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A Vision of Hell, from a sermon on Michaelmas Day (Sept 29). Old English, Modern English translation directly below.
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A letter written in old english by Ælfric, Abbot of Eynsham, to an unidentified 'Brother Edward' complaining about certain Englishmen who cut their hair in the Danish fashion (long in front, short ...
COMPARISON OF PHONOLOGY BETWEEN OLD HIGH GERMAN AND OLD ENGLISH VERGLEICH VON PHONOLOGIE ZWISCHEN ALTHOCHDEUTSCH UND ALTENGLISCH
Course: History of the English language I Instructor: Guzmán Mancho January 2010 Jorge Solans Santana
Table of contents 1. Introduction...........................................................................................3 2. The Lord’s Prayer in its several versions............................................4 3. Environment of the Frank-dialect and the West-Saxon dialect........5 3.1 Frank-Rhin Dialect.....................................................................................5 3.2 West-Saxon Dialect.....................................................................................6
4. Isolated analysis of each line.................................................................8 4.1 Our Father, who art in heaven, ................................................................8 4.2 Hallowed be thy Name...............................................................................8 4.3 Thy kingdom come.....................................................................................9 4.4 Thy will be done.........................................................................................10 4.5 On earth as it is in heaven.........................................................................11 4.6 Give us this day our daily bread...............................................................12 4.7 And forgive us our trespasses....................................................................12 4.8 As we forgive those who trespass against us............................................13 4.9 And lead us not into temptation................................................................14 4.10 But deliver us from evil............................................................................14
5. Summary of all the phonological changes...........................................16 6. Conclusion..............................................................................................17 7. Sources....................................................................................................18
2
1. Introduction The comparison of languages has been the major issue for research in the last two centuries. Therefore, there is at our disposition a great amount of knowledge regarding the comparison of languages and the language typology. As our important matters here are the origins and evolution of English, and German is the closest language to English nowadays, it would be interesting to go back in order to reconstruct the process by which English and German followed their separate paths, yet they retained a great amount of roots which have lasted until now. The object of study I want to focus in is the phonology, since it is a field whose changes are very well documented with numerous sources.. The two phases that I want to compare are almost simultaneous in time. Besides, I have selected the Old High German due to its precedence to the current German accepted as the modern standard, called Hochdeutsch in German. In addition, the aforementioned correspondence in time will adjust very well to my will of focusing in the diversion that these two languages, which were even closer in the past, had sufffered. The text of study that I have selected is the Lord’s Prayer. This selection was easy. On the one hand, since in that time the religious texts were almost the only ones which were written and translated, it is very easy to find this prayer in several languages. In addition, its literary language and universal recognition will make things easier in order to grasp the message which is already quite clear. Thus, the aim of this essay is to survey specifically the phenomena that caused these two languages to evolve and change its etymological roots due to the phonological changes, so we can see now words such as hand or finger, which are the same both in German and English (only in their written demonstration) and hund (dog or hound) or welt (world), which bear an evident resemblance but they have evolved differently.
3
2. The Lord’s Prayer in its several versions Fater unser, thu in himilom bist, giuuihit si namo thin quaeme richi thin uuerdhe uuillo thin samam so in himile end in erthu Brooth unseraz emezzigaz gib uns hiutu end farlaz uns sculdhi unsero same so uuir farlazzem scolom unserem endi ni geleidi unsih in costunga auh arlosi unsih forn ubile Old High German, Rhin Frank dialect,, Catechism of Weissesburg, beginning of the 9th Century.
Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum, Sí ðín nama gehálgod. Tó becume ðín rice. Gewurde ðín willa On eorþan swá swá on heofonum. Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg. And forgyf ús úre gyltas, Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum. And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge, Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice. Old English, West-Saxon dialect, 11th Century
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen. Present-day English, Book of Common Prayer, 1928
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3. Environment of the Frank-dialect and the West-Saxon dialect
1
It is necessary to make a concrete tracking of both languages in their evolution from the Germanic branch. This diagram highlights the line throughout which English evolved from the Angeln node. The dialect we are surveying now is the West-Saxon, located in the Old-English period (Ag. which stands for Alt Englisch) As regards German, the current standard German is called Modern Hochdeutsch. Its precedence is located in the Althochdeutsch which is composed by its many dialects. Our dialect here is the Rheinfränkisch (Rhin Frank dialect) which, along with the others, compound the socalled High German in its old stage. 3.1 South Rhin Frank Dialect More specifically, the version of the Lord’s Prayer that we have here corresponds to the South Rhin Frank Dialect. Notice that in the following picture, number 4 corresponds to this delimitation (in the current frontier that separates France and Germany), since there one can found the city of Weissenburg.
In this city lived an important monk called Otfrid (800-870), who wrote about Christ’s life using this dialect in order to make closer the knowledge of religion to the low-level people, who were not acquainted with latin. Yet, it is not sure whether he translated the version of the prayer we are analyzing, since he was born in 800 and it is unlikely that he was old enough to have translated the text.3 Thus, all the dialects were intelligible each other and the important fact here is that not only the scribans and educated people could read religious book, but all the villagers and townsfolk as well. Hence the prominence status of the religious texts, which are quite easy to find. 3.2 West-Saxon Dialect It corresponds to the South West of England. Under the reign of Alfred the Great (871899) Wessex enjoyed an epoch of high culture and politics. Besides, research about Old-English manuscripts has shown that a great part of the documentation belonged to 2
Fernández Álvarez, Maria Pilar, Manual de antiguo alto alemán, Salamanca: Ediciones Univ. Salamanca, 1988, p.27 3 Id., 24
6
this dialect, which confirms the idea that this region was the leading one regardind culture fostering4. Since Alfred the King had a court where a lot of translators did work, this region had thus a better basis for the translation of the Lord’s Prayer which has arrived to our days, which is the one I have chosen. We have then, the two different versions of the Lord’s Prayer to compare. Their geographical separation (though some contact could have happened, since the distance was not so much) and the proximity of time can be two good factors to take at account, as they allow a view of two different and independent processes. Bear in mind that Old High German is considered as such from 500 to 1050. Old English lasted from 4501150. (These are approximate dates) To sum up with this part, it is important to bear in mind that explanations about some changes that began in Germanic and ended in Old High German are essential in order to compare the differences between O.H German and Old English. Much references will be done to the so-called High German consonant shift throughout the analysis of the words and lines.
4
Fisia, Jacek, An outline history of English, “Volume One: External History”, 1995
7
4. Isolated analysis of each line The procedure now will be the following: for each line, a subcategory will be created where the phonology and morphology will be taken into account in order to compare both lines. A chart will show the current equivalent in the respective languages for every word. This equivalence is a correspondance but not necessarily a translation. In addition, it is important as well to bear in mind that the common reference for the words will be present-day English. 4.1 “Our Father, who art in heaven”
Fater unser, thu in himilom bist, Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum, O.H. German Old English German English
fater
unser
thu
In
himilom
bist
fæder Vater father
úre unser our
ðú du thou
on in in
heofonum eart Himmel bist heaven art
The main laws of the High German consonant shift are the following: 1. The three Germanic voiceless stops became fricatives in certain phonetic environments (English ship maps to German Schiff);
2. The same sounds became affricates in other positions (apple : Apfel); and 3. The three voiced stops became voiceless (door : Tür). 5 4. /θ/ (and its allophone [ð]) became /d/ (this : dies). According to this, some evidence can be extracted from this line: Father OHG Fater OE Fæder ædue to the 3rd law Thou OHG thu OE ðú due to the 4th law Other characteristics that deserve attention: Heaven O.H. German Old English As the grapheme in O.E., when had an intervocalic position, was pronouced as it bears a bit resemblance with the current word in English.
5
Taken from dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache (p. 63).
8
4.2 “Hallowed be thy Name”
giuuihit si namo thin Sí ðín nama gehálgod O.H.
giuuihit
si
namo
thin
German Old English
gehálgod
sí sein be
nama Name name
ðín dein thy
German English
hallowed
The phenomenon about the transformation of the interdental voiceless fricative into the alveolar stop is seen as well in this case: Thy OHG thin OE ðín due to the 4th law 4.3 “Thy kingdom come”
quaeme richi thin Tó becume ðín rice O.H.
quaeme
richi
thin
German Old English
tó
rice
ðín
becume kommt come
Reich kingdom6
dein thy
German English
Let us explore more this Great consonant shift: The first phase, which affected the whole of the High German area, has been dated as early as the fourth century, [...]In this phase, voiceless stops became geminated intervocalic fricatives, or single postvocalic fricatives in final position. p→ff or final f t→zz (later German ss) or final z (s) k→hh (later German ch) 7
Thus, this phase affected OHG much before the appearence of this version which dates five centuries later. We can see this change in the following case: 6
Notice that, in this text, present day English uses the word Kingdom whereas German, having suffered a minor semantic change, uses Reich which means specifically empire, but not Kingdom as such. The proper word in German would be Königreich. Besides, etymologically speaking the proper word in English would be reign, which has ended in literary and formal use. 7 Waterman, John C. (1991). A History of the German Language (Revised edition 1976 ed.). Long Grove IL: Waveland Press Inc. p. 284.
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Kingdom OHG richi OE rice The interesting thing about this is the fact that, in OE, the grapheme represented the sound when it was in contact with front vowels. One example would be OE niht . Nevertheless, as OE evolved the grapheme to the point that had two different sounds (
with back vowelswith front vowels) the sound
correspondence of this word, rice with its OHG equivalent was lost, since OHG suffered this change, where the voiceless velar stop represented by transformed into the voiceless palatal fricative represented by the geminated . In our case, the appearence of instead of is explained by both diacronic and dialectal reasons. This stage of the word richi in OHG bears great resemblance with its current equivalent in German. 4.4 “Thy will be done”
uuerdhe uuillo thin Gewurde ðín willa O.H. German Old English German English
uuerdhe
uuillo
thin
gewurde geschehe be done
willa Wille will
ðín dein thy
Here, we can survey one aspect concerning the semi-consonant ,if we focus on the word Will OHG uuillo OE willa In this case, we see that OE grapheme was representing the aforementioned semiconsonant, whereas OHG preferred the geminated grapheme . This distinction would develop eventually into a dramatic difference between English and German regarding the pronunciation of the same . At this moment, different graphemes were used but just one single phoneme was uttered. Currently, it is the other way around, the same grapheme is represented by two different sounds: e.g. English wolf and German Wolf
And as regards the OHG german uuerdhe we can see the same effect of the process explained above, but if we see the grapheme we have then a trace of what was
10
once the phoneme This grapheme had its previous form as a thorn < þ>, the same as OE, but with the shift of this grapheme’s sound, the result was which later would lose the . This grapheme was used indistinctly along with
in early OHG. It eventually would disappear. 4.5 “On earth as it is in heaven”
samam so in himile end in erthu On eorþan swá swá on heofonum O.H. German Old English German English
samam swá swá wie as it is
so
in
himile
in
erthu
so auf
on im in
heofonum on Himmel heaven on
eorþan Erden earth
The same phenomenon that has been explained before about the 4th law is seen here: Earth OHG erthu OE eorþan Overall, the thorn<þ>, which existed in Germanic, had two different deviations. The first one, on the one hand, in early OHG, changed into either
or . In this case the allophonic content of the thorn was lost, therefore having one single sound . On the other hand, in OE this thorn was retained and its allophonic manifestation as well. Finally, as late OHG would have the grapheme , Modern English would have substituted both graphemes <þ> and <ð> by
Nevertheless, here is some perduration of the thorn using another form. Up until the XVIth Century, the thorn survived in a form that resembled a , retaining the same phonological attribute according to D. Freeborn in his From Old English to Standard English
11
English
bread
our
daily
give
us
this day
We have an interesting etymological issue here. For the same concept, “bread”, we have two different words: brooth and hlaf. Whilst OHG used brooth as a general nourishment, OE English used bread to refer specifically to a single crumb of this food. About the year 1200 the word bread was used instead of hlaf in ME. The clear difference that nowadays exists between English bread and German Brot can be explained as follows: According to Watkin’s theory, the Proto Germanic word braudsmon which means “to crumble” (hence the meaning of a crumb of bread) developed into OHG brosma and OE breotan. 9Taking at account that ME suffered several vowel developments, in this case, the digraph was pronounced as it would likely change into in order to mantain certain correspondence, having finally changed breot into bread. As regards OHG, both spelling and pronunciation haven’t changed much up to the current German. Compare: OHG brooth German Brot Definitively, OHG developed this word without many modifications whereas OE suffered both semantic and phonologic changes. 4.7 “And forgive us our trespasses”
end farlaz uns sculdhi unsero And forgyf ús úre gyltas O.H.
end
farlaz
uns
sculdhi
unsero
German Old
and
forgyf
ús
gyltas
úre
und and
vergib forgive
uns us
schuld trespasses
unsere our
English German English
Here, the word trespass does not show the actual development of its OE equivalent. Tresspass was borrowed by Frech trespasser so we will discard this word and focus on
9
Bread entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com
12
the word guilt which means nowadays “blame” or “the responsibility of a criminal”. Nevertheless, in OE the word gylt (singular of gyltas) meant also “offence” or “sin”. It is probable to think that, as the sound shifted into throughout the 12th Century10, it remained as such until present day English guilt In fact, this sound lost its roundness, which was the only change; it was not lowered nor velarised. 4.8 “As we forgive those who trespass against us”
same so uuir farlazzem scolom unserem Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum O.H.
same so
uuir
farlazzem
scolom
unserem
German Old
swá swá
wé
forgyfaþ
gyltendum
úrum
wie auch wir as we
vergeben forgive
Schuldigern unsern trespassing11 our
English German English
As we have seen before, the relative pronoun swá is used as its current equivalent “the same way” of present day English. It is important to compare a word with so importance and to determine why this form ended as it ended in German so, although German has not exactly the same usage of this word. This point of convergence can be explained following the vowel changes in the Middle English period. If was velarized and resulted into it is probably factible that this affected OE swá and thus became ME yet we cannot state the moment in which the digraph was lost. 4.9 “And lead us not into temptation”
endi ni geleidi unsih in costunga And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge O.H.
endi
ni
geleidi
unsih
in
costunga
German Old
and
ne
gelæd ðu
ús
on
costnunge
und and
nicht not
führe lead
uns us
in into
Versuchung temptation
English German English
10 11
D. Freeborn, From Old English to Standard English, p. 124 This is an invented form in order to retain the one-to-one correspondence.
13
It is surprising to see that, a concept that was shared by the same word both in OHG and OE, diversed with their respective evolutions. What we can say about temptation is that it was a loan-woard borrowed from Old French in the 13th Century which substituted OE costnunge.12 4.10 But deliver us from evil
auh arlosi unsih forn ubile Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice. O.H.
auh
arlosi
unsih
forn
ubile
German Old
ac
álýs
ús
of
yfele
sondern but
erlöse deliver
uns us
Von dem from
Bösen evil
English German English
And finally, we have here a word, universal one, that illustres two different phenomena at the same time. According to this change, in the previously mentioned High German consonant shift, we have: West Germanic *ƀ (presumably pronounced [v]), which was an allophone of /f/ used in medial position, shifted to Old High German /b/ between two vowels, and also after /l/.13
Let us compare the following forms Evil OHG ubile OE yfele Since the OE grapheme , when it was in an intervocalic position, represented the voiced labiodental, it changed into in the future. OHG, in this sense, retained the up to its current equivalent, which should be Übel instead of Bösen to understand this etymological inheritance.14 On the other hand, we can focus now in the vocalic change at the same word: It is reasonable to speculate that, as had three different deviations in the arrival of ME; in
12
Temptation entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary Waterman, John C, A History of the German Language, p.284 14 In this case, as we can see in German, Bösen means actually the whole evil: evil deeds, evil intent, and not the religious figure of the Evil. German Übel does reflect this meaning and the etymological result as well. 13
14
this case the proper deviation would be changing into 15 as the following forms of evil reflect in early Modern English. However, the Great Vowel Shift would probably change into the current having therefore English evil . Regarding German, it is curious to see that, contrary to English, it recovered the roundness of the vowel, which was not present yet in OHG. To summarize, the current situation would be as follows: OHG ubile German Übel OE yfele English evil
15
This change affected the South Dialects, but as London was in a strategic position sociolinguistically speaking, it would proably adopt this change to keep it for the future.
15
5. Summary of all the phonological changes Once the isolated, in-depth analysis has been done, it would be better to summarize all the main points that have been mentioned. Besides, I have added a few more examples that do not belong to the Lord’s Prayer, in order to support with a higher number of evidence the phonological changes. OHG-> Voiced stops become voiceless / turns into while in OE not father OHG fater OE fæder æ German Vater English thou OHG thu OE ðú German du English thy OHG thin OE ðín German dein English day OHG tag OE dæg æ German Tag English earth OHG erthu OE eorþan German Erde English OHG=> Voiceless stops became geminated intervocalic fricatives while OE retains the same stops reign OHG richi or rihhi OE rice German Reich English eat OHG essin OE etan German essen English eat
OHG and OE=> In both, graphemes and represents sound . OHG will develop into while OE not. will OHG uuillo OE willa German Wille English we OHG uuir OE wé German wir English
OHG=> changes into between two vowels, and also after . In OE the sound does not change and lasts up to Modern English. evil OHG ubile OE yfele German Übel English
16
have OHG haben OE hæfen æ German haben English æ
17
6. Conclusion The survey of the Lord’s Prayer in its several versions has brought light to many phonological changes that affected Old High German. While OHG was being analyzed, OE was also taken at account and the ultimate result is that OE didn’t suffer much changes from Germanic to its early phase. Nevertheless, OHG, having suffered almost all the consonant shifts, didn’t change much in this sense up to Modern German, whereas ME did change a lot to its Modern stage. We could see that German has retained many roots of its earlier OHG phase, and the same
happens
for
the
pronunciation.
English,
however,
suffered
dramatic
transformations in the Modern phase, which has not been studied here. Overall, we have seen that from 100 AD to 1000 AD, Germanic was divided first due to the strong dialectalization and later due to the High German consonant shift, that affected only the continental continuums, leaving Old English alone. Therefore, in the lapse of time we have surveyed, it was OHG which suffered real changes and not OE, whereas from the 16th Century, it was the other way around: Modern German didn’t seem to change so much as it did Modern English, in opposition to its earlier phase, Middle English. The overall conclusion is that a work of such characteristics is interesting to understand the etymological evolution and to understand definitively why German and English bear weak phonological resemblances in words that, in written form, are identical.
18
7. Sources Many different sources, both in electronic and written format, have been consulted. The first two books’ information was consulted in the High German consonant shift article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift König, Werner, dtv- Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co, 1978 Waterman, John C. (1991). A History of the German Language (Revised edition 1976 ed.). Long Grove IL: Waveland Press Inc. Written sources: Fernández Álvarez, Maria Pilar, Manual de antiguo alto alemán, Salamanca: Ediciones Univ. Salamanca, 1988, Fisia, Jacek, An outline history of English, “Volume One: External History”, 1995 Freeborn, Denis, From Old English to Standard English, Palgrave Macmillan, 3rd Edition, 2006 Köbler, Gerhard, Deutsches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1995 Electronic sources: The Online Etymoloy Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/ Old English Dictionary, http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm
