From Manuscript to Model for Early Latvian: Deciphering the Mixed-Script Hand of Andreas Getzel (1628)

The 1628 Getzel manuscript is the largest surviving witness to Old Latvian — and it has never been digitally accessible, until now. This case study combines Transkribus HTR with palaeographic and philological expertise to tackle a uniquely challenging mixed script blending German Kurrent and Humanist cursive, non-standard orthography, and diacritics borrowed from Old Prussian, offering a model workflow for low-resource historical languages.