mutation” (jüngerer oder schwächerer Umlaut) of ă to a very open e
sound, which is often written ä. Cf. mähte (O.H.G. mahti), mägede
(O.H.G. magadi). The earlier mutation of this sound produced an
e(é), a closed sound (i.e. nearer i). Cf. geste (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; bote, O.H.G. boto; sige, O.H.G. sigu) or disappeared altogether. The latter phenomenon is to be observed after l and r, and partly after n and m (cf. ar(e), O.H.G. aro; zal, O.H.G. zala; wundern, O.H.G. wuntarōn, &c.); but it by no means took place everywhere in the same degree and at the same time. It has been already noted that the Alemannic dialect (as well as the archaic poets of the German national epic) retained at least the long unstressed vowels until as late as the 14th century (gemarterōt, gekriuzegōt, &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 process which became of great importance for the formation of the Modern German literary language. This is the lengthening of originally short vowels in open syllables,[1] for example, in Modern High German Tāges, Wēges, lōbe (Middle High German tăges, wĕges, lŏbe). In Austria, on the other hand, there began as far back as the first half of the 12th century another movement of equal importance for Modern High German, namely, the conversion of the long vowels, ī, ū, ǖ, into ei (ou), au, eu (äu).[2] It is, therefore, in MSS. written in the south-east that we find forms like zeit, lauter (löter), heute, &c., for the first time. With the exception of Low German and Alemannic—Swabian, however, follows in this respect the majority—all the German dialects participated in this change between the 14th and 16th centuries, although not all to the same degree. The change was perhaps assisted by the influence of the literary language which had recognized the new sounds. In England the same process has led to the modern pronunciation of time, house, &c., and in Holland to that of tijd, huis, &c. F. Wrede (Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum xxxix. 257 ff.) has suggested that the explanation of the change is to be sought in the apocope and syncope of the final e, and the greater stress which was in consequence put on the 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, üe become ī, ū, ǖ; thus we have for Brief, brīf, for huon, hūn, for brüeder, brüder, and this too was taken over into the Modern High German literary language.[3]
No consonantal change was so widespread during this period as that of initial s to sch before l, n, m, w, p and t. Cf. slingen, schlingen; swer (e) n, schwören, &c. The forms scht- and schp- are often to be met with in Alemannic MSS., but they were discarded again, although modern German recognizes the pronunciation schp, scht.[4] 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; 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, salbōn, dagēn) 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 model of the i- stems (O.H.G. gast, pl. gesti; cf. forms like ban, benne; hals, helse; wald, welde). Of changes in syntax the gradual decay in the use of the genitive case dependent on a noun or governed by a verb (cf. constructions like eine brünne rotes goldes, or des todes wünschen) 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 poetry, the German language made great advances as a vehicle of literary expression; its power of expression was increased and it acquired a beauty of style hitherto unknown. This was the period of the Minnesang and the great popular and court epics, of Walther von der Vogelweide, 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 nobility. At the same time German prose celebrated its first triumphs in the sermons of Berthold von Regensburg, and in the mystic writings and sermons of Meister Eckhart, Tauler and others. History (Eike von Repkow’s Weltchronik) and law (Sachsenspiegel, Schwabenspiegel) no longer despised the vernacular, and from about the middle of the 13th century German becomes, in an ever-increasing percentage, the language of deeds and charters.
It has been a much debated question how far Germany in Middle High German times possessed or aspired to possess a Schriftsprache or literary language.[5] About the year 1200 there was undoubtedly a marked tendency towards a unification of the literary language on the part of the more careful poets like Walther von der Vogelweide, Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Strassburg; they avoid, more particularly in their rhymes, 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 ordinary speech of the nobility or courts, is a 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 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 form a uniform language were also shortlived; by the end of the 13th century the Dichtersprache had disappeared, and the dialects again reigned supreme.
Modern High German
Although the Middle High German period had thus not succeeded in effecting any permanent advance in the direction of a uniform literary language, the desire for a certain degree of uniformity was never again entirely lost. At the close of the 13th century literature had passed from the hands of the nobility to those of the middle classes of the towns; the number of writers who used the German tongue rapidly increased; later the invention of printing, the increased efficiency of the schools, and above all the religious movement of the Reformation, contributed to awakening the desire of being understood by those who stood outside the dialectic community of the individual. A single authoritative form of writing and spelling was felt on all sides to be particularly necessary. This was found in the language used officially by the various chanceries (Kanzleien), and more especially the imperial chancery. Since the days of Charles IV. (1347–1378) the latter had striven after a certain uniform language in the documents it issued, and by the time of Maximilian I. (1493–1519) all its official documents were characterized by pretty much the same phonology, forms and vocabulary, in whatever part of Germany they originated. And under Maximilian’s successor, Charles V., the conditions remained pretty much the same. The fact that the seat of the imperial chancery had for a long time been in Prague, led to a mingling of Upper and Middle German sounds and inflections; but when the crown came with Frederick III. (1440–1493) to the Habsburgs, the Upper German elements were considerably increased. The chancery of the Saxon electorate, whose territory was exclusively Middle German, had to some extent, under the influence of the imperial chancery, allowed Upper German characteristics to influence its official language. This is clearly marked in the second half of the 15th century, and about the year 1500 there was no essential difference between the languages of the two chanceries. Thuringia, Silesia and Brandenburg soon followed suit, and even Low German could not ultimately resist the accepted High German notation (ö, oͤ, ü, uͤ, ů, ie, &c.). We have here very favourable conditions for the creation of a uniform literary language, and, as has already been said, the tendency to follow these authorities is clearly marked.
In the midst of this development arose the imposing figure of Luther, who, although by no means the originator of a common High German speech, helped very materially to establish it. He deliberately chose (cf. the often quoted passage in his Tischreden, ch. 69) the language of the Saxon chancery as the vehicle of his Bible translation and subsequently of his own writings. The differences between Luther’s usage and that of the chancery, in phonology and inflection, are small; still he shows, in his writings subsequent to 1524, a somewhat more pronounced tendency towards Middle German. But it is noteworthy that he, like the chancery, retained the old vowel-change in the singular and plural of the preterite of the strong verbs (i.e. steig, stigen; starb, sturben), although before Luther’s time the uniformity of the modern preterite had already begun to show itself here and there. The adoption of the language
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Cf. K. Lachmann, Kleinere Schriften, i. p. 161 ff.; Müllenhoff and Scherer’s Denkmäler (3rd ed.), i. p. xxvii.; H. Paul, Gab es eine mhd. Schriftsprache? (Halle, 1873); O. Behaghel, Zur Frage nach einer mhd. Schriftsprache (Basel, 1886) (Cf. Paul and Braune’s Beiträge, xiii. p. 464 ff.); A. Socin, Schriftsprache und Dialekte (Heilbronn, 1888); H. Fischer, Zur Geschichte des Mittelhochdeutschen (Tübingen, 1889); O. Behaghel, Schriftsprache und Mundart (Giessen, 1896); K. Zwierzina, Beobachtungen zum Reimgebrauch Hartmanns und Wolframs (Halle, 1898); S. Singer, Die mhd. Schriftsprache (1900); C. Kraus, Heinrich von Veldeke und die mhd. Dichtersprache (Halle, 1899); G. Roethe, Die Reimvorreden des Sachsenspiegels (Berlin, 1899); H. Tümpel, Niederdeutsche Studien (1898).
