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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Vanessa Thorpe Arts and Media Correspondent

That’s blatherskite! Podcasts plan to save endangered dialects

Word map
Word map. Composite: Guardian

What’s the weather like? Is it, perhaps, “flenched”? The old Scottish word for an outlook that promises to improve, but fails to do so. It is a term worth knowing, surely. But if you don’t hear it again, what are the chances of remembering it?

Accepting this linguistic challenge, campaigners are now taking action to breathe life back into such threatened dialect words. And the first step, they believe, is to encourage their use by popular podcasters and regional broadcasters.

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