Dialect survey returns for the 21st century
The most comprehensive survey of England’s dialects ever undertaken is being updated for the 21st century – and the original records will be made available online.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded the University of Leeds £530,500 for a three-year Dialect and Heritage Project.
The university holds the archives of the original Survey of English Dialects carried out between 1947 and 1978, which it will index and digitise by the end of 2020.
The survey’s researchers travelled around the country interviewing ordinary people. The archives include notebooks, audio recordings, photos, newspaper cuttings, and maps tracking boundaries for the use of different words.
In addition, the project is looking for people who participated in the original survey, or with connections to the Institute of Dialect and Folk Life Studies, which was in operation between 1963 and 1983, as well as their descendants.
Dr Fiona Douglas, of the university’s School of English, said researchers had already uncovered “fascinating first-hand accounts of what life was like and how these surveys were done”.
“I’ve heard tell of fieldwork done on fishing boats in the middle of the night and in dialect caravans touring the country,” she added. “And stories told by survey interviewees who had seen Brunel’s SS Great Eastern sail out of the Thames, and the hulks of old sailing ships used to house convicts before transportation to Australia.”
In addition, 150 volunteers will be trained as oral history and dialect fieldworkers, who will travel around the country making new recordings between 2021 and 2023.
While the original surveyors were told to interview “old men with good teeth”, the new survey will create a snapshot of 21st-century Britain by interviewing participants of all locations, backgrounds, ages and genders.
A roadshow will tour as part of the project’s work with five partner museums – Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings in Worcestershire; Dales Countryside Museum and Ryedale Folk Museum in North Yorkshire; Suffolk’s Museum of East Anglian Life; and Weald and Downland Living Museum in West Sussex.
To find out more, email dialectandheritage@ leeds.ac.uk, follow @DialectHeritage on Twitter or visit bit.ly/leeds-dialects.