Die Schreibsprache der Briefe von Wilhelm von Berg (1401–1428)

The purpose of this study was to discover the language preferences of a letter writer for Wilhelm von Berg (1401–1428) in 15th century Westphalia. Various written languages such as Ripuarian, Westphalian and Eastphalian were already established in the region and it is known that writers sometimes mixed one language variation with the other. The study also considers other questions: i) Did writers maintain their prior-developed writing habits? ii) Did they learn the written language practiced at a new location when changing their place of work? The research uses a collection of correspondences between Wilhelm and his siblings, most of which are published here for the first time. They cover his frequent moves from within North-Western Germany when he either wrote letters himself or had them written for him. The study starts with distinguishing the handwritings of his letters, and then moves to an analysis of language variations used through a comparison of specific words. Results show that changing location for one writer (probably Wilhelm himself) did not greatly influence his language use, but that he took on new variants of certain words in his letters.