LINGUIST List 8.386

Tue Mar 18 1997

Sum: Corpora of historical German texts

Editor for this issue: Susan Robinson <suelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Gert Webelhuth, Corpora of historical German texts

A few weeks ago I posted a message seeking help in finding computerized
corpora of historical German texts. I would like to thank each of the
respondents warmly and am attaching a summary of their responses below.

Best,

Gert Webelhuth
Dep. of Linguistics
U of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill

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SUMMARY

Marie Helt (meh2dana.ucc.nau.edu) wrote:

You might try contacting people on the corpora list (run by ICAME at the
University of Bergen, Norway). They have been most helpful with my corpora
requests in the past, especially for German. The address is:

corporahd.uib.no

Good luck, and would you post a summary of what you find?
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Nils Langer (Nils.Langernewcastle.ac.uk) wrote:

this might not be of much help but there is a collection of Early New High
German texts, collected by W. Besch (University of Bonn) which is available
in the crudest possible form of computerization, i.e. DOS-text.
Nevertheless, it might be a start though it is not quite about the period
you were looking for. It consists of 40 texts a c. 50 pages and covers 4
centuries and 10 dialects (i.e. 1 text per century per dialect). The
earliest text is from around 1325 whereas the most recent one is from 1699.
If you're interested you should perhaps get in contact with Professor Besch
directly..
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Ans van Kemenade (kemenadelet.vu.nl)

there is a databank in Frankfurt where I know you could get computerized
TEXTS (nothing annotated, I think). But they work on the principle that you
can get material if you give some other material in return (medieval
barter, you know).

Ans included the following email from Richard Schrodt
(Richard.Schrodtunivie.ac.at):

The best way now would be "Titus", from Gippert in Frankfurt (send e-mail
to: gippertem.uni-frankfurt.d400.de) They have amost everything from Old
High German, and they will have soon everything that I have. You get an
account-number from Gippert and then you can have these texts, providend
that you are able to deliver a own text for sharing. There is also a
homepage: http://www.rz.unifrankfurt.de/home/ftp/pub/titus/public_html/

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Peter Christian (petergold.ac.uk) wrote:

A lot of texts have been digitised, especially but not only the mainstream
literary ones. A good place to start would be the Oxford Text Archive at
http://sable.ox.ac.uk/ota/

Gottfried's Tristan and Wolfram's works are also available from the U of
Virginia Electronic Text Centre at
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/german.browse.html which has also got links
to lots of other German texts on-line, mostly post-medieval, though.
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Gert Webelhuth
Assistant Professor
Department of Linguistics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3155

Phone:	 (919) 962-1192 (School)
Fax:	 (919) 962-3708 (c/o Gert Webelhuth)

Email addresses: webelhuthunc.edu or
 webelhutmindspring.com (no final "h" !)

Homepage: http://www.unc.edu/~gert
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