LUDVIC
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R&D Unit funded by
LUDVIC
Language Unity and Diversity: Variation in Capeverdean and beyond
The LUDVIC project explores the core notions of unity and diversity in human language through the adequate description and theoretical explanation of variation phenomena in Capeverdean. This is not yet an official language in its own country, Cabo Verde, thus keeping a state of unequal interaction with Portuguese, the language of the former colonizers. Besides this permanent contact, different varieties are spoken in the various islands of the archipelago, in a situation of abundant diversity that is largely understudied.
These variation phenomena are collected during both judgement sessions and semi-informal interviews (two methods with complementary advantages) recorded mainly in Cabo Verde, but also in the United States (Massachusetts and Rhode Island), a recent extension that aims to address the linguistic effects of the contact of Capeverdean with English.
This new digital, open access corpus results from these interviews, semi-orthographically transcribed into XML files with a TEI (Text Encoding Initiative).