This user manual is for the website https://www.sdml.ac.in
(Also https://www.marathidialectsurvey.ac.in)

This manual includes information about the following tabs provided on the landing page of the website:

1. FEATURES: lexical and grammatical
2. COMMUNITY VOICES: for linguists and for laypersons
3. HOW TO DOWNLOAD DATA: analysed and unanalysed

I. FEATURES

LEXICAL FEATURES

What is a lexical feature
Lexical features are vocabulary items, i.e. words. Regional varieties of a language are immediately recognised in terms of the use of some distinct words as well as the prosody (intonation). For example, mulga, porga, lyok, a or, ikra, ǰhil, če o, bhurɡe, ə, ur , lek, u , lekus, sohəra, are some of the lexical terms referring to "Ego's son" in Marathi.

How were the lexical items identified for elicitation in this survey
Lexical items elicited for the SDML were identified based mainly on Dhongde (2013): this study based entirely on lexical evidence, concludes that regional dialects of Marathi vary from the standard dialect of Marathi in approximately 25% of the 2900 lexical items elicited in the study. The SDML uses some of these 25% most distinctive lexical items in addition to other lexical terms gleaned from other dialectal studies. A total of seventy lexical items were elicited for the survey. These belong to the following semantic fields: household items, vegetables, deictic terms, and kinship terms.

How were the lexical items elicited

• Local words for household items, fruit and vegetable names were elicited using pictures. (These pictures are shared on the website under 'Click here to view image' on the Lexical Features page)
• Deictic terms (e.g. here, there, tomorrow, yesterday, etc.) were elicited using situational cues / pictures.
• Kinship terminology was elicited using paraphrases as cues (e.g. What is the relationship between your mother's brother's wife and you? What is the relationship between you and your sister's son? etc.)

How were the lexical items transcribed

• The elicited lexical items were transcribed using (i) Roman-based International Phonetic Script (IPA) and (ii) modified Devanagari script. E.g. cǝm a – च़मचा 'spoon'; ja – जा ‚go.IMP‘. [A complete list of the symbols used will be found under "Methodology".]
• The lexical database captures variation: E.g. In Palghar district,
  1. mewhna, bhawə, daji, mewhnas, sala, sa a, sa a, hala, a a, haro, hara were the lexical variants received for the concept "male ego's wife's younger brother".
  2. bha i, bhasi, bha is, bhasi, bhawa i porɡi, sun were the variants received for the concept "Female ego's brother's daughter".

Sound variation as well as semantic shifts have been captured in the lexical database.

How is the lexical data presented on the website
Clicking the "Features" tab on the landing page of the website will take the user to the webpage showing "lexical features" and "grammatical features". Refer to the red circled content in the screenshot of the webpage below. The seventy lexical items elicited for this survey are listed under "List of Features" (yellow-coloured box in the screenshot). Click any one of these lexical items, and a drop down menu (blue-coloured box in the screenshot below) will display all lexical variants received in the sampled villages across Maharashtra. E.g. The lexical feature "Utensil for drinking water" yielded lexical variants such as wa i ɡəlas, phulpatrə, məɡɡa, pæli, bha ə, kəra, jamb, lo a, pelo, ɡəllas, wa ko, əwnə, ɡə , etc. which are listed under "Variants" of this "Lexical Feature". The geographical distribution of the particular variant can be visualised in the map in the middle of the webpage.

The frequency of occurrence of a particular lexical variant is indicated in the map by the intensity of the coloured dots in the map (yellow colour indexes low frequency of occurrence; dark orange indexes high frequency).
If the user wishes to listen to the audio of a particular lexical variant, select the variant in the drop down menu in the blue box and then click ‘Click to play voice’ (yellow circle in the screenshot). If you wish to see the picture which was used to elicit the particular lexical item, select the lexical feature in the drop down menu (in the yellow box on the left in the sreenshot) and then click ‘Click here to view image’ in the yellow circle on the right side of the sreenshot.
The user will see an outline district map of Maharashtra on this page. On hovering over the map, the name of the particular district can be seen. One can zoom into by clicking once and zoom out of the district by clicking again. After zooming into any of the districts, one can click on a circle representing a sampled village. See the screenshot below:

A pop-up box appears in which the entire lexical data received from the particular village can be viewed. See the screenshot below.

GRAMMATICAL FEATURES

What is a grammatical feature
A grammatical trait, such as a word formation process or a syntactic relation between words in a sentence is referred to as 'grammatical feature'. E.g.1 The various case markers which can be attached to the noun rǝsta 'road': rǝstyala (accusative), rǝstyat (locative), rǝstyapasun (ablative), rǝstyani (instrumental). E.g.2 Agreement in a sentence bhintǝ pǝ li OR bhintǝ pǝ lǝ 'the wall fell- feminine agreement' and 'the wall fell-neuter agreement' respectively.

How were grammatical features identified for this survey
About twenty grammatical features were identified on the basis of previous published works and previous experience of data collection in Maharashtra. It was expected that a sub-set of these features would prove to be diagnostic to identify the major dialectal divisions in Marathi. These features include the following: (i) the gender system (ii) case marking (iii) aspect marking (iv) tense marking (v) person and number distinction in verbal marking (vi) case marking in the transitive perfective clause (vii) agreement in the transitive perfective clause, and so on.

How were grammatical features elicited
The ‘Deccan College Stimulus’ consisting of seventy videos was used to elicit particular grammatical features. PROVIDE A LINK HERE.