Nyelvjárási jellemzők megjelenése boszorkányperes jegyzőkönyvek kézirataiban

Abstract

On the appearance of dialectal features in manuscripts of witchcraft records The present paper explores the scribal context in witness depositions of Hungarian witch trials, focusing on the appearance of dialectal features in the manuscripts. Witness depositions of the Middle Hungarian period proved to be speech-based or speech related texts, however, it is not self-evident that the records also can be considered as particularly dialectal sources of the past. It is also requires investigation whether the variants reflects the language use of the witnesses themselves or the scribes. The present study deals with these questions analysing records from a narrower region and then extending the findings to a broader context (with comparison with other regions). Date came from close reading of manuscripts and queries of some morphological and lexically bounded phonological variants from the Old and Middle Hungarian corpus of informal language use. I will also argue that some of the studied variants were rather socially and historically than regionally embedded during the period.