Abstract
In this paper, we analyse spatial variation in the Japanese dialectal lexicon by assembling a set of methodologies using theories in variationist linguistics and GIScience, and tools used in historical GIS. Based on historical dialect atlas data, we calculate a linguistic distance matrix across survey localities. The linguistic variation expressed through this distance is contrasted with several measurements, based on spatial distance, utilised to estimate language contact potential across Japan, historically and at present. Further, administrative boundaries are tested for their separation effect. Measuring aggregate associations within linguistic variation can contrast previous notions of dialect area formation by detecting continua. Depending on local geographies in spatial subsets, great circle distance, travel distance and travel times explain a similar proportion of the variance in linguistic distance despite the limitations of the latter two. While they explain the majority, two further measurements estimating contact have lower explanatory power: least cost paths, modelling contact before the industrial revolution, based on DEM and sea navigation, and a linguistic influence index based on settlement hierarchy. Historical domain boundaries and present day prefecture boundaries are found to have a statistically significant effect on dialectal variation. However, the interplay of boundaries and distance is yet to be identified. We claim that a similar methodology can address spatial variation in other digital humanities, given a similar spatial and attribute granularity.
Highlights
We investigate the driving factors of dialectal variation and quantify contact between communities at a historical scale making use of the potential of theories of GIScience and variationist linguistics, and tools used in historical GIS
As it is commonly assumed that historical contact patterns would explain today’s dialectal landscape more, we aimed to model the potential contact paths in Japan before the infrastructural boom brought by the industrial revolution
Parallel to analyses in traditional dialectology delimiting dialect areas based on isogloss bundles, e.g., [36,37,38], this overlap analysis shows the degree to which dialect areas can be discovered based on the 37 lexical variables considered, but, importantly, independent of geography
Summary
Historical dialect data forms a valuable part of humanities to folk songs and dances, beliefs and other cultural traits. The urban hierarchical diffusion [10,11,12] is one of the models that explains the diffusion of linguistic innovations, which play a central role in language change It assumes that innovations spread from larger populations towards smaller ones, corresponding to the mobility patterns of the population (including commute and relocation): an innovation would first be transported between cities, prior to smaller towns catching on, and to the countryside. With the support of the apparent time theory, resources in digital humanities (historical linguistic data, historical spatial networks and points of interest) and the recent surge of computational power, it becomes possible to quantitatively account for the potential contact patterns present at historical times. Our study embarks on explaining linguistic situation as a result of topographic and political settings at and before the time of LAJ respondents’ mother tongue acquisition, and contrasts it with the explanatory power of geographic factors that characterise more recent times
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