UK Regional Dialect Dictionaries Now Available

One of the most popular posts on this site is the one about hacking Windows Live Writer with a UK dictionary.

While Windows Live Writer lags behind, Microsoft have issued a set of Office dictionaries for some of the UK regions:

From Microsoft:

To celebrate the launch of the 2007 Office system and the richness of the British language, Microsoft has partnered with the British Library to develop a series of online dictionaries made up of local dialects…and we want you to contribute!

How many people talk about ‘hoying’ a ball or even taking a ‘crib’ when they have a cup of tea? With an ever increasing mobile population, Microsoft and the British library and keen to preserve local identities and heritage.

Jonathan Robinson, curator of English accents and dialects at The British Library says: “Britain has a rich heritage of different accents and dialects and, contrary to popular opinion, there is still a great deal of lexical diversity across the UK – where else would you find the words ‘cob’, ‘batch’, ‘bun’, ‘barm cake’, ‘stotty cake’, ‘scuffler’ and ‘bread cake’, all meaning bread roll?” said Jonathan. “But the English language is constantly changing. Due to a complex combination of influences, local words occasionally disappear from common usage or are replaced by others which become absorbed into our everyday vocabulary.”

The downloads are here:

• Ireland
• Scotland
• The North East
• Yorkshire
• Lancashire
• The Midlands
• The West Country

This new fangled stuff is gradely!