A Fast and Flexible Webinterface for Dialect Research in the Low Countries

A Fast and Flexible Webinterface for Dialect Research in the Low Countries Roeland van Hout, Nicoline van der Sijs, Erwin Komen, Henk van den Heuvel CLS, Radboud University Erasmusplein 1, Nijmegen, the Netherlands {r.vanhout, n.vandersijs, h.vandenheuvel, e.komen}@let.ru.nl Abstract This paper describes the development of webportals with search applications built in order to make the data from the 33 volumes of the Dictionary of the Brabantic dialects (1967-2005) and the 39 volumes of the Dictionary of the Limburgian dialects (1983-2008) accessible and retrievable for both the research community and the general audience. Part of the data was available in a digital format, a larger part only in print. The printed data was semi-automatically converted from paper to structured text (database). This process allowed for streamlining information, applying (semi-)automatic data checks and manually correcting the input. Next, the resulting database was the backbone of a webportal for faceted search requests on the full collection, including filtering and splitting the results on metadata. The design and implementation of the webportals, called e-WBD and e-WLD, are being defined in more detail. The URLs of the portals are: http://e-wbd.nl/ and http://www.e-wld.nl/. Keywords: web services; data curation; dialects 1. Introduction The 33 volumes of the Dictionary of the Brabantic dialects (Woordenboek van de Brabantse Dialecten, WBD) have appeared in press between 1967 and 2005, while the 39 volumes of the Dictionary of the Limburgian dialects (Woordenboek van de Limburgse Dialecten, WLD) were published between 1983 and 2008. The WBD and WLD have been compiled at the Radboud University Nijmegen and at the University of Leuven and both dictionaries started under the guidance of the famous Dutch dialectologist A.A.Weijnen.1 The Dictionary of the Flemish Dialects (Woordenboek van de Vlaamse Dialecten, WVD) was set up according to the same semantic principles, but started later. The Limburgian dialects are spoken in the provinces of Limburg in the Netherlands and Belgium. The dialects are separated into six dialect areas, as shown in Figure 1. The same goes for the Brabantic dialects: the dialects are spoken in the Dutch province Northern Brabant, the Belgian provinces Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, and the Brussels-Capital Region, as can be seen on Figure 2. More details can be found in WBD, part III, volume Inleiding & Klankgeografie (2000). The WBD and WLD are onomasiologically organized. The main entries are semantic concepts, represented in Standard Dutch (the lemmas). These entries contain the keywords that are dutchified transliterations (normalized spellings) of the dialect forms. The next level gives the phonetic transcription forms (the dialect forms). For each transcription form the location or locations are given where they are used. Overall, the dictionaries consist of three parts. The first part (WBD 9 volumes, including one devoted to introductory matters; WLD 13 volumes) contains the agricultural terminology. The second part (WBD 9 volumes; WLD 12 volumes), concerns the technical 1 A complete overview of all volumes can be found at http://www.e-wld.nl/delen and http://e-wbd.nl/delen terminology (industries, trades), and finally the third part (WBD 15 volumes, including one devoted to introductory …

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