Brieven als Buit-2

Approximately 40,000 Dutch letters from the second half of the 17th to the early 19th century have been gathering dust for centuries in British archives. They were sent home by sailors and others from abroad but also vice versa by those staying behind who needed to keep in touch with their loved ones. Many letters did not reach their destinations: they were taken as loot by privateers and confiscated by the High Court of Admiralty during the wars fought between The Netherlands and England. These confiscated letters of men, women and even children represent priceless material for historical linguists. They allow us to gain access to the as yet mainly unknown everyday Dutch of the past, the colloquial Dutch of people from the middle and lower classes.

The first extensive sociolinguistic analysis of these Dutch letters was conducted in the Letters as Loot research programme (2008-2013) at Leiden University. This research concentrated on a selection of about one thousand Dutch private letters from the late seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries, written by more than 700 different letter writers.

The present Brieven als Buit-2 (BAB2) is a spin-off of the ​Brieven als Buit / Letters as Loot research programme (See http://hdl.handle.net/10032/tm-a2-s4). BAB2 differs from the original BAB corpus in various aspects. Firstly, it contains ​a collection of additional letters from the Prize Papers (National Archives, Kew, UK). Secondly, BAB2 presents a collection of 1386 both private and business letters. As the ​Brieven als Buit/Letters as Loot research was focused primarily on private letters, the original BAB internet application comprises only 10% business letters, whereas BAB2 comprises 26% business letters or letters of a mixed private-business character.

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Productdetails

Financier	INT
Jaar	2021
Producttype	Online service
Project	Letters as Loot
Refereren	Letters as Loot-2 / Brieven als Buit-2 [Online Service]. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10032/tm-a2-s6
Talen	Nederlands
Toepassing	Historisch taalonderzoek
Versie	1.0

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