Old texts and writings are part of our history. 

We do understand that some people, especially searchers and archive users, may be attached to former or earlier spellings and transcriptions and we do respect their attachment.

Yet, in the case of West Flemish as well as in that of other regional (or official) languages, a distinction should be made between the contemporary language and the earlier stages of the language which make part of the history of the language and account for its evolution until today’s stage. We therefore recommend the standardised spelling as set by the commission for norms. We also encourage searchers and archive users to keep on stuyding old texts and writings to better understand the evolution of our language and have a deeper understanding of the history, of which such texts offer a good testimony.