Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

THE MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 781 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

THE See also:

MIDDLE HIGH See also:GERMAN See also:PERIOD The following are the See also:chief changes in sounds and forms which See also:mark the development of the See also:language in the Middle High German period. The See also:orthography of the See also:MSS. reveals a much more extensive employment of mutation (Umlaut) than was the See also:case in the first 'period; we find, for instance, as the mutation of o, o, of o, cc, of u, iu (a), of uo, tie, of ou, ou, and eu (cf. holer, bcese, hiuser, giiete, boume), although many See also:scribes, and more especially those of Middle and See also:Low German districts, have no See also:special signs for the mutation of its, u, and o. Of special See also:interest is the so-called " later (or weaker) 6 Cf., for a See also:hypothesis of two Umlauts perioden during the Old High German See also:time, F. See also:Kauffmann, Geschichte der schwabischen Mundart (See also:Strassburg, 1890), S. 152. mutation " (jiingerer See also:oder schwticherer Umlaut) of a to a very open e It has been a much debated question how far See also:Germany in Middle See also:sound, which is often written a. Cf. mahte (O.H.G. mahti), magede (O.H.G. magadi). The earlier mutation of this sound produced an e(~), a closed sound (i.e. nearer i). Cf. gesle (O.H.G. gesti). The various Old High German vowels in unstressed syllables were either weakened to an indifferent e sound (geben, O.H.G. geban; See also:bole, O.H.G. bolo; sige, O.H.G. sigu) or disappeared altogether. The latter phenomenon is to be observed after 1 and r, and partly after n and m (cf. ar(e), O.H.G. are; zal, O.H.G. zala; wundern, O.H.G. wuntaron, &c.); but it by no means took See also:place everywhere in the same degree and at the same time. It has been already noted that the Alemannic See also:dialect (as well as the archaic poets of the German See also:national epic) retained at least the See also:long unstressed vowels until as See also:late as the 14th See also:century (gemarterot, gekriuzegoi, &c.), and Low and Middle German preserved the weakened e sound in many cases where Upper German dropped it.

In this period the beginnings are also to be seen in Low and Middle German (Heinrich von Veldeke shows the first traces of it) of a See also:

process which became of See also:great importance for the formation of the See also:Modern German See also:literary language. This is the lengthening of originally See also:short vowels in open syllables,' for example, in Modern High German See also:Tages, See also:Wages, See also:lobe (Middle High German Tages, wages, lobe). In See also:Austria, on the other See also:hand, there began as far back as the first See also:half of the 12th century another See also:movement of equal importance for Modern High German, namely, the See also:conversion of the long vowels, i, u, into ei (ou), au, eu (au).2 It is, therefore, in MSS. written in the See also:south-See also:east that we find forms like zeit, tauter (Toter), heute, &c., for the first time. With the exception of Low German and Alemannic—Swabian, however, follows in this respect the See also:majority—all the German dialects participated in this See also:change between the 14th and. 16th centuries, although not all to the same degree. The change was perhaps assisted by the See also:influence of the literary language which had recognized the new sounds. In See also:England the same process has led to the modern See also:pronunciation of time, See also:house, &c., and in See also:Holland to that of tijd, huis, &c. F. See also:Wrede (Zeitschrift See also:fur deutsches Altertum xxxix. 257 ff.) has suggested that the explanation of the change is to be sought in the apocope and See also:syncope of the final e, and the greater stress which was in consequence put on the See also:stem-syllable. The tendency to a change in the opposite direction, namely, the narrowing of diphthongs to monophthongs, is to be noticed in Middle German dialects, i.e. in dialects which resisted the apocope of the final e, where ie, uo, See also:lie become ii; thus we have for Brief, brif, for huon, See also:hen, for briietler, briider, and this too was taken over into the Modern High German literary language.' No consonantal change was so widespread during this period as that of initial s to sch before 1, n, m, w, p and t. Cf. slingen, schlingen; swer (e) n, schworen, &c.

The forms scht- and schp- are often to be met with in Alemannic MSS., but they were discarded again, al-though modern German recognizes the pronunciation schp, scht.' With regard to changes affecting the inflections of verbs and nouns, it must suffice here to point out that the weakening or disappearance of vowels in unstressed syllables necessarily affected the characteristic endings of the older language; See also:

groups of verbs and substantives which in Old High German were distinct now become confused. This is best seen in the case of the weak verbs, where the three Old High German classes (cf. nerien, salbon, dagen) were fused into one. Similarly in the declensions we find an increasing tendency of certain forms to influence substantives belonging to other classes; there is, for instance, an increase in the number of neuter nouns taking -er (-ir) in the plural, and of those which show mutation in the plural on the See also:model of the i- stems (O.H.G. gast, pl. gesti; cf. forms like See also:ban, benne; See also:hals, helse; wald, welde). Of changes in syntax the See also:gradual decay in the use of the genitive case dependent on a noun or governed by a verb (cf. constructions like eine briinne rotes goldes, or See also:des todes wunschen) towards the end of the period, and also the disappearance of the Old High German sequence of tenses ought at least to be mentioned. In the Middle High German period, the first classical period of German See also:poetry, the German language made great advances as a vehicle of literary expression; its See also:power of expression was increased and it acquired a beauty of See also:style hitherto unknown. This was the period of the Minnesang and the great popular and See also:court epics, of See also:Walther von tier Vogelweide, See also:Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg; it was a period when literature enjoyed the fostering care of the courts and the See also:nobility. At the same time German See also:prose celebrated its first triumphs in the sermons of Berthold von See also:Regensburg, and in the mystic writings and sermons of Meister See also:Eckhart, See also:Tauler and others. See also:History (Eike von Repkow's Weltchronik) and See also:law (Sachsenspiegel, Schwabenspiegel) no longer despised the See also:vernacular, and from about the middle of, the 13th century German becomes, in an ever-increasing percentage, the language of deeds and charters. ' Cf. W. Wilmanns, Deutsche Grammatik, i. (2nd edition) pp.

300-304. Wilmanns, l.c. pp. 273-280. It might be mentioned that, in Modern High German,these new diphthongs are neither in spelling nor in educated pronunciation distinguished from the older ones. ' Cf. Wilmanns, pp. 280-284. Ibid. pp. 129-132. High German times possessed or aspired to possess a Schriftsprache or literary language.' About the See also:

year 1200 there was undoubtedly a marked tendency towards a unification of the literary language on the See also:part of the more careful poets like Walther von derVogelweide, Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Strassburg; they avoid, more particularly in their rhymes, See also:dialectic peculiarities, such as the Bavarian dual forms es and enk, or the long vowels in unstressed syllables, retained in Alemannic, and they do not make use of archaic words or forms. We have thus a right to speak, if not of a Middle High German literary language in the widest sense of the word, at least of a Middle High German Dichtersprache or poetic language, on an Alemannic-Franconian basis. Whether, or in how far, this may have affected the See also:ordinary speech of the nobility or courts, is a See also:matter of conjecture; but it had an undeniable influence on Middle and Low German poets, who endeavoured at least to use High German forms in their rhymes.

Attempts were also made in Low German districts, though at a later See also:

stage of this period, to unify the dialects and raise them to the level of an accepted literary language. It will be shown later why these attempts were unsuccessful. Unfortunately, however, the efforts of the High German poets to See also:form a See also:uniform language were also shortlived ; by the end of the 13th century the Dichtersprache had disappeared, and the dialects again reigned supreme.

End of Article: THE MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
THE MEDIEVAL 		[next]
THE MODERN

Site © 2006 - Net Industries