24 Hour Museum - official guide to UK museums, galleries, exhibitions and heritage
Gateway to Over 3,000 UK museums, galleries and heritage attractions
Skip to navigation
British Library Acquires Major Sound Collection Of Welsh Dialects
By 24 Hour Museum Staff
22/07/2008
© The British Library
The British Library Sound Archive has acquired the audio recordings of the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects (SAWD), a unique, in-depth investigation into the local vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar of English in Wales.
The collection of 500 audio recordings, donated to the British Library by Dr Robert Penhallurick, Reader in English at the University of Wales, represents an important addition to the British Library’s extensive accents and dialects resources and joins the library’s impressive Survey of English Dialects.
Founded and directed by dialectologist David Parry, the SAWD is the only national survey of spoken English in Wales. Between the mid 1960s and early 1990s fieldworkers for the project sought to record the oldest living varieties of folk-speech by interviewing speakers on topics including the farm and farming, the house and housekeeping, nature, animals, social activities and the weather.
Elderly informants were interviewed and tape-recorded in a network of 90 localities throughout rural Wales and speakers were encouraged to use their most natural form of English speech.
It reflects not only ways of speaking but also ways of life that have changed forever, making the collection a treasure trove of local and social history. The collection also includes recordings made for the second, urban phase of the project, collected between 1985 and 1991 in Cardiff, Caernarfon, Wrexham, Carmarthen, and Swansea.
The full collection of recordings is now available for researchers at the British Library. Six recordings from the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects have also been made available online, supplemented with transcripts and scholarly commentary, at Sounds Familiar the British Library’s interactive, educational website that celebrates and explores spoken English across the UK.
Details of the recordings are available on the BL Sound Archive online catalogue www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/cat.html and the recordings are now available through the Listening and Viewing Service at the British Library’s St Pancras site.
British Library, London
British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB, England
T: 020 7412 7332
Open: Mon, Wed-Fri 0930-1800
Tues 0930-2000
Sat 0930-1700
Sun and English Public Holidays 1100-1700
Closed: 24 - 28 December 2007
1 January 2007
Closing at 17.00 23 and 29 - 31 December 2007
Related Articles
Library Thief Update: Sentencing Adjourned Until January 16, 2009
Library Thief To Be Sentenced At Wood Green Crown Court Today
Rare Ted Hughes Recording To Be Aired By University Of Exeter
Massive Ted Hughes Archive Acquired By British Library
The Golden Generation Of British Theatre At The British Library
British Library Acquires Dering Roll - A Who's Who Of Medieval Arms
Summer 2008 Holiday Ideas At UK Heritage Sites And Museums
E-news registration
E-mail story to a friend
Tell us what you think
Mark Leckey Scoops £25,000 And The 2008 Turner Prize
Library Thief Update: Sentencing Adjourned Until January 16, 2009
Fund Aims To Realise Long Campaign For Cardiff Museum
Britglyph Art Campaign Uses Web To Make Mass Geoglyph
Inaugural Awards Ceremony Honours UK Arts Philanthropists
Rare Silver Cup Commemorating Coronation Of Charles II Is Saved For The Nation
London Fire Brigade Museum Escapes Closure - For Now
Another Busy Year For Archaeology On Orkney In 2008
Severndroog Castle To Be Restored Thanks To Lottery Grant
Campaign To Save Captain Scott's Hut Needs Another £65,000
Open Air Lab Project Launches At The Natural History Museum
Gravity Defying Vertical Racer Drives Kids Up the Wall At MOSI
DCMS And English Heritage List Seven London Bridges
Railway Museums Launch Joint WWII Railway Worker Project
Bowes Museum Famous Mechanical Swan Goes Back On Show In December
Free Admission To Historic Scotland Sites For St Andrew's Day
Fund Raising Scheme Is Backing Great North Museum: Hancock
Tyneside Gallery Plots New Display After Funding Victory
Search this site
Home Page
News Page
Exhibition Page
What's On
Trails Page
Website of the Week
Letters Page
Welsh Home
Graphical Version
Copyright © 24 Hour Museum
Information published here was believed to be correct at the time it was prepared. Welsh language pages developed with CYMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, funded by the Welsh Assembly Government.