Research
From WBÖ to ABC – History and Goals
Citizens have always played an important role in linguistics. Especially in the field of lexical variation – long before the term Citizen Science was established – they were not only passive suppliers of linguistic data, but actively participated in its collection. A prominent example is the “Wörterbuch der historischen bairischen Mundarten in Österreich und Südtirol” (WBÖ) (‘Dictionary of Historical Bavarian Dialects in Austria and South Tyrol’), whose data was originally gathered by citizens. Already since 1914, this project has been dedicated to the comprehensive documentation and lexicographic analysis of the rich and unique dialect landscape of (historical) Austria. Now we want to invite citizens back to process and evaluate the data and to (re)discover their linguistic and cultural heritage.
The basis for the WBÖ is data from the so-called ‘Hauptkatalog’ (‘main catalogue’), a collection of paper slips covering approximately 3.6 million entries with dialect samples that were collected in the first half of the 20th century. The major part of the dialect data in this collection was obtained indirectly with the help of so-called collectors (“Sammler”) on the basis of questionnaires. While a large part of the paper slips (from letter D onwards) has already been digitized for editorial and archival reasons and is publicly accessible as a database via the Lexikalisches Informationssystem Österreich (LIÖ) (‘Lexical Information System Austria’), only the physical paper slips for letters A, B/P and C as well as scans exist. At this point, the project “The ABCs of dialect: exploring historical notes digitally” starts, and has the two following aims:
- Citizens transcribe original WBÖ paper slips (collection of letter A to C) and thus help complete the already existing WBÖ database.
- Citizens reflect on the content of the 100-year-old paper slips with regard to current dialect usage and hence are integrated into analyses of dialect change in the course of the last 80-100 years. (e.g.: Is a dialect word still in active use in Austria? Has the meaning of a particular word changed? Is the meaning of a particular word still known?).
The problem with the writing
One of the challenges of working with the paper slips is the large number of different types of handwriting, including Kurrentscript (‘Kurrentschrift’). In addition, a phonetic notation system (an early variant of the phonetic script Teuthonista) was used to reproduce the dialect pronunciation, which contains many diacritics.
To help participants overcome these obstacles and decipher the writing we have implemented helpful material in the field guide, which can be accessed on the far right side of your screen.
Engaging both younger and older, but particularly bringing together younger and older citizens in this process of transcription and evaluation is an enrichment for the main project, the SFB “German in Austria. Variation – Contact – Perception” (DiÖ) (FWF F060) in that older citizen typically possess a high level of dialect competence and are still familiar with the diverse handwriting systems we find on the paper slips in the collection, while younger citizens possess a high level of digital literacy. In this way we bring together the younger and older generations and their abilities and skills, with the aim to foster also inter-generational collaboration. At the same time, their competence and knowledge are not only valued but also made visible to the outside world in a linguistic and cultural context. The platform that will be created in the TCS project will link to the existing LIÖ project (which provides the publication platform of the WBÖ) and also to the current lexical data of PP03 in the DiÖ project. Our project thus also functions as a bridge between the historic dialect data (WBÖ) and the current data collected in DiÖ.
A special added value of the project consists in that the historical material, which was collected about 100 years ago using citizen science methods (even if they were not called such at the time), is made accessible to the citizens and they contribute to the evaluation and transcription of this historic material.