Bavaria's Dialects Online (BDO) is the digital language information system of the three projects "Bavarian Dictionary", "Franconian Dictionary", and "Dialectological Information System of Bavarian Swabia". The database combines the research results of dialect research and presents dictionary articles as well as research data in a freely accessible online tool.
BDO is not only aimed at scholars, but also at the lay public interested in the language. Here, the vocabulary of all Bavarian dialects is collected in one place and made accessible. The system shows the richness of the dialects of Bavaria in combination. With the new database, one will be able to compare the dialect vocabulary of Old Bavaria, Franconia and Swabia. Authentic dialect evidence is used to illustrate the dialect words in their variety of meanings and regional distribution, as well as to show their use in idioms, proverbs, and much more. BDO allows a whole new look at the vocabulary of the dialects of all parts of the state of Bavaria.
The database offers access to over 6 million dialectal linguistic evidences of the project "Dictionary of Bavarian Dialects" (German: Das Bayerische Wörterbuch) as image snippets, partly and forthgoing lemmatized.
The area covered by the Dictionary of Bavarian Dialects (Bayerisches Wörterbuch) comprises Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria, the Upper Palatinate and neighbouring regions of Bavarian Swabia, Middle Franconia and Upper Franconia. Over and above the vernaculars spoken today, Bavaria’s literary tradition since its beginnings in the 8th century is also taken into account.
Starting in 1913, language material was collected from all Bavarian-speaking regions in Bavaria. Questionnaires were sent out to local informants throughout Bavaria, and contemporary and historical literary sources were excerpted. Today the collection comprises around nine million dialect examples. With the exception of the “Wörterlisten” (word lists), which can be digitally searched and edited, this material consists of index cards, to which corresponding standard German or quasi-standard German keywords have been added, filed alphabetically (see link below for more information).
For detailed information, please see https://www.bwb.badw.de/en/the-project.html and https://www.bwb.badw.de/en/digital-platform.html