The Jerzy Bartmiński Ethnolinguistic Lab, housed within the Institute of Linguistics and Literary Studies at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (UMCS) in Lublin, is a dedicated centre for the study of folk language (dialects, folklore language) and folk culture.
The lab’s rich research is grounded in authentic materials collected directly from communities, carefully preserved, and made accessible for scholarly exploration.A cornerstone of the Lab is its Tape Archive of Recordings (TN), a vast collection of over 1800 audio items, including reel tapes, cassettes, and CDs. These recordings, primarily from the Lublin region and southeastern Poland, document life in approximately 700 locations. They encapsulate a diverse range of folklore, including songs, fairy tales, legends, beliefs, riddles, spells, proverbs, and firsthand accounts of traditional customs, beliefs, and healing practices.
Professor Jerzy Bartmiński (1939-2022), the visionary founder and long-standing director of the workshop, was instrumental in establishing this invaluable resource. His pioneering doctoral research, conducted between 1961 and 1970 across 71 Lublin region villages, laid the groundwork for the Tape Archive. Detailed in his seminal work, “On the Language of Folklore” (1973), Bartmiński’s research became the cornerstone of the collection. Under his leadership, and with the dedicated efforts of collaborators and students, the archive flourished into a preeminent repository documenting Poland’s dialectal and oral folklore heritage.
