Paper short abstract:

Local dictionaries from late nineteenth century England have been found to be repositories of folklore. But what about the regional dictionaries that were published in the very different social situation of the twentieth century? This paper investigates.

Paper long abstract:

Local dictionaries from late nineteenth century England have been shown to have been (amongst other things) rich repositories of folklore (e.g. Roper 2020). But does the same hold for regional dictionaries that were published in the century following the end of World War I? In this period, we face a different lexicographical landscape: there are fewer local dictionaries and the geographical area that they deal with is no longer always a county or a parish, but sometimes a region or a city. Such a focus reflects ongoing changes in society such as urbanization (and suburbanization) and industrialization (and postindustrialization). The folklore landscape also changed with some genres disappearing and others surging in popularity. Lastly, the landscape in linguistics had changed too, with a focus on lexis being supplemented by attention to phonology and discourse, and dialect glossaries losing prestige to broader surveys.

In this paper, a selection of regional dictionaries (the earliest from 1920, the latest from 2017) are examined. The data about vernacular culture they contain is assessed and comparisons are drawn with earlier dictionaries. Finally, the applicability of the generalizations it was possible to draw from the c19th material is tested on the works from this later period.