Work on the DAG began under the direction of Kurt Baldinger (1955–2006), who, in addition to publishing the DAG, planned the parallel development of a Old Occitan dictionary (DAO/DAO Suppl). In 2006, Jean-Pierre Chambon redesigned the project: In DAG_1300 (2006–2020), the decision was made to discontinue the parallel editing of the DAO, since Occitan is already covered by the Lexique roman ou dictionnaire de la langue des troubadours by Raynouard, the Provençal Supplementary Dictionary by Levy, the French etymological dictionary by Wartburg, and the Dictionnaire de l’occitan médiéval (DOM). In addition, the time frame was narrowed to the early period of Gascon manuscripts up to 1300, and the inclusion of Latinized and regional French forms was omitted. Since 2014, a parallel project—the DAGél (concept and direction by Martin Glessgen, with the collaboration of Sabine Tittel)—has been underway, with the goal of digitizing, editing, and electronically publishing the collected lexicographical material. In the DAGél concept, the time frame was once again expanded to 1500, and the inclusion of Latinized Old Gascon forms as well as non-lexical place names was reintroduced (cf. Glessgen/Tittel 2018).

To date, there is no dictionary that presents the vocabulary of the Old Gascon language separately or even in any somewhat satisfactory form. The only comprehensive lexicographical work is a 19th-century dictionary covering the Bearnese dialect and the Bayonne dialect. (cf. Lespy/Raymond 1887), which is available in a 1997 reprint that was slightly revised but not expanded.

Given the current state of research, it is difficult to determine whether Gascon should be considered a language in its own right or a variety of Occitan. Even though this question is not of decisive importance for the study of Gascon—the variety certainly deserves the full attention of linguistic history and geography (cf. Rohlfs 1970, 1)—it has preoccupied many researchers. The origins of this discussion date back as far as the Middle Ages, when Gascon was already understood as a language in its own right, at least in contrast to the standard language of the troubadours: In the Leys d’Amors, a grammatical and poetological compendium from around 1350, the Occitan author classified it as a lengatge estranh—a foreign language—listed alongside French, English, Spanish, and “Lombard.” Only a few linguists, such as Achille Luchaire (1879, 193), Kurt Baldinger (1962, 331f), or Georges Straka (1987, 408), have classified Gascon as a distinct language in more recent times, while many others, such as Mistral, Lespy, or Rohlfs (1966, 104 and 179), have emphasized its distinctive features but tend to regard Gascon as a variety of Occitan (cf. Chambon/Greub 2002, 490; Field 2009, 751f). However, a clear classification of Gascon does not fully do justice to its complex situation: While (Proto-)Gascon had already developed its characteristic phonological features by 600 at the latest, Occitan was not yet recognizable at that time. An early “separation” of the Gascon variety—undoubtedly catalyzed by its peripheral location and language contact—is therefore beyond doubt. Subsequently, Gascon continued to develop in close interaction with the neighboring Occitan varieties (cf. Chambon/Greub 2002, 492), which led to mutual convergence.

The research gap regarding the developmental history and historical characteristics of Gascon in southern Gallo-Romania was the decisive starting point for Kurt Baldinger (1919–2007) in this research project. The creation of the Old Gascon dictionary was intended to establish an entirely new foundation for understanding this previously neglected linguistic region of the Romance languages.

The DAG is a dictionary of the Old Gascon language as found in historical documents. It covers the vocabulary of the medieval stage of the Gascon language and its varieties (particularly Bordelais, Landais, Béarnais, Bigourdin, Comminges, and Val d’Aran). The source texts are of a legal and administrative nature: laws, notarial deeds, ordinances, administrative documents, court records, tax rolls, wills, feudal documents, and others.

The Gascon script is analyzed from the beginning of its written tradition in the 11th century through 1300 (Chambon’s concept since 2006) or 1500 (directed by Baldinger 1955–2006 / DAGél, directed by Glessgen since 2014). Chambon’s decision to limit the scope of DAG_1300 to the year 1300 and to exclude Latinized forms reduced the editorial material to about one-tenth of its original volume. The time span under consideration was shortened to 150 years, beginning with the first purely Gascon texts in the mid-12th century, although it should be noted that a significant body of texts did not begin to appear until around 1230–40.

Earlier Gascon forms originate from Latin contexts. The temporal limit of the DAGél, which Glessgen in turn extended to 1500, allows for the examination of lexicological material spanning a period two centuries broader. The restriction to the year 1500 as the terminus ad quem is explained by the growing influence of French on Gascon, which had already been evident in its early stages since the 12th century but intensified as a result of the Albigensian Crusade in the early 13th century and, above all, the Hundred Years’ War. With the incorporation of Gascony into the Crown lands in 1451/53, French began to supplant Gascon script, a process that was then finalized in 1539 by the Ordonnance de Villers-Cotterêts. This ordinance established French as the sole language of administrative and legal texts, thereby replacing the Gascon scripts commonly used in these types of texts (cf.Baldinger 1962, 342).

The analysis of the language of official documents provides diverse insights into the dynamic development of the vernacular, which becomes immediately tangible through the formulaic legal style of expression. The subjects of the lawsuits and ordinances were people and their everyday problems, and thus one finds the general colloquial language at least as frequently in documents as in the language of fiction. Incidentally, a dictionary of the language of legal documents is not only important for linguists but also indispensable for historians.

The data from the electronic dictionary of Old Gascon, DAGél, has also been converted to Linked (Open) Data. The same applies to the conversion to RDF as to the data from DEAFplus (see the DEAF website (internal link)).

On the LOD.academy portal, the ontology categories for Hallig/Wartburg (DEAF code: HAdW) are available as LOD; https://lod.academy/site/vocabs/hallig-wartburg. S. Sabine Tittel, Frances Gillis-Webber, Alessandro A. Nannini, "Towards an ontology based on Hallig-Wartburg's Begriffssystem for Historical Linguistic Linked Data,” in: Maxim Ionov, John P. McCrae, Christian Chiarcos, Thierry Declerck, Julia Bosque-Gil, and Jorge Gracia (eds.), Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Linked Data in Linguistics (LDL-2020), Marseille, May 2020, European Language Resources Association, 2020, pp. 1–10.