The Leyden manuscript (''Dornskrid Leiden'') is the name usually given in Breton studies to a four-page leaflet ("bifolio") kept in the library of
Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...
in the Netherlands (
shelfmark
A shelfmark is a mark in a book or manuscript that denotes the cupboard or bookcase where it is kept as well as the shelf and possibly even its location on the shelf. The closely related term pressmark (from press, meaning cupboard) denotes only th ...
: '' folio 96 A''). It is a fragment of a
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
medical treatise dating from the 9th or late 8th century in which two Irish words appear and about thirty
Old Breton
Breton (, ; or in Morbihan) is a Southwestern Brittonic language of the Celtic language family spoken in Brittany, part of modern-day France. It is the only Celtic language still widely in use on the European mainland, albeit as a member of t ...
words.
Description
Pierre-Yves Lambert Pierre-Yves Lambert (born 30 May 1949) is a French linguist and scholar of Celtic studies. He is a researcher at the CNRS and a lecturer at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Celtic linguistics and philology. Lambert is the director of the jo ...
thus describes the place held by Breton in this text:
Vossianus lat. 96 A has the peculiarity of including Old Breton not in the glosses, but in the main text: it is one of the few documents where the vernacular language is not restricted to secondary use. Nevertheless, Old Breton only intervenes on one page of this bifolio and there it remains subordinate to Latin insofar as it is simply technical words (names of plants, preparations) which are substituted for the corresponding Latin words.
From a literary point of view, he adds:
Leiden's medical fragment is doubtless not typically Breton in the subject: it is a question of ancient or medieval Latin recipes that are constantly being copied in monasteries.
Some examples of the Breton words found in the manuscript:
* ': apple
* ': branch
* ': search
* ': holly
* ': oak
* ': alder tree
* ': mistletoe
* ': head
* ': elder tree
* ': thorn (hawthorn, plum tree)
Sources
*
his article contains a transcription of the manuscript (pp. 18-21) followed by a glossary (pp. 21–25).*
*
External links
Original and French translation
{{Portal bar, linguistics
9th-century manuscripts
Breton language
Manuscripts of Leiden University Library
Medical manuscripts