The
Dean Heritage Centre has scooped an £89,000 award from the National
Lottery for a Community Archiving and Oral History project which
aims to preserve Forest dialects.
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From the early 1950's the Survey of English Dialects based
in the Institute of Dialect and Folk-Life Studies in the
School of English at the University of Leeds began to
make audio recordings for all its research work.
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Roughly 3,000 of the world's 6,000 distinct languages
are seriously endangered, according to a recent report
by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Foresters
have baffled outsiders for years with their peculiar dialect. But
now young people are growing up with MTV and soap operas and the
distinctive Forest way of speaking is dying out.
Even
though some people in the Forest continue to use the dialect many
of them are choosing not to pass their knowledge onto their children.
But
now the National Lottery has awarded the Dean Heritage Museum £89,000
to support volunteers in compiling oral histories of older Forest
residents.
The
Forest of Dean remained isolated during the industrial revolution
Many
of the words and expressions developed when the forest was a focus
for iron and coal mining and despite London being just 120 miles
away The Forest of Dean remained isolated.
Researchers
and volunteers realise that the project is not going to encourage
new speakers of the dialect but the goal is to preserve the unique
way of speaking on tape. This means there will at least be a permanent
record.
The
Centre is using special archiving software to compile the oral histories.
This will help to preserve the hundreds of unique expressions and
eventually the whole archive will be available online.
Expressions
Ow
bist old butt? Roughly translated means: "How
are you my old pal?"
The
hope is that it will provide a valuable resource for researchers
and historians and preserve the dialect for posterity.
