Why is the language of the Freising Fragments Early Slovene?

Abstract

The article presents various hypotheses on the origin of the language of the so-called Freising Fragments (Slovene Brižinski/Freisinški spomeniki, Latin Monumenta Frisingensia = MF), three Slavic texts written c. 972–1039, which are critically assessed from the viewpoint of the theory and methodology of historical linguistics. In fact, the arguments in favour of the various genealogical linguistic attributions of the Slavic language of these High Medieval manuscript texts are very heterogeneous, i.e. historical, palaeographic, textual, and historical linguistic. However, the genealogical linguistic or dialectological attribution of any linguistic system is possible only on the basis of historical linguistic analysis of the latter. In doing this, linguistic criteria are prioritized following a “bottom-up” principle, i.e. phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary.