Pre-Old High German language
The pre-Old High German language is the language level of German that was used between the 5th and 8th centuries. Their forerunner language is still generally referred to as primordial or common Germanic or West Germanic . Around 750 this form of language was replaced by Old High German .
Lore
Only a few dozen runic inscriptions have passed down the Pre-Old High German directly, so further knowledge is based mainly on inferences from Old High German and, to a lesser extent, on loanwords from the earliest Franconian , a variant of Pre- Old High German , into Gallo-Roman or early Old French . The Franconian language of the Merovingian period is also not passed down directly, but only evidenced by borrowings and place names.
Presumed dialectal structure
In view of the clear dialectal structure of Old High German, it is generally assumed that the language that immediately preceded it was also not homogeneous. This assumption is underpinned by the political situation of the 6./7. Century with clearly delimited and rival tribal duchies in the later Old High German language area. The few West Germanic or pre-High German runic inscriptions that have survived from the 3rd to 7th centuries do not allow any more detailed statements about the type and extent of these assumed dialect differences .
Definition of terms
The Pre-Old High German belongs together with the North Sea Germanic to the variants of the West Germanic . Up until the second sound shift in the 7th century, Pre-Old High German itself was still a form of the West Germanic language, as was North Sea Germanic at that time. From the comparison of the subsequent conversations it can be said that of these two West Germanic variants, the Pre-Old High German was significantly more conservative in terms of phonology and morphology up to the second sound shift, because it had not implemented a number of North Sea Germanic innovations .
Pre- Old High German , especially in etymological lexicons, is combined with the simultaneous Old Saxon under the term “pre-German”. Old Saxon itself is part of North Sea Germanic. Other variants of North Sea Germanic, in particular Anglo-Frisian , on the other hand, are not pre-forms of the German language. The term " South Germanic " is also occasionally found in the literature , particularly to designate runic inscriptions from southern Germany. This term is largely synonymous with the term "pre-old high German". The somewhat more common term “ continental Germanic ”, on the other hand, denotes runic inscriptions also from the Benelux countries , France and East Central Europe (only not from Scandinavia and Great Britain) and is therefore broader than the term “South Germanic” or “pre-old high German”.
Research into Pre-Old High German
Scientific contributions to the Old High German are mostly made as a by-product in etymological lexicons , in publications on diachronic developments from Germanic to Old High German, and in runological articles. The first monographic representation of Pre-Old High German was published in autumn 2013 by the Munich linguist Wolfram Euler , a further overall representation of West Germanic, the southern branch of which is Pre-Old High German, was presented by the American linguist Don A. Rings in autumn 2014, with the focus on the North Sea Germanic, the northern variant of West Germanic ( The Development of Old English. A Linguistic History of English, vol. II).
See also
- History of the German language
- Elevation (linguistics)
- Runic buckle from Pforzen
- Lance blade from Wurmlingen
- Frienstedt ridge
literature
- Euler, Wolfram (2013): The West Germanic - from its formation in the 3rd to its breakdown in the 7th century - analysis and reconstruction . 244 pp., London / Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-9812110-7-8 .
- Nedoma, Robert (2001). Methods and problems of research into early High German personal names in runic inscriptions ; in: Wentilseo, I Germani sulle sponde del Mare Nostrum , pp. 211-224
- Schrijver, Peter (2011, Universiteit Utrecht). The High German Consonant Shift and Language Contact ; in: Language Contact in Times of Globalization (SSGL 38), Amsterdam / New York (Rodopi), pp. 217–249. (With many references to pre-old high German.)
- Venema, Johannes (1995). Diatopic, diachronic and diastratic examinations on the status of the second sound shift in the Rhineland using the example of the dental Tenuis (early high German / T /) ; Diss. Univ. Mainz, ISBN 3-515-07069-9 .