Lingscape

Info & Map

Have you ever wondered how many signs you pass on your daily way to work? In which languages these signs are lettered? And how language in public space changes over time? Welcome to Lingscape!

Writing is everywhere in public space. All different kinds of signs and lettering form the linguistic landscape of a place or community. Often these signs display different languages, be they on the same sign or next to each other. Lingscape is an app for researching such linguistic landscapes all over the world. Therefore we collect photos of signs and lettering on an interactive map.

Our main objectives: We want to analyze the diversity and dynamics of public writing. And we want to do that together with people from all over the world.

You can help us to collect as many photos as possible. Upload your own photos or explore the map with all photos added by other users. Share photos you like with your friends. Become a citizen scientist by contributing to the project.

Citizen science meets linguistic landscaping, or short: Lingscape!

Click here to enter the map | Click here to get to the public image repository

Signs

Take photos of signs and lettering in public space! Help us document and analyze language use and visible multilingualism

Projects

Create your own projects, publish your own datasets! Get your project account to use Lingscape for your research

Repository

Build your own corpus, publish your own datasets! In our public repository, your data is citable and future-proof

Analysis

Explore the map with all photos uploaded by users! Discover polymorphic linguistic landscapes all over the world

What's happening in the project?

Updates

List of recent additions to the language list, new features and updates

Media coverage

List of press coverage appearances and mentionings of the project in the media

Activities

List of project-related outreach activities, publications, and talks

Download Lingscape

Click on the buttons below or scan the respective QR code to download Lingscape for iOS or Android

The app is available for download and use worldwide. Plus, we have just released the group update with improved features for the creation of teams and working groups within project. If you would like to use the app for an individual or group project, just let us know.