Lexical Information System Austria (LIÖ)

The Lexical Information System Austria (LIÖ) is a platform on which interested users can find out more about vocabulary and lexical variation in Austria.

LIÖ is a cooperation project between the ACDH-CH (ÖAW) and the SFB “German in Austria” (University of Vienna). The content of the information system is currently limited to Bavarian dialects in today's Austria (i.e. excluding the Alemannic areas such as Vorarlberg) as well as in South Tyrol and other Bavarian-speaking areas that were formerly part of Austria (e.g. South Bohemia, South Moravia and some South Bavarian language islands). However, the system will be gradually expanded in the coming years. The aim is to make empirically based information about the Austrian vocabulary freely available to the broad public.

The core of LIÖ are the WBÖ articles, which are written and published as part of the project “Dictionary of Bavarian Dialects in Austria (WBÖ)”. The WBÖ articles that can be viewed in LIÖ contain detailed, lexicographically edited information on the sense, pronunciation, geographical distribution, and usage of the dialect words.

In addition, users also have direct access to the WBÖ database, the digital version of the data collection. This enables extended search options not only for lemmas, but also for pronunciation, senses, sample sentences or questionnaires.

The map tool offers the possibility of viewing the exact geographical distribution of various aspects from the dictionary articles (sense, pronunciation, overall distribution of the lemmas). Queries can also be carried out via the database which makes it possible to display the results of individually defined criteria (e.g. for certain word senses, phonetic variants, grammatical phenomena or also for a certain location or area) on the map.