Abrogans

As Abrogans, more Abrogans German, also Codex Abrogans, a Latin- Old High German glossary is called, its kept in the Abbey Library of St. Gall copy is considered the oldest surviving book in German language.

The glossary contains about 3,670 Old High German words in over 14,600 documents and is thus a valuable source of knowledge of the most ancient Upper German language. It was named from the Germanic research after his first entry: Abrogans = dheomodi ( modest, humble).

On several of the South Tyrolean priest Arbeo of Freising († 783 or 784 ) or the Benedictine monk Kero be identified as the author.

General Information

The German Abrogans is a Latin- Old High German synonym dictionary, which, however, did not arise from a collection of Latin- Old High German translation equations, but built on a purely Latin, alphabetized synonym dictionary. This Latin- Latin glossary of Latin Abrogans, was probably in Italy (possibly in the important southern Italian monastery Vivarium ) compiled from numerous older late antique and early medieval glossaries. So a dictionary was created, where rare terms were explained mainly by the biblical Latin more common words.

Probably in the Old Bavarian texts Diocese of Freising, the bishop Arbeo ( here he was bishop 764-783 ) was under, the dictionary in the second half of the 8th century was finally ' translated ' into German. Both the Latin keywords as well as its Latin playback were glossed with Old High German counterparts, for example:

This was an approach that had often lead to the middle of the 8th century to erroneous translations, for example, by slipping into other parts of speech. Nevertheless, the Abrogans offers huge material for linguistics, which is still not fully evaluated. So there are about 700 words that appear nowhere else in the other Old High German text more.

Tradition

From the time of origin of the glossary in the 8th century, no copy has been preserved. Receive only three younger Alemannic copies of the Bavarian template. The best, however mutilated manuscript is the direct copy of the archetype, probably around 810 in Murbach for Charlemagne or in Regensburg ( Baesecke so ) under Bishop Baturich ( see B. Bischoff ) was produced (Paris, Bibl Nat., Cod. lat. 7640, f 124r - 132v ).