Course Description

Every student of German as a foreign language runs into questions which the language teacher can only answer by saying 'Because that's how it is'. Why is the plural of Tag Tage, while the plural of Nacht is Nächte and the plural of Wort is Wörter? Why is the past tense of singen sang, when the past tense of bringen is brachte? If we compare German with English, how can we account for the correspondence we find in Pfeffer-pepper, Pfeife-pipe, Pfad-path, but not in Pilger-pilgrim or Partei-party? Why do some words which have the same form not have the same meaning, like wer and where or klein and clean? Why does German have gender, when English does not? The only way to find an intellectually satisfying answer to questions like these is to look at the development of the German language in the past and this paper examines that history from the earliest attestation of written German 1200 years ago up to the present.

This paper may be taken as a follow-up to Ge7, Introduction to the History of the German Language, or as a stand-alone paper. It will complement the borrowed Germanic Philology or Historical Linguistics paper, but it also gives an overview of German language and culture through 1200 years which would make it a good foil for any of the literary or historical papers in Part II German.

The teaching for this paper will be delivered via four modules, each lasting four weeks, running through the Michaelmas and Lent terms. The actual modules offered will vary from year to year, but in each year coverage of at least two of the three canonical periods of the history of the language (Old, Middle, and Early New High German) will be offered. In addition to four lectures, they will contain two additional seminar hours, in which students will translate and comment on set texts. The paper will be delivered by twenty-two contact hours in total.

It is expected that students will receive two supervisions per module, plus two revision supervisions in the Easter term, making a total of ten supervisions.

In 2013-14 the modules offered will be:
In Michaelmas Term: Advanced Old High German; Improvement and Improvers: the Sprachgesellschaften of the 17th Century
In Lent Term: Advanced Middle High German; German in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

1. Advanced Old High German & Old Saxon

This module will focus on the earliest stage of German, considering the regional and temporal diversity of the period from 800- 1000. We will focus on extracts from three key texts, all versions of the Gospel story: the Old High German translation of Tatian's Gospel harmony, Otfrid von Weissenburg's Evangelienbuch and the Old Saxon Hêliand. These texts deal with the same material in prose, rhyming and alliteratve poetry respectively, in different dialects which offer insights into the phonology, morphology and syntax of early medieval German, its adoption of a Christian vocabulary and the mixture of this with earlier Germanic elements.

Set texts

We will work through the following three short sections of the major OHG/OS biblical texts, each of which covers the same section of the narrative (Christs's arrest). Copies of the texts are available from the German Department office. Students should read AT LEAST the Tatian text before the start of term.

• Chapters 183–188 from Tatian. Lateinisch und altdeutsch mit ausführlichem Glossar, ed. Eduard Sievers (18922/1966) Paderborn: Schöningh.
• Book IV, 16–18 from Otfrids Evangelienbuch (= Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 49), ed. Oskar Erdmann / Ludwig Wolff (19736) Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Fitts 58–9 from Heliand und Genesish (= Altdeutsche Textbibliothek 4), ed. Otto Behaghel Erdmann / Burkhard Taeger (19849) Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Introductory reading

• Bostock, J. Knight. 1976. A Handbook on Old High German Literature. Oxford: OUP.
• Braune, Wilhelm.1994. (17th ed.). Althochdeutsches Lesebuch. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Braune, Wilhelm and Ingo Reiffenstein. 2004 (17th ed.). Althochdeutsche Grammatik 01. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Fischer, Hanns. 1966. Schrifttafeln zum althochdeutschen Lesebuch. Tübingen : Niemeyer. (S760.a.96.3 - order to West Room)
• Gerdes, Udo and Gerhard Spellerberg. 1972. Althochdeutsch - Mittelhochdeutsch. Grammatischer Grundkurs zur Einführung und Textlektüre. Frankfurt: Fischer.
• Meineke, Eckhard and Judith Schwerdt. 2001. Einführung in das Althochdeutsche. Paderborn: Schöningh.
• Schrodt, Richard. 2004. Althochdeutsche Grammatik II. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Sonderegger, Stefan. 1987. Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur. Berlin: de Gruyter.

2. Improvement and Improvers: from the Sprachgesellschaften to Gottsched

The seventeenth century saw a decisive development towards linguistic modernity: German began to be the primary language of the written word, replacing Latin. Men of letters were quickly aware that German lacked the vocabulary and the rhetorical structures to be the equal of Latin, or indeed of other European vernaculars: yet at the same time they formulated theories about the antiquity and purity of German, and argued that the language was worthy of being developed and improved in order to be fit for new purposes. They therefore formed societies, gentlemen’s clubs with the language as their focus, to promote writing on and in German, and to clamp down on the use of foreign, particularly French, words.  All the most prominent seventeenth-century writers were members – Gryphius, Opitz, Zesen, Moscherosch and many more. The patriotism of the societies has been mocked, but it needs to be understood in the context of the difficult period of the Thirty Years’ War and its aftermath.  Besides, this period witnessed genuine achievements in producing teaching materials, grammars and dictionaries of German, and developing an understanding of the history, variety and structure of the language. These formed a basis on which the more rational grammarians and lexicographers on the Enlightenment, above all Gottsched, could build.

This module will examine the role of the language societies in developing German towards a written standard, looking at works by Opitz, Schottelius (a grammarian) and Stieler (a lexicographer) amongst others, concluding by looking at the contributions of Leibniz and Gottsched in the first half of the 18th century.

Introductory reading

• Haß-Zumkehr, Ulrike (2001) Deutsche Wörterbücher. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
• Jones, William Jervis (1995) Sprachhelden und Sprachverderber. Dokumente zur Erforschung des Fremwortpurismus im Deutschen (1478-1750) . Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
• Milroy, James and Lesley Milroy (1992 2nd ed.) Authority in language : investigating language prescription and standardisation. London: Routledge.
• Padley, G.A. (1988) Grammatical theory in Western Europe 1500-1700. Trends in vernacular grammar II. Cambridge: CUP.
• Polenz, Peter von (1994) Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Bd. II 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.

3. Advanced Middle High German

This module aims to take the student behind and beyond the normalized MHG of textbooks. It will examine, in close detail, a representative sample of functional and regional varieties of MHG, as well as describe diachronic change and variation in the language system over the period 1050-1350. On this basis, it will be possible to address the much-debated question whether there was a supraregional form of MHG and, if so, whether it could pave the way for the future emergence of standard German. Specific reference will be made to extracts from four texts, which will be available from the department: Williram von Ebersberg: Commentary on the Song of Songs; Eike von Repgow: Sachsenspiegel; Mechthild von Magdeburg: Das fließende Licht der Gottheit; a Würzburg chancery deed from 1298.

Introductory reading

• Paul, H., I. Schröbler, P. Wiehl, S. Grosse: Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 24th edition, Tübingen 1998.
• Singer, J.: Grundzüge einer rezeptiven Grammatik des Mittelhochdeutschen, Paderborn 1996.
• Besch, W., O. Reichmann, S. Sonderegger, eds.: Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, Berlin 1984-85 (vol. II, pp. 1294-1408).
• Moser, H., H. Wellman, N.R Wolf: Geschichte der deutschen Sprache. I: Althochdeutsch - Mittelhochdeutsch, Munich 1981.
• Keller, R.E: The German language, London 1978 (Ch. 5).
• Wells, C.J.: German: a linguistic history to 1945, Oxford 1985 (Chs. 3 & 4).

4. German in the long 19th Century

The 19th century has long been neglected in German linguistic historiography as a consequence of the widely-held view that standardization had already been accomplished by the end of the 18th century, and that after the grammar of Gottsched and dictionary of Adelung, there was little left to be done. Recently, though, the concept of Sprachgeschichte von unten introduced by Stefan Elspaß has cast a new light on the linguistic and national debates of the 19th century, when industrialization, urbanization and the spread of literacy to all sectors of society created clashes over the role of the German language in the creation of a unified national identity. This module will look primarily at discourse about German, at lexicography from Adelung through Campe, Grimm and Duden, at the earliest discussions on spelling reform, and at purism towards French and, increasingly, English.

Introductory reading

• Davies, Winifred (2009) 'Standard German in the Nineteenth Century', in: Landmarks in the History of the German Language, ed. G. Horan, N. Langer and S.Watts. Bern, etc.: Peter Lang.
• Elspaß S. (2005), Sprachgeschichte von unten. Untersuchung zum geschriebenen Alltagsdeutsch im 19 Jahrhundert, Tübingen: Niemeyer.
• Haß-Zumkehr, Ulrike (2001) Deutsche Wörterbücher. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter.
• Mattheier, K. J. (2000), 'Die Durchsetzung der deutschen Hochsprache im 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert: sprachgeographisch, sprachsoziologisch', in: Sprachgeschichte. Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung,, edited by W. Besch, A. Betten, O. Reichmann and S. Sonderegger, vol. 2.2, 2nd, completely revised ed., Berlin and New York: de Gruyter. 1951-66.
• Mattheier, K. J. (2003), 'German', in: Germanic Standardizations. Past to present, edited by A. Deumert, and W. Vandenbussche, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 211-44.
• Polenz, P. von (1999) Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Bd III: 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.
• Wells, C.J. (2009) 'Language in Limbo: Post-1945 German', in: Landmarks in the History of the German Language, ed. G. Horan, N. Langer and S.Watts. Bern, etc.: Peter Lang.

Course adviser