The Sprachschmiede

Welcome

... to Sprachschmiede (literally Language Foundry), the Citizen Science web platform where you can explore the world of linguistic research with exciting and fun projects! First-time visitor? Read more about Sprachschmiede works here!

About us

This website is part of a Citizen Science project of the Collaborative Research Center 1646 Linguistic Creativity in Communication at Bielefeld University, funded by the German Research Foundation.

Click here to read more.

For more information and inquiries, please contact us at crc1646-oe@uni-bielefeld.de.

Recent projects

These are some of our language projects, which are just waiting for you to try them out! All you need to get started is a user account!

Ein Bild, auf dem ein ausgeschalteter Laptop in einer chaotischen Abstellkammer zu sehen ist.

Human vs Machine

Embark on a research journey about AI-generated language, how we can distinguish it from human language, and how this is related to linguistic creativity!

Start the task (German only)

Ein geisterhaftes Haus in der Dunkelheit

Lost in the void

An escape room game about nothingness and linguistic negation. Solve puzzles and escape from an evil scientist, all while participating in an actual linguistic experiment!

Start the task (German only)

Language Blog

On our language blog, we regularly publish interesting articles about language in everyday life, creativity and interesting insights from our research. Curious? Click here to view all articles or check out our latest post below!

Linguistics meets citizen science – How citizens can contribute to scientific research

By Tim Rittig, 22 April, 2026
Image
Bildcollage der Arbeitsgruppe Sprachforschung und Citizen Science

It’s Citizen Science Month! Citizen what? Citizen science! It is defined as 'the active involvement of individuals in scientific processes who are not part of an institution in that field of science'. This concept is particularly appealing for linguistic research, since language surrounds us constantly, meaning we are all experts in our own language(s) and how we use it (or them). Therefore, Citizen science enables the knowledge of volunteer researchers to be incorporated into current research in linguistics.

In the Game