Introduction

In the summer of 1945 Harold Orton received from Eugen Dieth, of the University of Zurich, a letter resuming correspondence which had been interrupted by the Second World War. ¹ Beside miscellaneous news of his own activities and enquiries about those of friends and academic acquaintances in Britain, Dieth wrote:

I hear ² the idea of a linguistic atlas of England etc. has not been given up, although conditions in the meantime have not improved. On the contrary, the 6 years of war and mixing of peoples must have ploughed up a good deal of the linguistic ground.... Will you tell me what steps you have taken so far towards launching the scheme?