The Institute for Language and Folklore (,

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

Isof), is a Swedish government agency with the purpose of studying and collecting materials concerning dialects, folklore and

onomastics Onomastics (or onomatology in older texts) is the study of proper names, including their etymology, history, and use. An ''alethonym'' ('true name') or an ''orthonym'' ('real name') is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onom ...

.Government of Sweden
/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 () 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 ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital 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 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

, with other departments located to

Lund Lund (, ;"Lund"
(US) and ) is a city in the provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, southern Swed ...

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

Umeå Umeå ( , , , locally ; ; ; ; ) is a city in northeast Sweden. It is the seat of Umeå Municipality and the capital of Västerbotten County. Situated on the Ume River, Umeå is the largest Urban areas in Sweden, locality in Norrland and the t ...

and

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. 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 The Language Council of Sweden () is the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language. The council is a department of the Swedish government's Institute for Language and Folklore (). The council asserts co ...

(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 Culture of Sweden Swedish folklore Heritage organizations Folklore studies History organizations based in Sweden