Project ‘Updating and Downdating: the orthographic interference of late-medieval Irish scribes in early-medieval texts’ – 2021-2025

PI dr. Nike Stam

Brandt de kaars, blijft stille staen/ Na ‘t doven moogt ge verder gaen ‘If ’tis true the candle burns, stayeth wh’re thou art/ aft’r t is doused, wend on’. This archaic-looking expression is taken, not from an old Dutch manuscript, but from a sign in the modern theme park De Efteling. Such linguistic downdating for contemporary purposes – here to enhance a fairytale-like atmosphere – is not just a modern phenomenon.

In this project, I will ask new questions about the downdating of texts in late-medieval Ireland with regards to orthography. I will use the approach recently advocated by Sebba (2007), which sees orthography as an important social practice that should be embedded in sociolinguistic analyses. With this sociocultural turn in mind, now is the perfect time to start examining historical sources from a similar perspective, especially since the use of archaising orthography by late-medieval Irish scribes poses a problem for the philologist: as it is unclear to what extent the archaisation is based on the scribes’ knowledge of Early Irish, the dating of early-Irish texts is hampered, which is often done linguistically due to a lack of contemporary manuscripts. As long as we do not understand to what extent late-medieval scribal interferences were based on a knowledge of early-medieval Irish, our linguistic dating of early Irish texts involves a high degree of uncertainty.

Examining how these late scribes used archaic features will shed an important new light on the way in which Irish scholarly communities of the past studied and recreated their historical canon. In addition, it will be relevant for Ancient and Medieval Studies, since these fields too are often dependent on late scribes for the preservation of early literature. Furthermore, it will add a meaningful historical dimension to the developing and inherently interdisciplinary field of sociolinguistic orthography.