An investigation at the Vienna National Library has turned up two hitherto unknown fragments of texts in Old Frisian.

According to the Fryske Academy, the first fragment is part of a 15th-century legal document while the second is a partial version of an even older legal text in Western Old Frisian and which dates from the beginning of the 14th century.

The fragments, at one time part of a former director’s private collection, were discovered by Austrian philologist Robert Nedoma and published in linguistics journal Die Sprache.

“We didn’t know these fragments existed,” professor of Frisian Rolf Bremmer told local broadcaster Omrop Fryslân.  “Your heart skips a beat, it is so very special,” he said.

Most of the Old Frisian texts which are found are legal documents, Bremmer said. “You may wonder what is so extraordinary about legal texts but they give an insight into the workings of society, people’s behaviour and actions,” he said.

Bremmer, who has only seen an electronic version of the fragments, said they may also add to the Old Frisian vocabulary. “New words turn up, words we did not know yet,” he said.

Where the texts originated exactly is not clear yet, Bremmer said but, judging by the dialect in which they were written, the place is Oostergro in what is now northeastern Friesland.

There are very few Old Frisian texts, and they are not easy to decipher, Bremmer said. “These are just fragments but in the end, you catch their drift. But these texts were not written for entertainment.”