The Problem Story titled “Multilingualität in der Alevi-Enzyklopädie”, prepared by Dr Ahmet Kerim Gültekin on behalf of the Alevi Encyclopedia, has been published on Zenodo.
The text was prepared in the context of the workshop “Requirements Analysis in the Field of Multilinguality for Digital Research Infrastructures in the Historical Sciences,” organised on 22 April 2026 within the framework of Leipzig University and NFDI4Memory.
The contribution presents the Alevi Encyclopedia as a multilingual digital specialist archive and an open academic knowledge platform in the field of Alevi Studies. It focuses in particular on the linguistic, technical and archival needs of the project, and discusses how Alevi knowledge can be made visible, accessible and preservable across multiple languages.
A significant part of the material in the Alevi Encyclopedia is in Turkish. At the same time, oral history interviews also include Kırmancki, Kurmancî and local religious terms. Kırmancki is of particular importance for the project, both because it is an endangered language and because it remains closely connected to local religious lifeworlds.
The text emphasises that multilinguality is not merely a matter of translation. Transcription, metadata, search systems, glossaries and the long-term preservation of oral transmissions are also central dimensions of this issue. Many emic concepts cannot be translated directly into German, English or Turkish without losing important layers of meaning.
This contribution shows that digital research infrastructures should make linguistic diversity visible rather than standardise or flatten it. For the Alevi Encyclopedia, this question is especially important, as the project brings together academic knowledge, community-based knowledge and oral history materials.
The Problem Story was published on Zenodo on 3 July 2026.
Access: https://zenodo.org/records/21158212
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21158212
DOI for all versions: 10.5281/zenodo.21158211
