This presentation deals with the interaction of languages during the colonization of an unfamiliar landscape and the dynamics of name-giving in a bilingual society. It begins by introducing the cooperation of Charles University and Heidelberg University in investigating the area of north-eastern Bavaria and western Bohemia in the Early and High Middle Ages.
It then outlines how our joint projects are advancing the state of knowledge through the combining of multiple and multi-disciplinary data sources within a GIS-based digital framework. In particular, it presents two case studies where Slavic and German(ic) were used concurrently in the naming of geographical objects, thereby demonstrating both our theoretical and methodological approach to analysis and interpretation of the data.