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Accepted Paper:

Folkloric data in the Historic Dictionary of Modern Greek Language and its dialects  
Maria Vrachionidou (Academy of Athens)

Paper short abstract:

The “Historic Dictionary of Modern Greek Language and its dialects”, which is a dictionary in progress, consists, apart from a language repository, a treasury of Greek folk life data. This paper provides some examples of this phenomenon and examines the ways this data could be used

Paper long abstract:

The 'Historic Dictionary of Modern Greek Language and its dialects' (HDMG) is a dictionary of modern Greek language, both in its standard form and its dialectal varieties, whose lexical data come mainly by spoken language and its publication has been in progress for about a century. Therefore, the HDMG by its nature includes, apart from language, plenty of folklore and ethnographic information. This information usually is given: a) By the vocabulary entries themselves or by their semantic and phraseological data (riddles, songs, proverbs etc.) that might depict some aspects of the traditional material and spiritual life of Greeks or even subvert some stereotypes about that life (a showcase is the folk Greek names of mushrooms). b) By the quantitative data. For instance, a vocabulary entry, a phrase or a meaning of a word which is rare or unknown today but is found in abundance in HDGM, proves the former spread of the described phenomenon. Such an example is the disproportionately large number of synonyms and derivatives of the word 'agrios' (= 'wild'). C) By geographic data: i.e. the frequency of mother names in a concrete area of Greece leads to contemplations about the social perceptions of gender there. Also, a critical appraisal of the criteria by which the linguistic data of HDMG have been classified could offer valuable anthropological insights. Thus, HDMG constitutes a good example of the interaction between language and folklore information and of the need for interdisciplinary use of the linguistic data found in dictionaries.

Panel P07
Laography and lexicography, or finding folklore in the dictionaries
  Session 1