The MultiTree project, started in 2006, set out to build a digital library of up-to-date, scholarly information about language relationships and subgroupings. This library is fully documented and transparently traceable to the scholarly research upon which it is based; it is also overseen by a board of respected comparative historical linguists. The existing library is freely accessible via a user-friendly website which is adapted to different scholarly and educational purposes. For example, it includes an interface allowing scholars to (a) compare different subgrouping trees side by side and (b) submit and review comments on the subgroupings.
The success of the existing website and the proven utility of the MultiTree language relationship trees and bibliography, has led to the conclusion that the MultiTree library should include all reputable scholarly hypotheses about language relationships (not just the most current or well-known). Furthermore, the MultiTree interface should display all or part of the text from which the hypothesis was drawn, and the database should be maintained in such a way as to be always current with ongoing research.
This project will implement a cost-effective way to bring MultiTree to a state of completion in the next two years and keep it up-to-date thereafter; these objectives will be achieved through (a) adding a facility to allow scholars to contribute new hypotheses to the database and present them to the Advisory Board for approval, and (b) through making MultiTree a focus of the LINGUIST List summer internship program. The involvement of interns has a threefold benefit: it will reduce the cost of completing data input; it will wed site maintenance to an already-established program, and, as an added benefit, it will enrich the discipline by offering promising students experience with language technologies, digital standards, and the analysis of historical, comparative, and dialectal language research.
