Gyakorisági viszonyok a korai ómagyar kori hangtani nyelvjárási különbségek leírásában
Authors: Bába Barbara 
Published: February 2023

Frequency Conditions in the Description of Phonological Dialectal Differences in the Early Old Hungarian Era The primary, direct source material for the description of phonological dialectal differences in the early Old Hungarian Era is represented by linguistic data found in linguistic records. The source value of data in linguistic records in historical dialectology, however, may vary significantly. The main obstacle to the use of linguistic records from the early Old Hungarian Era, besides pitfalls posed by orthographic history, is represented by their characteristic linguistic variation, thus when studying the source value of historical data for historical dialectology we also need to consider the causes of dualities seen in linguistic records. There¬fore, I have already addressed this problem in detail in one of my earlier papers. When it comes to the description of the regional features of the phonological dichotomies during the Old Hungarian Era, we also need to keep it in mind that some of the remnants found in the charters do not necessarily reflect the dialect of the local name users but that of the scribe of the charter. I examined this issue as well when studying charters that have survived in different copies and were created at almost the same time as by scrutinizing these sources we may hope to find out why certain phenomena in historical dialectology emerge also in areas and at times where and when it would not otherwise be expected. When defining the source value of historical data for historical dialectology we cannot disregard, besides all these, the regional and chronological unevenness of the sources. In this paper I present how these factors determine the attitude towards historical data from the early Old Hungarian Era, i.e., the use of which methodological principles may bring us results when assessing the frequency of data. Of the phonological dialectal features from the early Old Hungarian Era I provide examples for phonological dichotomies related to i ~ ü, ë ~ ö, é ~ í, the dropping of l and the ëÝ diphthong. The inclusion of historical data from the early Old Hungarian Era in research on historical dialectology is made more difficult my several circumstances. A cautious attitude towards data and their use with the help of different filters may avoid these restrictive factors in a reassuring manner. The results and methodo¬logical solutions presented here indicate that it is not only the relative frequency of chronological and regional features that must be considered due to the uneven¬ness of data distribution but because of the scarce sources of certain areas we also need to keep in mind the absolute frequency relations in order to avoid a distorted image. Of course, the introduction of regional and chronological relations cannot be independent of one another. Those cases underlie the expediency of relying on both aspects together which although do not show differences in chronological frequency due to the conservative nature of orthography but spatial representation shows the spreading process of the given dialectal phenomenon well.