Phonetics and phonology of the Swedish dialects - a project presentation and a database demonstrator

A searchable database of speech samples from more than 100 Swedish dialects is being established for use in research and education. Each dialect is represented by at least 12 speakers. Recordings are made of spontaneous speech as well as words and phrases elicited with a number of specific research goals in mind. This paper summarizes one of these goals, a prosodic typology for the Swedish dialects. The current database prototype was designed as a tool in this research. Its use in accessing, representing and analyzing the relevant data is described.