Dicţionarul graiurilor româneşti din Ungaria (DGRU)[Dictionary of Regional Romanian Spoken in Hungary] has been a research topic, included in the plan of ”Iorgu Iordan–Alexandru Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics of the Romanian Academy, since 2017.
The bilateral project of Hungarian Academy of Sciences, PROJEKT 2017–55 (MTA–NKM – 115/2018, 37/2019, 8/2020) with the same name (Dicţionarul graiurilor româneşti din Ungaria [Dictionary of Regional Romanian Spoken in Hungary]) is carried out within this topic, by means of collaboration between the Romanian Academy and the Hungarian Academy of Science in Budapest. The researchers Ana Borbély (the project manager from the Hungarian part), Maria Marin (the project coordinator from the Romanian part), Iulia Mărgărit, Carmen-Ioana Radu and Daniela Răuţu take part in the project.
DGRU represents a novelty in the domain of lexicography, in general, and of dialectology, in particular, since it is one of the first studies of this kind, dedicated to some Romanian dialectal varieties spoken in an environment where another language is spoken. The study will comprise words from a series of localities with Romanian population from Hungary, population who has been continuously using Romanian as a means of communication (the villages Bedő/Bedeu, Körösszegapáti/Apateu, Körösszakál/Săcal) or who is still keeping, even if partially, the habit of using the Romanian language (Battonya/Bătania, Elek/Aletea, Gyula/Giula, Kétegyháza/Chitighaz, Magyarcsanád/Cenadul Unguresc, Méhkerék/Micherechi, Pusztaottlaka/Otlaca-Pustă etc.). The study replenishes the image of the lexical repertory (with implications in phonetics, morphology and word formation) of the Daco-Romanian subdialects, in general, and of those from Transylvania, Crişana and/or Banat, in particular.
The study addresses both the specialists in different domains (dialectology, lexicography and lexicology, the history of Romanian language, sociolinguistics, ethnology and ethnography etc.), and those who are interested in aspects regarding the knowledge of the language, of customs and traditions from the research area.
The richness and variety of the material that is going to be collected from different sources (linguistic atlases, texts collections, monographies, studies and articles of dialectology, ethnology, folk, history) or that is going to be recorded during field work enforce the elaboration and publishing of this dictionary, which will be valued in the Dictionary-Thesaurus of Romanian language.
Collaboration between the two institutes offers the researchers the opportunity to produce an innovative work, dedicated to an unique dialectal variety spoken in the communities with Romanian population from Hungary.