Supporting the Dorset Dialect

Aim

We aim to raise funds to create a community access website to enrich local Dorset communities experiences of their own dialect.

With the creation of a community access website we hope to enrich the local communities experience of their own dialect and connect senior members of our community with the young who may have little or no exposure to Dorset dialect.

Our local heritage is not just what we can see but what we hear and feel and by recording the experiences of older members of our community in their own dialect we hope to facilitate connection and a sense of ownership from the young.

The project was conceived by Mark Watson, who lives and works in rural Dorset and is the Volunteer Heritage Office, for Charminster Parish Council.

It is hoped that the project will be able to record native dialect speakers in conversation which will be accessible via the  website. One of the outputs of the website will be an interactive map of Dorset, showing distribution and density of dialect speakers in the county, It is hoped that hoped that as the project progresses the local community will take ownership and this will encourage greater engagement with the wider community.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 20th October 2014