The Institute for Language and Folklore ( sv, Institutet för språk och folkminnen,

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in '' NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, a ...

Isof), is a

Swedish government agency The government agencies in Sweden are state-controlled organizations that act independently to carry out the policies of the Government of Sweden. The ministries are relatively small and merely policy-making organizations, allowed to monitor the ...

with the purpose of studying and collecting materials concerning dialects, folklore and

onomastics Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An '' orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study. Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, ...

.Sweden Government
/ref> In June 2006 the Swedish government decided to centralize the Swedish language preservation institutes, starting on the July 1, 2006. The former name, Swedish Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research ( sv, Språk- och folkminnesinstituet) was changed to the current name. The institute consists of several, originally independent, units, located in different Swedish university towns. The central unit of the institute is located in

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

, with other departments located to Lund, Gothenburg,

Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; South Westrobothnian: ;). fi, Uumaja; sju, Ubmeje; sma, Upmeje; se, Ubmi) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, U ...

and Stockholm. The institute is, among other things, responsible for the ongoing publication of ''Sveriges ortnamn'' (a dictionary of all Swedish placenames) and ''Sveriges medeltida personnamn'' (a dictionary of medieval Swedish personal names).

Units of the Institute

* Administrative Unit (Uppsala) * Department of Dialectology, Uppsala (Dialektavdelningen, DA) * Folklore Department, Uppsala (Folkminnesavdelningen, FA) * Phonogram Unit, Uppsala (Fonogramenheten) * Department of Onomastics, Uppsala (Namnavdelning, NA). * Archive for Dialects, Placenames and Folklore in Gothenburg (Dialekt-, ortnamns- och folkminnesarkivet i Göteborg, DAG) * Archive for Dialects and Placenames in Lund (Dialekt- och ortnamnsarkivet i Lund, DAL) * Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) * Archive for Dialects, Placenames and Folklore in Umeå (Dialekt-, ortnamns- och folkminnesarkivet i Umeå, DAUM)

References

External links

Isof
main website

{{authority control Government agencies of Sweden Swedish culture Swedish folklore Heritage organizations Folklore studies History organizations based in Sweden