Paper short abstract:

The paper examines Greek regional or dialect dictionaries whose entries include various types of folkloric data that might be used by researchers of traditional cultures.

Paper long abstract:

The typical structure of interpretive dictionaries is usually limited to the citing of explicit information concerning mainly the morphology, phonology, semantics and etymology of the words compiled in them. There are, however, some dictionaries which fail to observe this typical structure and whose entries include additional information, such as ethnographic data. These are mainly dialectical dictionaries and glossaries which initially appear in Greece towards the end of 19th and early 20th century. The entries of these dictionaries often contain information on the extensive performative context of objects, foods, ritual and festivals, and, in some cases even texts of oral folk genres. The compilers of such dictionaries tend to be positioned between lexicographers and ethnographers, although they are neither lexicographers nor folklorists despite the fact that in some cases, they truly constitute excellent examples of both categories. The special importance of these dictionaries from an ethnographic point of view is that they provide original material relating to the folk culture of an era on which we have not sufficient recorded information. A number of questions arise in view of these observations: What kind of ethnographic information has been recorded in these dictionaries? How has this material been collected? Why were the compilers of these glossaries led to quote this type of information? Why is such information to be found mainly in dialect or regional dictionaries? Finally, how could this type of information be constructively used and evaluated by folklorists? These are some of the issues that the paper tries to investigate drawing on specific examples of each case.