Nordiska dialekt- och slangordböcker på Internet

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of Nordic dialect and slang dictionaries on the Internet. There are two main types of dialect dictionaries: large academic dictionaries covering many dialects, made by scholars and primarily made for scholars, and small, simple glossaries covering a few hundred words or phrases in one dialect, usually made by laymen for laymen. The latter type reveals what the general public considers essential in a dialect dictionary. The largest slang dictionaries are cooperative projects where the users add their own colloquial expressions to a common database. However, most slang dictionaries are small and specialized. They are usually compiled by a single person and cover a limited domain, e.g. drug slang, sports slang, railway slang, immigrant slang, nicknames, insults or curses. The structure of the specialized dictionaries is often tailored for their content, and this multitude of small dictionaries displays a considerable lexicographical inventiveness.