Danish Folklore: A digital approach to the collections of Evald Tang Kristensen /
Icemorph: An automated morphological analysis tool for Old Icelandic

The College of Letters and Science, Humanities Divsion

Primary contact

Timothy R. Tangherlini
Professor
Scandinavian Section
(310) 825-7611
tango@humnet.ucla.edu

Project URL

dev.cdh.ucla.edu/~newmedia/DFL/index.html
www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/cmrs/projects/ice_morph.html

Additional project researchers

Zoe Borovsky, UDHIG, UCLA
Lisa Macaulay, The Library, UCLA
Vergil Castelo, CDH, UCLA

Project description

"Danish Folklore" is a sophisticated environment for the study of the folklore collection of  Evald Tang Kristensen, (1843-1929), the single most prolific folklore collector in the world. The collection consists of 24,000+ field diary manuscript pages; fair copy of those pages; loose leaf collections; correspondence; published versions of stories, songs, jokes, riddles, games and descriptions of everyday life; as well as photographs and wax audio cylinders. The goal of the project is to develop a system that brings together all of these assets into a rich, easily navigated dynamic environment. Special thanks to the Danish Folklore Archives, Copenhagen, and Kort og Matrikelstyrelsen (Danish Cadastral Survey), Copenhagen.

A second project under development is an automated morphological analyzer for Old Icelandic along with an English language look-up tool that will attach to Old Norse/Old Icelandic texts, both in diplomatic transcription and in normalized form. Currently using the Fornaldar sögur (Legendary Sagas) as the test text platform, the project is in the process of extending to include the majority of Old Icelandic prose texts. The main challenge is to develop an accurate and efficient system to properly produce and identify forms in this complex language.

Project video