The Catalan–Valencian–Balearic Dictionary as a Source of Folklore Data

Abstract

Decades of work enabled A. M. Alcover (and subsequent collaborators) to produce a monumental dictionary of Catalan. The work is rich in folklore due to the nature of its often oral sources and presumably also due to the predilections of Alcover, a collector of folk song and, especially, folktales. In Alcover we thus have a prominent example of a lexicographer-folklorist, but he also represents another class of folklorist, particularly important historically—that of clerical folklorist. The work of clerical folklorists may be affected by two processes that serve to filter out some of the entirety of traditional culture, which seems to have happened to some extent in this project. The dictionary Alcover founded continues to be culturally important, and also has had something of a second life.