Description:

In the last few decades geolinguistics has witnessed two opposite and complementary trends. The first, earlier trend aims at an in-depth knowledge of the domains already explored by national atlases: following the imminent disappearance of dialects, as much data from as much places as possible must be collected within a relatively short term. The second, more recent trend directs dialectologists towards a supranational geolinguistics comprising either a whole family of languages or a multilingual space. This approach results from a need to exploit and interpret in a synthetic way the enormous wealth of the dialectal databases in existing atlases. On the other hand, it leads to a comparative analysis of genetically differentiated languages made possible by the adoption of novel methodologies, e. g., motivation analysis. The ALiR - Atlas Linguistique Roman reflects the second trend. It is a “collective” scientific endeavor which proposes to a large number of Romance language dialectologists – involved in their specific research, often limited to small dialectal areas – a wider thinking framework comprising a whole linguistic domain. This has been made possible by the establishment of a supranational collaborative network, providing a new scientific dimension to dialect research, by comparing different experiences and methodologies.

The goal of the participating dialectologists is to provide – for the first time – a global description of the linguistic situation in the European Romance domains (i.e., ibero-romance, gallo-romance, italo-romance, rheto-romance and romanian) through lexical, phonetic, phonological and morpho-syntactic analyses leading to the production of symbol maps.  These maps should contribute to the differentiation of the Romance areas, as well as the identification of the traits shared by the different areas.

For the lexical study, 592 concepts covering the main semantic fields have been selected. This choice has taken into account linguistic considerations and the availability of data concerning all studied areas.

Regarding the phonetic aspects, 284 phenomena have been chosen representing the evolution of Latin vocalism and consonantism, and the distribution of the evolutionary endpoints, thus allowing the characterization of the current dialects.

The main objective of the phonological analysis consists in defining all attested systems which are the basis of a Romance variant typology.

Finally, the description of morpho-syntactic structures is restricted to 43 traits, as these aspects of language are relatively less explored in existing linguistic atlases.

Each map is complemented by a brief comment analyzing and classifying the collected data, both from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. 

 ALiR publication plan includes 11 volumes:

1. Introduction with 14 maps.
2. Insects and small wild animals.
3. Other wild animals.
4. Wild plants.
5. Nature and weather.
6. Man: body, diseases, life cycle.
7. Farm work: grain cycle.
8. Farm animals.
9. Historical phonetics.
10. Phonology.
11. Morpho-syntax.

Each volume is presented in two parts:

   -     A map book (36 cm x 41 cm).
   -     A book with the comments about each map.

Inquiry net:
(numbered from North to South and from West to East)
The Portuguese inquiry net includes 110 points (Mainland, Madeira and Azores).

To see the localities names, click on the different regions.

Published maps and comments elaborated by the Portuguese team:

ÁLVAREZ PÉREZ, Xosé Afonso e Luísa SEGURA “Les désignations romanes de la perdrix + Carte PERDRIX”, Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR) volume IIc Commentaires + Cartes, Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria, 2018, pp. 213-229.

CARRILHO, Ernestina e Maria LOBO “Les désignations romanes du corbeau et de la corneille + Carte CORBEAU e Carte CORNEILLE” Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR) volume IIc Commentaires + Cartes, Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria, 2018, pp. 159-183.

SARAMAGO, João e Gabriela VITORINO “Les désignations romanes de l’hirondelle + Carte HIRONDELLE” Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR) volume IIc Commentaires + Cartes Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria, 2018, pp. 199-211.

AUGUSTO, Celeste, "CRAPAUD", Atlas Linguistique Roman, Volume IIb Cartes, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2009 and "Les désignations romanes du CRAPAUD", Atlas Linguistique Roman Volume IIb Commentaires, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2009, pp.137-160.

CARRILHO, Ernestina e Maria LOBO, "PERCE-OREILLE", in Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Cartes e "Les désignations romanes du PERCE-OREILLE ", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Commentaires, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2001, pp. 405-449.

SEGURA DA CRUZ, Luisa, "COURTILIERE" - Carte1, Carte 2", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Cartes e "Les désignations romanes de la COURTILIERE", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Commentaires, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2001, pp. 89-144.

VENY, Joan e João SARAMAGO, "MOUSTIQUE", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Cartes e "Les désignations romanes du MOUSTIQUE", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Commentaires, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2001, pp. 359-376.

VITORINO, Gabriela, "PUNAISE DES LITS", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Cartes, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2001 e "Les désignations romanes de la PUNAISE DES LITS", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume IIa Commentaires, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 2001, pp. 451-466.

SEGURA DA CRUZ, Maria Luisa e Celeste AUGUSTO, "MIROIR", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume I Cartes e "Les désignations romanes du MIROIR", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume I Commentaires, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 1996, pp. 115-126.

BARROS FERREIRA, Manuela, "Le Domaine Portugais", Atlas Linguistique Roman (ALiR), Volume I Présentation, Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca Dello Stato, Roma, 1996, pp. 21-24.