Taalgebruik in woelige tijden: Het belang van egodocumenten in het archief van de Bibliotheca Thysiana (Language change in turbulent times. The importance of egodocuments in the Bibliotheca Thysiana archive)

This chapter appears in an edited volume that showcases how scholars from many different disciplines utilise the materials preserved in the Bibliotheca Thysiana archive (Leiden, The Netherlands) for their research. My contribution demonstrates the importance of a collection of family letters from the late 16th to early 17th preserved in this archive. I analyse hundreds of private letters from Bibliotheca Thysiana archive to examine three topics of methodological importance to historical sociolinguists for the light that they shed on language variation and change during a turbulent period in Dutch history. The first topic concerns the link between education and the ability to write. The second is the author/writer problemthat is, whether the author is also the writer or whether the writer was functioning as a scribe for the author. The third topic examines the effects of increasing multilingualism at the level of individuals (i.e., linguistic repertoire expansion) during periods of extreme demographic instability and geographical mobility. Several of these topics are very difficult for historical linguists to research given that the materials to do so have not be preserved. One notable exception is that of the Bibliotheca Thysiana archive, which, as I argue and demonstrate in my contribution, makes it an invaluable source for historical sociolinguistic research.