26-12-2019, 10:03 PM
I see the problem of using german dialects for locating and/or dating as a rather difficult one. Sorry not to be more optimistic, but I had my go on “ƒo nim gaƒ mich” as “So nimm Geiß Milch” and in the end saw no way (note the use of long s, I see it as this, also not an ei but an a, ei is modern, High German orthography).
To cut the long matter short: I see no possibility whatsoever to use the words “ƒo nim gaƒ mich” for any purpose of dating and/or locating, at all. Sorry I have no better news. Please read my rather lengthy explanation only if you want some entertainment about an amateur researcher banging his head against walls
The use of long s is actually wrong in this case by todays standard. This is nothing unusual. It was used like this and that throughout the ages, location based etc, So, I asked an expert in palæography if it was possible to locate and/or date the writing by the wrong use of long s by comparison. Simply told, the answer was a covert “NO”. But maybe I should not have said that I am talking about the VMS, some experts simply run away rather fast in the opposite direction if you mention the topic. At that time I simply did not know this. Nice I received an answer, at all.
I continued with my assumption and looked up a lot of dialect data records. I located one, and only one place where the phonetic “gaƒ” would resolve to the meaning. It is a small place in the Palatinate, the Pfalz, actually a village! Pfälzische (Pälzische) dialects are known to have withstood some important lingual changes, like the High German consonant shift. Alas this is of no further importance, since the records do not reach that far back to be useful. The Pfalz is a rather small county and dialect changes a rather lot in the distance of only a few kilometers. And the comparative corpus consists of one word only.
I also tried “mich” for milk, and found one, and only one place where this is true (I also know it because I personally know speakers, but did the research to (dis)proof it), in one of the Salzburg Gaus, Pinzgau.
So there were two problems:
a) these two places are about 1200 KM apart
b) the Pälzisch dialect is not part of the bavarian family, while Pinzgauerisch is
It is as very hard to understand as Pfälzisch without some training, believe me
To generalize the problems:
1) lingual changes over time and missing historical records
This is rather obvious. Linguistics heavily relies on reconstruction and is not so much good friends with dialects.
2) orthography
This is also obvious. There was none, until rather recently. People wrote like they pleased, or heard.
3) migrational movements without record
They have been a lot, and a lot of them went unrecorded.
4) local shifts and differences
Let me give you an example: If I am not in High German mode, I speak a variant of the south-bavarian subfamily. But which one? I know of at least 8 different variants in my small county of Styria: east, south-east, south, south-west, west, middle. While north (ober, "Stoa-Steirisch", Stoa = Stein / stone) is not part of the south-bavarian subfamily, there is an additional capital city dialect. I grew up in the capital so I speak this, but my family originates in the south-west, so they talk rather differently, there. The problem comes, when you want to transliterate the different dialects. For some reason some people insist to type in their local variant. It is a mess. It changes by small regions, by the way. This mostly includes directions, they are based on the flow direction of the main river of the region and the place where you want to go.
Tracing back my family tree using church records I found at least 6 different spellings of my past name (in many different hands, who invented Cursive again? I curse him!).
The records reach back to 1642. Where did we come from? No Idea, but certainly from a migrational movement that was imposed on the area. The original population was of Slovenian origin, and as usually, they also mixed, which is a happy fact
Bavarians mostly say “Goaß”, when they are referring to a goat, and “Müch”, when they are referring to milk.
Best
Gert
P.s.: The only thing I have to (dis)prove in the future, is my assumption that the marginalia on f166v are not contemporary to the VMS writing. Wish me luck. Thank you.
To cut the long matter short: I see no possibility whatsoever to use the words “ƒo nim gaƒ mich” for any purpose of dating and/or locating, at all. Sorry I have no better news. Please read my rather lengthy explanation only if you want some entertainment about an amateur researcher banging his head against walls
The use of long s is actually wrong in this case by todays standard. This is nothing unusual. It was used like this and that throughout the ages, location based etc, So, I asked an expert in palæography if it was possible to locate and/or date the writing by the wrong use of long s by comparison. Simply told, the answer was a covert “NO”. But maybe I should not have said that I am talking about the VMS, some experts simply run away rather fast in the opposite direction if you mention the topic. At that time I simply did not know this. Nice I received an answer, at all.
I continued with my assumption and looked up a lot of dialect data records. I located one, and only one place where the phonetic “gaƒ” would resolve to the meaning. It is a small place in the Palatinate, the Pfalz, actually a village! Pfälzische (Pälzische) dialects are known to have withstood some important lingual changes, like the High German consonant shift. Alas this is of no further importance, since the records do not reach that far back to be useful. The Pfalz is a rather small county and dialect changes a rather lot in the distance of only a few kilometers. And the comparative corpus consists of one word only.
I also tried “mich” for milk, and found one, and only one place where this is true (I also know it because I personally know speakers, but did the research to (dis)proof it), in one of the Salzburg Gaus, Pinzgau.
So there were two problems:
a) these two places are about 1200 KM apart
b) the Pälzisch dialect is not part of the bavarian family, while Pinzgauerisch is
It is as very hard to understand as Pfälzisch without some training, believe me
To generalize the problems:
1) lingual changes over time and missing historical records
This is rather obvious. Linguistics heavily relies on reconstruction and is not so much good friends with dialects.
2) orthography
This is also obvious. There was none, until rather recently. People wrote like they pleased, or heard.
3) migrational movements without record
They have been a lot, and a lot of them went unrecorded.
4) local shifts and differences
Let me give you an example: If I am not in High German mode, I speak a variant of the south-bavarian subfamily. But which one? I know of at least 8 different variants in my small county of Styria: east, south-east, south, south-west, west, middle. While north (ober, "Stoa-Steirisch", Stoa = Stein / stone) is not part of the south-bavarian subfamily, there is an additional capital city dialect. I grew up in the capital so I speak this, but my family originates in the south-west, so they talk rather differently, there. The problem comes, when you want to transliterate the different dialects. For some reason some people insist to type in their local variant. It is a mess. It changes by small regions, by the way. This mostly includes directions, they are based on the flow direction of the main river of the region and the place where you want to go.
Tracing back my family tree using church records I found at least 6 different spellings of my past name (in many different hands, who invented Cursive again? I curse him!).
The records reach back to 1642. Where did we come from? No Idea, but certainly from a migrational movement that was imposed on the area. The original population was of Slovenian origin, and as usually, they also mixed, which is a happy fact
Bavarians mostly say “Goaß”, when they are referring to a goat, and “Müch”, when they are referring to milk.
Best
Gert
P.s.: The only thing I have to (dis)prove in the future, is my assumption that the marginalia on f166v are not contemporary to the VMS writing. Wish me luck. Thank you.
Maybe a task for the future.