Historic Colognian or Old Colognian is the spoken and written language that was used in the time from the 12th century to the 18th century in the city of Cologne in the German Empire, before the current modern Colognian idiom developed. The German name for it is Altkölnisch. It has been thoroughly researched and documented in publications including a dictionary[1] by Prof. Dr. Adam Wrede (1875-1960), a linguist of the University of Cologne. He also published a dictionary of modern Colognian[2], having regular reprints until today. It was mainly Wrede who coined the term Altkölnisch.
Since the middle of the fifth century, Cologne was under the rule of the Franks, who took over after close to 500 years of Roman rule. The Franks brought their own language, which over time replaced Latin as the common language of the citizens. The historic Colognian language developed during the 12th century, latest[3], based on the Ripuarian version of Old Franconian and Old Lower Franconian, which were used in the city and in the (large) surrounding areas which were more or less controlled by Colognian authorities, and based on the Old High German of the South. Old Franconian developed into a huge variety of dialects, including most of Middle German and Luxembourgish, Old Low Franconian developed into modern Dutch, Afrikaans and others. Old High German developed into today's German, and others. Historic Colognian thus was influenced by High German already in the middle ages.[4]
The Old Colognian was not only spoken. Being used in writing and later in print, both by church and mundane office sources in the city and about, as well as being used by normal citizens, it was well preserved up to our times, and displays a rich variety of all kinds of language use.[4] Beginning in the first half of the 16th century, even literary sources exist. One 16th century source is the so called Book Weinsberg, a kind of diary of a son of a Colognian patrician, Hermann von Weinsberg, who writes about his own life from youth to adulthood and age. Most remarkably, with his writing, he puts himself next to the kings of his time, usually the only ones about whose lives written records exist.
During the 16th century, the New High German language influence in Cologne and along the Rhine increased, and it changed the way of writing used in the kontors and in print. The ways, people talked did not go with it, at least not for ordinary ones, the lower ranked, the less. We know this from later documents of the 18th century, when writings in Colognian increased again. They document how the language developed into current Colognian.
Towards the end of the 16th century, the mostly lower Franconian based writing system was gradually given up, and replaced by the developing New High German writing system. Since then, spoken and written languages in Cologne went quite different ways. Since then, also written documents in historic Colognian become scarce.