Lingscape – Linguistic Landscaping

Language can be found everywhere in public. Signs and lettering in a wide variety of forms and languages shape our impression of public space. They offer practical orientation in everyday life, but also contain rich social information, for example about which languages are particularly important, desirable or controversial in a society.

In the Lingscape project, we are collecting photos of signs and lettering in public spaces. Whether monolingual or multilingual, in Germany or Hawaii, whether Arabic or Chinese characters, street signs or graffiti - all forms of language in public are interesting and contribute to the diversity of linguistic landscapes.

The aim of the project is to explore the diversity and dynamics of such linguistic landscapes together with people from all over the world and to create awareness of the important role of language in public for our perception in everyday life.

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 part of our crowd research team by contributing to the project.

Citizen science meets linguistic landscaping, or short: Lingscape!