The word “object” in the Japanese language has two references, one referring to those that exist in reality and the other to those that have no existence but spirits and souls. Japanese people believe that objects of non-existence also have souls. The focus of the symposium is on the digitalization and internationalization of oral traditions, and in my presentation, the naming of folk tools is surveyed as a case study of oral traditions. The folk tools are made and utilized by ordinary Japanese people according to their needs in everyday life. My presentation will discuss some issues in the oral tradition of folk tools and its digitization, with a case study of folk tool names in Tadamiso, Minamiaizu county,Fukushima.

　　Folk tools, at any times and in any place, construct the life history of ordinary people in various communities. They are first-class tangible folk cultural properties as nonwritten cultural materials.

　　Thus, it is necessary not only to discuss the “standard terms” as a contrastive basis, but also to think about the spatially varying names given by people from different places.

　　At the first phase of study, I surveyed the latest research findings about dialects of folk tools and conducted comparison among the dialects. The study was based on the folk tool list of Tadamiso area in Fukushima where the folk tool collection is relatively complete, gradually enlarging to the lists of other areas such as Minami Kyushu, Okinawa and Tokai. Then, the basic information of folk tool terms in various areas in Japan was summarized and listed, which indicated a possibility of contrastive study. The presentation aims to find out the possibility to apply computer technology to the construction of database of people and their tools through enlarging the data by adding overseas folk tools.

　　1. Projects aimed at standardization of folk tool terminology and their operation procedures

　　Dialects of different places were recorded. As major factors of folk tool terms, the features include O shape O function O the way it is made O transportation O sociality O parts of body O movement O animals or plants O sound effects O efficiency O person’s name and so on. I will introduce the operation procedure of the collection and documentation of folk tool terms in Tadamiso, as a case study of digitization.

　　2. The digitization of folk tools with the Ontology

　　Folk tools are non-literature materials created by folk culture. The name of the same tool may have different realizations in different places and at different times. To share and exchange information about non-literature materials, we need to obtain information of information sources, that is, we need to search information with high-end digitals. The language used in the database of folk tool search engine is much more important than the key words of folk tool names. Here we use the search method flexibly with the theory of Ontology, by setting the words used as key words and indicating efficiency by introducing Ontology to the digital basis of folk tools.

　　3. Three museums

　　Tadamichou museum

　　(1) Museum: nature - “Exhibition of facility related objects/preserving” goal - “Exhibition or preserving (preserving the mechanism)” visitors - “Limited spectators”

　　(2) Ecological museum: nature - “The geological awareness of majority residents or revitalization movement” goal - “(school) Education” visitors - “Local residents”

　　(3) Computer and ecological museum: nature - “The database of geographical information -opening” goal - “(institution) research” visitors - “The majority without specific limitation”

　　The museum on the internet based on a small box of computer is no less than a museum of huge volume except the exhibitions are not real objects. It restores a huge quantity of data and links the whole world in an instance, although it takes very little space, and one can find the data that s/he needs as soon as s/he enters the search items.