[MR] ISO how to check age and authanticity of a medieval manuscript?

[David Chessler]

At 06:44 PM 11/29/2007, Cian Conor MacQuaid wrote:
>>Try someone, probably at a university, who is an expert in medieval 
>>German. Prior to the 16th C (and, indeed, to some extent through 
>>the 20th C), German was a language of multiple local dialects, 
>>among 2 major dialects: low German in the North and High German 
>>(which became modern German) in the south.
>>Davitt il Bigollo da Pisa
>
>
>It is in fact still a language of multiple dialects, whether 
>Schwabian, Hessen or Platte. Fraktur, the formal script, is a 
>challenge sometimes even if you would understand the words. :-)

Even 30 years ago all Germans could speak Hochdeutsch, the standard 
dialect. What they did in their homes is another matter (since I'm a 
foreigner, they would always speak standard German to me). Of course, 
Germany was not fully unified until 1871, one year after Italy, so 
regional differences are to be expected.

I have read, but cannot prove, that even today most lowland Scots 
speak Scottish, which is considered a dialect of English, at home. In 
public they speak standard English with a Scottish accent.

And I know quite a few people in Eastern France (the part that was in 
the Holy Roman Empire until 1815), who still speak German dialects at 
home (nearly all of them are pretty old now).

As for fractura, when I studied German, the second half of the first 
year we read nothing but fractura. I gather that's no longer done.