Heidelberg Bibliography of Translations of Nonfictional Texts

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Vahram Atayan
• Subject Area: Individual Linguistics, Historical Linguistics ; Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429695918

This project aims to provide a comprehensive online bibliography of translations of nonfictional texts mainly from the early modern period, i.e. the collection of German translations of non-literary texts published between 1450 and 1800. There are three individual objectives to be accomplished during the envisaged three-year term:Firstly, a technical infrastructure will be developed to allow registered users to create bibliographical entries through a secured user interface. Moreover, there will also be a public web interface whereby external researchers and other interested individuals can access the database and specify their search parameters to identify the entries they require.Secondly, seeing that our main task concerns the collection of data, we will compile a database of translations from English and Dutch into German. Even though belles-lettres will be excluded, the texts will cover a wide range of subject matters, from natural sciences, medicine and technology via historical documents and travel reports to theological essays. In addition, we will transfer data from two existing bibliographies of German translations in the early modern period (Romance-German “Saarbrücker Übersetzungsbibliographie”/“Saarbrücken Translation Bibliography” and Latin-German “Saarbrücker Übersetzungsbibliographie – Latein”/“Saarbrücken Translation Bibliography – Latin”), which were also funded by the DFG. As for the number of entries we expect to have compiled by the end of the funding period, we estimate that there will be approximately 3,500 entries for Dutch–German and 14,000 for English–German; in addition there will be around 4,700 entries for French–German, 1,550 entries for Italian–German and 370 entries for Spanish–German as well as more than 7,300 entries for Latin–German that we can transfer from the existing bibliographies for the period between 1450 and 1850. Altogether the database will comprise more than 30,000 entries in the end.Lastly, the third objective is to grant interested researchers access to our internal user interface to enable them to create their own specialised bibliographies. External users will then be able to search and use both the data provided through this project and the aforementioned specialised bibliographies for their own purposes. In this context, a close cooperation with the priority programme “Übersetzungskulturen der Frühen Neuzeit” (“cultures of translation in the early modern period”) (SPP 2130) is envisaged.Overall we consider our project to be a contribution to the field of Digital Humanities: on the one hand, a typical subject matter of the Arts and Humanities will be made accessible online and free of charge while, at the same time, interested researchers can use our IT infrastructure to collaboratively expand the overall database.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants