and an etymological dictionary of the Inner Asian Salar language. The area remains largely undocumented as a Sprachbund. Typological and lexical databases with extensive metadata provide a coordinating instrument with which to study study language contact and change. Integrating extensive examples from exising corpora allows research at all levels of linguistics. Here, an exhaustive dictionary of one language, Salar [ISO 639-3: slr], serves as a test case to be integrated with data from four other endangered lanÂguaÂges from the region, Baonan [peh], Wutun [wuh], Kangjia [kxs], and Southeastern Monguor [mjg]. The result will be a new tool, in the form of integrated datasets, for the study of language contact and change. The website will be a major online resource of a linguistic area, including information on area's dominant languages, NorthÂwestern Mandarin and Amdo Tibetan. Language and cultural contact in the strategically important Inner Asian linguistic area is very poorly understood, and this project's fresh research in China, detailed website and online forum will provide a needed resource for China and Central Asia scholars and policy makers, as well as for linguists and language community members.
