Causeries scriptologiques posthumes avec Anthonij Dees : un rapide survol

Abstract

Abstract This article examines two Old French corpora related to the Domaine d’Oïl (Northern France) from a dialectometric and scriptometric perspective, which go back to the Romance scholar Anthonij Dees (1928–2001). These are, on the one hand, his atlas of charters published in 1980 (digiDees 1980) and, on the other hand, an electronic corpus created in Salzburg as recently as 2006 (digiDees 1983). This is based on geolocalisation computations of Old French texts (from the 12th and 13th centuries), which, carried out by Dees in 1983, were only rediscovered by chance in Amsterdam in 2006 and subsequently transferred to Salzburg. In addition to these two medieval datasets, dialect data from the French linguistic atlas ALF (“Atlas linguistique de la France”, 1902–1910) are also analysed, which spatially align with the two medieval datasets. The dialectometric and scriptometric analyses carried out on these three electronic corpora aim primarily to compare the spatial depth structures found in them. For this purpose, the following dialectometric map types were examined: similarity maps, parameter maps and isoglottic syntheses. When comparing them, an astonishing similarity of the spatial profiles visible on them emerges. It should be noted, however, that a time span of 600 years lies between the Old French data analysed by Dees and those of the ALF. The spatial similarity of the depth structures found in them is therefore all the more striking.