Conception and Development of an Open Database System on Historical Multilingualism in Austria

This paper discusses the development and structure of an online information system, which aims to gather and visualize data on historical multilingualism in Austria (German: historische Mehrsprachigkeit in Österreich, short: MiÖ), with a particular focus on Slavic languages. The database tracks the development of multilingualism over time, its distribution in space and its representation in literature, therefore allowing to examine its dynamics and change. As an example, we investigate the area of the so-called Marchfeld (č./sk. Moravské pole). The paper further discusses how the database is embedded into the collaborative research platform of the Special Research Program “German in Austria (DiÖ)” as well as its technical realization and the possibility to include data from other related research projects.