Wenker 2.0 - Citizens Explore their Dialects

What is this all about? Wenker 2.0 Citizens in Austria explore their dialects is a so-called citizen science project. In such projects, interested lay people are actively involved in the implementation of scientific projects by becoming researchers themselves. Wenker 2.0 is about dialects in Austria the mother tongues of most Austrians. For this reason, the lay people are the real experts: They know the dialects best because they have been speaking them from an early age. They know which words are used, how they are pronounced and which grammatical peculiarities their dialects have. And they also know others who still speak the really old local dialect. Many of these lay people not only use dialects but are also interested in the special features of their dialects, for example in contrast to dialects of neighbouring places or other regions in Austria. This is where the project comes in: Interested citizens are to be given literally a tool with which they can research their own dialects and those of their surroundings. The insights and data gained in this way will then also be used by the scientific investigators of the Wenker 2.0 project to further utilise them for example, for the creation of language maps, which in turn will be made freely available to the interested public. How does it work? The tool consists of an app called OeDA, which is specially developed for the project. OeDA is an abbreviation for Österreichische Dialekt-App (Austrian Dialect App), but not coincidentally it is also meant to be reminiscent of the common expression Oida! which everyone in Austria knows but perhaps uses differently. The OeDA app is made available to all participants free of charge. With its help, everyone can collect dialect words in different ways, record speech samples and have the collected words and pronunciation forms displayed on language maps. These language maps can then be used to compare and explore similarities and differences between dialects of different regions, but also, for example, possible differences between speakers of different generations in the own village or town. Such differences between the ways of speaking of the generations, but also increasing similarities between dialect forms of different regions can indicate a current dialect change. What is so special about the project? The OeDA app will be the first dialect app of its kind in Austria. It will be simple and user - friendly and will provide people all over the country who are interested in the dialects of Austria but have no previous linguistic knowledge with an easy-to-use tool with which they can research dialects themselves as citizen scientists. Accordingly, the app is to be widely promoted via the press, but also via social media.