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The Leiden Willeram or Egmond Willeram, is the name given to a manuscript containing an is used after the High German tradition where it represents Germanic t shifted to /ts/. The Leiden Willeram contains 136 words with the oldest date in Dutch.{{cite web, last1=van der Sijs, first1=Nicoline, title=Chronologisch woordenboek · dbnl, url=http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/sijs002chro01_01/sijs002chro01_01_0014.php, website=DBNL, accessdate=17 September 2017, language=nl
The Leiden Willeram or Egmond Willeram, is the name given to a manuscript containing an Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...
version of the Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
commentary on Song of Solomon by the German abbot Williram of Ebersberg
Williram of Ebersberg (died 3 January 1085) was a Benedictine Abbot. He is best known for his 'Expositio in Cantica Canticorum', a complex commentary of the Song of Songs which includes an Old High German translation and a Latin verse paraphrase.
...
. The translation, since 1597 in the Leiden University Library
Leiden University Libraries is a library founded in 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. It is regarded as a significant place in the development of Culture of Europe, European culture: it is a part of a small number of cultural centres that gave directi ...
, was done at the end of the 11th century by a monk of the Abbey of Egmond
Egmond Abbey or St. Adalbert's Abbey ( nl, Abdij van Egmond, ''Sint-Adelbertabdij'') is a Benedictine monastery of the Congregation of the Annunciation between Egmond aan den Hoef and Bakkum in Egmond-Binnen in the municipality of Bergen in the ...
in the present day Netherlands. The literary text would be seen as the start of Dutch literature, were it not for the fact that the manuscript probably never left the abbey, so it couldn't have influenced later works.
Until recently, based on its orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
and phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
the text of this manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
was believed by most scholars to be Middle Franconian, that is Old High German, with some Limburgic or otherwise Low Franconian admixtures. But in 1974, the German philologist Willy Sanders proved in his study ''Der Leidener Willeram'' that the text actually represents an imperfect attempt by a scribe from the northwestern coastal area of the Low Countries
The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...
to translate the East Franconian original into his local Old Dutch vernacular
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
. The text contains many Old Dutch words not known in Old High German, as well as mistranslated words caused by the scribe's unfamiliarity with some Old High German words in the original he translated, and a confused orthography heavily influenced by the Old High German original. For instance, the grapheme
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.
The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
See also
*History of Dutch
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
References