Germanic

2019 ◽  
pp. 237-250
Author(s):  
Brian Murdoch
Keyword(s):  
German Text ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
European Languages

There are only limited and indirect reflections of Jewish apocrypha and pseudepigrapha in Old and Middle High German, Anglo-Saxon, and Middle English. The story of Judith was well-known, as were extrabiblical tales associated with Joseph, but the best attested pseudepigraphic material is that linked with (Christian versions of) the legends of Adam and Eve after the Fall, of which there are very many examples in Middle English and Middle High German, as well as in other European languages. Elements of the Enoch-apocrypha are reflected in one Old High German text, and the figures of Jannes and Jambre appear in one text in Anglo-Saxon.

scholarly journals Diachronic complexification and isolation

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Raffaela Baechler
Keyword(s):  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Dense Network ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Isolated Communities ◽  
Nominal Inflection ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Morphological System ◽  
Over Time

Abstract One may hear that over time languages tend to simplify their grammar and notably their morphological system. This intuition, probably based on linguists’ knowledge of the rich inflectional systems of older Indo-European languages, has been challenged, particularly by sociolinguistic typologists (e.g. Trudgill 2011; Braunmuller 1984, 2003; Nichols 1992). They hypothesise that languages spoken by small and isolated communities with a dense network may complexify their grammar (Trudgill 2011: 146-147). The present article investigates the nominal inflection systems of 14 varieties of German in order to survey whether there is any such diachronic tendency towards simplification and whether instances of complexification can be observed, too. The varieties under analysis include present-day Standard German, Old High German and Middle High German (two older stages of German) and eleven present-day non-standard varieties which make part of the Alemannic dialect group. First, it will be shown that there is a diachronic tendency towards simplification if we consider the total complexity of nominal inflection. Second, however, we can identify instances of diachronic complexification too if we take a closer look at single categories. Interestingly, diachronic complexification appears only in the non-standard varieties, not so in the standard variety. This may support the hypothesis that isolated varieties are more complex than non-isolated ones.

Der ‘Münchener Psalter’ aus dem 14. Jahrhundert

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-85
Author(s):  
John M. Jeep
Keyword(s):  
German Text ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
German Word

Abstract A fourteenth-century version of Notker’s translation of the psalms with commentary yields 58 alliterating Middle High German word-pairs. These are compared with Notker’s original Old High German text, whereby phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactic changes are noted. In studying the transmission of the Biblical text, both continuity and change become evident.

Old Frisian

Diachronica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-115
Author(s):  
Laura Catharine Smith
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Middle High German ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Low German ◽  
Middle Low German ◽  
Germanic Languages

For a century, Old Frisian has largely remained in the shadows of its Germanic sister languages. While dictionaries, concordances, and grammars have been readily and widely available for learning and researching other Germanic languages such as Middle High German, Middle Low German and Middle English, whose timelines roughly correspond to that of Old Frisian, or their earlier counterparts, e.g., Old High German, Old Saxon and Old English, few materials have been available to scholars of Old Frisian. Moreover, as Siebunga (Boutkan & Siebunga 2005: vii) notes, “not even all Old Frisian manuscripts are available as text editions”1 making the production of comprehensive core research materials more difficult. Consequently, what materials there have been, e.g., von Richthofen (1840), Heuser (1903), Holthausen (1925), and Sjölin (1969), have typically not taken into consideration the full range of extant Old Frisian texts, or have focused on specific major dialects, e.g. Boutkan (1996), Buma (1954, 1961). This has left a gap in the materials available providing an opportunity for Old Frisian scholars to make substantial contributions to the field by filling these gaps.

From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies Presented to E. G. Stanley

1997 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
T. A. Shippey ◽  
Malcolm Godden ◽  
Douglas Gray ◽  
Terry Hoad
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
English Studies ◽  
Anglo Saxon

The Old English Name of the S-Rune and “Sun” in Germanic

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas P. A. Simms
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Loan Word

The name of the Old Englishs-rune,sigil, as found in various medieval manuscripts, is puzzling, as it is the only Anglo-Saxon rune name that is etymologically a loan word. This article examines the variant spelling <sygil> found only in MSCodex Vindobonensis795, arguing that the spelling with <y> is a scribal interpolation. In addressing how an Old High German-speaking scribe might have come to make such an interpolation it is argued that the wordsugilfound in Continentalrunica abecedariaought to be considered an Old High German lexeme relevant to this discussion. A novel etymology for words for ‘sun’ in Germanic is presented, particularly for forms derived from thel-stem variants of the Proto-Indo-European heteroclite.

Conditions for the voicing of Old English fricatives, II: morphology and syllable structure

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Fulk
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Syllable Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Phonological Process ◽  
Personal Names

Old English fricatives at points of morpheme juncture are studied to determine whether they conform to the rule of voicing between voiced sounds that applies morpheme-internally. Should we expect a voiced or a voiceless fricative in words like OE heorð-weorod, Wulfweard, and stīðlīce? The evidence examined regards chiefly compounds and quasi-compounds (the latter comprising both forms bearing clear derivational affixes and ‘obscured’ compounds, those in which the deuterotheme has lost its lexical independence), though a small amount of evidence in regard to voicing before inflectional suffixes is considered. Evidence is derived from place-names, personal names, and common nouns, on the basis of Modern English standard pronunciation, assimilatory changes in Old English, modern dialect forms, post-Conquest and nonstandard Old English spellings, and analogous conditioning for the loss of OE /x/. A considerable preponderance of the evidence indicates that in compounds as well as in quasi-compounds, fricatives were voiced at the end of the prototheme when a voiced sound followed, but not a voiceless one. It follows from the evidence that there was no general devoicing of fricatives in syllable-final position in Old English, despite Anglo-Saxon scribes' use of <h> for etymological [Γ] in occasional spellings like <fuhlas> and <ahnian>. Old English spellings of this kind need be taken to imply nothing more than a tendency for <h> and <g> to be used interchangeably in noninitial positions, due to the noncontrastive distribution of the sounds they represent everywhere except morpheme-initially. Rare early Middle English spellings of this kind may or may not have a phonological basis, but they cannot plausibly be taken to evidence a phonological process affecting /v, ð, z/.

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