West Flemish
The text is usually considered West Flemish; the arguments in favour of this view were advanced by Schönfeld (1933). According to his interpretation, *"agunnan", "hinase" and (as he read it) "anda" are Ingvaeonic forms whose presence might be expected in any of the coastal dialects of Old Frisian, Old Saxon or Old Frankish. However, the -"n" of third person plural "hebban", which is absent in both Old English and Frisian, identifies the language as Old Dutch. (Old High German "habent" uses a different stem.) "nestas" is the plural of a masculine "nest" that is attested in Middle Dutch and is still present in West Flemish. "vogala" has an epenthetic vocal of a type also found in certain Old Ghentish words, whereas Old English has "fuglas". The form "olla" is the result of a vowel shift "a" &gt; "o" before "ll" that is thought to have occurred in West Flemish at a very early date, possibly before 900. Finally, and have a prothetic "h"; according to Schönfeld, this also points to West Flemish, in which the "h" is frequently dropped or (in the written language) added before vowels (cf. in the Latin version).