For the atlas “informant participants” were sought that reflected the common speech of each locality. For this reason, they chose people born in the village, preferably of local family, who had traveled little, who were without formal education, and of a certain age, so that they were “conservative”, although they avoided surveying those who were “too old”. And, in general, they preferred men, because they were assumed to have more knowledge of agricultural terminology than women. In any case, it should be noted that the ALPI surveyed more women than was common in later atlases.

 

Folledo. Depositarias del dialecto.jpg

Folledo (León). Traditional dialect speakers. ARC ARC (Archivo Rodríguez-Castellano)

 

Each survey usually drew on two subjects: one who was interviewed with Notebook I, about Phonetics, Morphology, and Syntax, and another for the Lexicon notebook. In some cases, the responses were contrasted or completed with help from other people who knew in more depth about the crafts in question, and on occasion they also asked educated people from the village. In the Gallery stab one can see pictures of many of the survey informants, photographs which were preserved by Lorenzo Rodríguez-Castellano and his family.

 

On page 7 of the Introduction to the ALPI, there is reference to a planned volume (never completed) which was to compile all "the notations" that they had been collecting throughout the fieldwork:

en un libro anejo, en el que figurarán todos los detalles de las localidades estudiadas y los sujetos informadores, así como todas las observaciones relativas a cada mapa, con las variantes fonéticas, cambios de acepciones, noticias sobre la vitalidad de las formas, etc.

[in a supplement book, which will include all the details of the localities studied and the survey informants, as well as all observations relating to each map, with the phonetic variations, changes of meanings, notes about the vitality of the forms, etc.]

 

    Lorenzo Rodríguez Castellano trabajando con varios informantes. ARC

Lorenzo Rodríguez-Castellano working with several informants. ARC ARC (Archivo Rodríguez-Castellano)