e-WALD: Electronisch woordenboek van de Achterhoekse en Liemerse dialecten

The e-WALD is an online dictionary of Dutch dialects from the regions 'Achterhoek' and 'Liemers'. It stands for Electronisch woordenboek van de Achterhoekse en Liemerse dialecten.

Overview

  • As of yet, the e-WALD contains the first five volumes of the Woordenboek van de Achterhoekse en Liemerse dialecten, that was published between 1984 and 2018.

  • Users can query the e-WALD for keywords and concepts, as well as locations (using a placename or a Kloekecode) and dialects.

  • Together with the e-WBD, e-WGD and the e-WLD, the e-WALD forms a series of electronic dictionaries.

Original in-press publication of the *Woordenboek van de Achterhoekse en Liemerse dialecten*, that the e-WALD makes available digitally.

About

Editing and digitization

The first meeting about the digitization of the WALD between the steering group Digitization of Dialect Dictionaries and Lex Schaars and Dirk Jan Eertink took place in August of 2013. A complicating factor was that there was no usable digital version of the volumes published between 1984 and 2004 and we had to work with scanned versions. After the OCR-edited scans were provided structure using a program that immediately corrected common OCR errors, everything still had to be checked 'by hand'; this was done by Kee van Tuinen. Because there are no standardized forms (keywords) in the WALD, they have been added. For the parts published in the e-WALD, this was done by Gregory Metallinos.

In the future, the volumes of the WALD that have now been published as well as the volumes that are yet to be published will be included in the e-WALD.

Dialect areas

The map includes the WALD research area. Although the Oude IJssel is considered a geographical border between the Liemers and the Achterhoek, it has no significance from a dialectological point of view: north and south of the Oude IJssel there is a wide transitional area between Low Saxon in the Achterhoek and Low Franconian in the south of the Liemers.

Dialect area of the WALD.

Places

The 75 places in Achterhoek and Liemers where material was collected are listed in the map with the places and their place names. In a large number of cases, material from adjacent areas has also been included. This was done to show what is happening across the border. Words often pay little attention to regional, provincial and national boundaries. Research that is limited within those boundaries suggests that the area studied forms a unity. The language of Winterswijk is very similar to that of Vreden in Westphalia; the language of Lobith with that of Millingen. Gorssels and Wilps are similar, as are the dialects of Gelselaar and Markelo.

Places where material was collected for the WALD.

Learn

A manual on how to query the e-WALD can be found on the e-WALD webpage. (This manual is only available in Dutch, however.)

Mentions

Together with three other electronic dictionaries, the e-WALD forms a series: * The e-WBD (Electronisch woordenboek van de Brabantse dialecten); * The e-WGD (Electronisch woordenboek van de Gelderse dialecten); * The e-WLD (Electronisch woordenboek van de Limburgse dialecten).

The e-WALD was (and is) originally published as an in-press publication. More information on the books and volumes can be found here.

The source code that facilitates the Django web applications of the electronic dialect dictionaries can be found on GitHub here.

Credits and Contact Information

The e-WALD application was developed by Erwin Komen of the Technical Support Group of the Humanities Lab of Radboud University under the supervision of Henk van den Heuvel, with Dirk Jan Eertink digitally making the WALD material suitable for the e-WALD. Thijs Hermsen made the maps.

For technical information or issues regarding the e-WALD, you can contact dr. Henk van den Heuvel (H.vandenHeuvel@Let.ru.nl), Director CLST & Head of the Humanities Lab. Regarding the contents of the e-WALD, you can contact prof. dr. Nicoline van der Sijs (post@nicolinevdsijs.nl).