The fifth Nordic symposium of dialectologists was attended by about 85 participants. Forty-one lectures, including two plenary lectures (by Oskar Bandle, Zürich, and Lars Huldén, Helsinki) were presented, 36 of which are published in these proceedings. They clearly display the breadth of current Nordic dialectology. The volume thus includes both articles of traditional character and of more modern direction. The contributions treat dialects and the history of language, studies of word geography, semantics, lexicography, word formation, prosody, urban speech, language contact, dialect syntax, dialect as written language, etc. The differences between dialectological and sociolinguistic spoken language research are gradually diminishing. Connections with other disciplines, such as history of science, pedagogy, and ethnology are also evident.

From a geographic point of view, both general and more limited regional material is presented. All of the Nordic languages except Icelandic are represented, from the Faroe Islands in the west to Nyland in the east, from Fyn in the south to the northem Finnmark.