Talk:Old High German

message: I wonder whether it would be worth separating this into OHG language and OHG literature. Pfold 11:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I miss a listing of the Alphabet used in Old High German. According to my sources Old High German had its own alphabet including the th sound (Theta) as we have in English. This sound vanished in the course of consonant shifts during the time of Old High German. Can anyone confirm or deny this statement?
Cakeandicecream 20:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OHG used the Latin alphabet. The spellings associated with the individual phonemes are given in the phonology section (though I see I forgot to include < th >, which I've now added. Th changed to d in the 9th century, well after the second sound shift. --Pfold 14:32, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabet 

message: Looking at recent edits of the Pater noster examples, I was wondering if anyone would disagree if I replaced the texts in the article (which are from the 15th edition of the Althochdeutsche Lesebuch) with the following (from the 17th edition)? The main difference is the inclusion of length marks in the Weissenburg and Tatian texts. Although they may be editorial, we're acknowledging that the texts are taken from the Lesebuch, so we shouldn't alter them. Are they really absent in the 15th edition, or is it due to technological difficulties? Also, in line 1 of the St Galler Pater noster, "bist" has been changed to "pist" in my edition, which is what would be expected for this dialect. I'm not sure whether this was actually written "bist" in the earlier edition of the Lesebuch, or whether a Wikipedian thought it looked wrong and changed it at some stage.
If the article does match with the texts as presented in the 15th edition, then I don't mind if the article stays the way it is. I just thought it may be easier to start afresh with the 17th edition, to iron out any undetected well-meant "corrections" that people may have made.
Alemannic, 8th Century 	South Rhine Franconian, 9th Century	East Franconian, c. 830
The St Gall Paternoster	Weissenburg Catechism              	OHG Tatian
Fater unseer, thu pist in himile,
uuihi namun dinan,
qhueme rihhi diin,
uuerde uuillo diin,
so in himile sosa in erdu.
prooth unseer emezzihic kip uns hiutu,
oblaz uns sculdi unsero,
so uuir oblazem uns skuldikem,
enti ni unsih firleiti in khorunka,
uzzer losi unsih fona ubile.	
Fater unsēr, thu in himilom bist,
giuuīhit sī namo thīn.
quaeme rīchi thīn.
uuerdhe uuilleo thīn,
sama sō in himile endi in erthu.
Brooth unseraz emezzīgaz gib uns hiutu.
endi farlāz uns sculdhi unsero,
sama sō uuir farlāzzēm scolōm unserēm.
endi ni gileidi unsih in costunga.
auh arlōsi unsih fona ubile.	
Fater unser, thū thār bist in himile,
sī geheilagōt thīn namo,
queme thīn rīhhi,
sī thīn uuillo,
sō her in himile ist, sō sī her in erdu,
unsar brōt tagalīhhaz gib uns hiutu,
inti furlāz uns unsara sculdi
sō uuir furlāzemēs unsarēn sculdīgōn,
inti ni gileitēst unsih in costunga,
ūzouh arlōsi unsih fon ubile.
Source: Braune/Ebbinghaus, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 17th edn (Niemeyer, 1994)
--Malfidus ~ (talk) 23:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, go with the later edition. --Pfold 11:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pater noster samples 

message: I think that a few words should be written about endings of various kinds, and of distinctions of cases. There seems to be some misunderstandings here and there in the project, with claims that "German has preserved the proto-germanic grammar" or similarly. This is not 100% true (although German certainly has preserved much of the grammar). I therefore think that mentioning the instrumental case, and the fact that there were more different endings in OHG than in modern High German is interesting enough to merit a section. I do not think we should try to reproduce all paradigms; but some representative sample. (However, I just know them from rather old books; and these books do not very carefully distinguish different epochs or dialects within the OHG.)
I had in mind an example like this:
 	Sing.	Pl.
N     	tag  	taga
G     	tages	tago
D     	tage 	tagum
A     	tag  	taga
I     	tagu 	(not distinguishable)
and a few words on how e.g. 1:st and 3:rd p. pl. of the verbs then were quite distinct (in pres. ind. normally ending in -mes and -nt, and in pret. -m and -n, respectively); where in the modern language a final -m is replaced by an -n, making the forms indistinguishable. Is this sensible? JoergenB 17:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morphology 

message: Dear fellow wikipedians,
there are a lot of misconceptions concerning the term "Old High German", which was coined in the 19th century and was nearly undisputed ever since. Only in recent scientific papers some scholars are questioning this term and are demanding a reassassment. Professor Otto Kronsteiner from the university of Salzburg for example goes as far as to say:
:"Am Begriff althochdeutsch ist real nur alt- korrekt. Es gab in der fraglichen Zeit weder ein Deutsch noch ein Hochdeutsch, natürlich auch kein Mittelhochdeutsch. Es waren vereinzelte Ansätze, in verschiedenen Regionen (um den Bodensee, um Salzburg) aus einem Dialekt eine Schriftsprache zu machen, die aber wieder ausgestorben sind, und nicht fortgesetzt wurden, während die zugrundeliegenden Dialekte (wie Alemannisch oder Bairisch) bis heute weiterleben" http://www.inst.at/trans/3Nr/kronst.htm
:Translation: "As a matter of fact the only correct part of the term Old High German is old. In the era we are talking about, there was no High German and also no Middle High German. There have been singular attempts in different regions (around Lake Constance, around Salzburg) to form written languages based on one of those dialects, but they were all extinct and discontinued, while the underlaying dialects (like Alemannic or Bavarian) still exist today"
* High = consonant shift
When we talk about the consonant shift, we may distinguish the texts from those old manuscripts before the year 1000 into two groups: those with the consonant shift and those without. To be precise, the first one (including Old Alemannic, Old Bavarian, Old High Frankonian and the little known Old Lombardian) could be called Old High Continental Germanic and the second one Old Low Continental Germanic (inluding Old Saxon, Old Frisian and Old Low Frankonian). Frankish doesn't form an homogeneous language that can be classified as either this or that, but is split. From a purely linguistic point of view, even Old English could be classified as part of the "Low" (unshifted) group.
* German = theodisk?
In the respective era we are talking about (before the year 1000 AD), the term "theodisk" from which the modern German word "Deutsch" derives, didn't have a specific meaning. It was an exonym, given by romance speaking people to the germanic languages they weren't able to understand und could mean any (west) germanic language. Otfrid of Weissenburg for example uses this term around the year 865 in his Gospel book, but translates it with "frenkisg", because that was his vulgar language. From about the year 1000 on the term starts to beeing used by the so titled people themselves. For the time before 1000 it is simply unhistoric and a pure invention by the Grimm brothers.
* Dutch and German
As a matter of fact, the today's two most important continantal germanic standard languages (Ausbau-languages) Dutch (Nederlands) and German (Standard Deutsch) derive both from the Old Frankonian dialects. Dutch originates from the unshifted Old Low Frankonian, while German derivest from the "high" variants of Old Frankonian. German scholars often tried to place Dutch among the German dialects, refering to this common Frankish origin, while Dutch scholars fiercely oppose that. Both scientific points of views are incorrect, because the term German is simply not equivalent to Frankish. Dutch is not a German dialect that evolved to an Ausbau-language, because there was no German at the time of the common origin. We even do not know whether there was a common origin, because the Frankish tribe was a big heterogeneous group that incorporated several distinct smaller germanic groups, giving them a common name. Interesting to know is also, that the Letzeburgish language, which is now co-official in Luxemburg and also Yiddish derive both from Old Frankonian.
* Old High German literally
When the term "high" refers to shifted consonants, the only intirely "high" old germanic variants (hence Frankonian is only regionally shifted) are Old Alemannic and Old Bavarian. But their modern linguistic descendents (the Swiss, the Bavarians, the Austrians, etc.) don't like to be called "German" either.
* Alternatives?
The historically and linguistically correct term would be "Old Germanic", or "Old Continental Germanic" (the second one excluding Old English and the Scandinavian variants). The North Germanic and West Germanic distinction also works, but is a little bit confusing, cause the western group in fact is in the south. Also these terms (North and West) are not used consequently, neither by scholars nor here in wikipedia. Old English could be in both groups, hence England experienced two waves of germanic settlement (the one from the western group, the other from the northern group). A furhter weakness of this West-North classification is the fact, that there are still some East Germanic pecularities found in modern Bavarian and a lot of Old Bavarian words are still untranslateable or hapax legomenon.
The conclusion is that the term "Old High German" represents a widly cited theory, but not necessarily the most correct one. Future research, especially from Indo-European scholars, will supposely bring more light into that and more scientific precission. Thx ... --El bes 15:30, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Frankish = Old High German/Dutch? 

message: it is a bit silly to discuss a historical language in IPA notation.
Case in point, e vs. ë: it is known that there was a phonematic difference between the two, but it is impossible to give their precise IPA value with any certainty.
Also, /t͡s/ is written as <z> while /z/ is written as <ȥ>. This is just confusing. We should use the usual transcription of OHG and only give a brief indication of probable IPA values when the phonemes are introduced. --dab (𒁳) 14:35, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: But <ȥ> is not found in OHG MSS or in most edited texts - it's purely a feature of some grammars (the Lesebuch uses it in the glossary but not the texts, for example). The dual use of <z> is a fundamental fact of OHG orthography and should be reflected in the table. Which is not to say we shouldn't have a note on the use of <ȥ> in grammars. --Pfold (talk) 15:24, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Likewise <ë>, though the MSS have the occasional hooked e for it. This needs tidying up: saying that the there are 6 short vowels and citing only 5 makes no sense at all. Certainly for the earlier period, the Umlaut-e is an allophone of /a/ anyway and shouldn't be in a phonemic transcription. I'm not sure there's any point in giving spellings for the vowels --Pfold (talk) 16:11, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: ë

message: I've added a section on sound changes, mostly the vowel developments that were not explained in any of the articles.
It would be great if someone could find a good reference for them, I've used J. Wright's OHG primer, but it is literally 107 years old and I feel it is not appropriate.
I will add the demonstrating examples later  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.148.209.217 (talk) 19:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Sound Changes

message: I am confused: In the german Wikipedia it says, that the pronounciation of "ng" was [ng] and not [ŋ]. This differes from what is said in this article. but in the german Wikipedia - in contrast to this case - one finds an explicit citation; hence my question: Whom of both is right? I'd apreciate any answers. Thank You. --212.204.95.246 (talk) 11:33, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronounciation of ng 

message: it seems safe to assume that the actual pronunciation of Germanic s was somewhere between [s] and [ʃ] This could account for S = [ʃ] and SZ = [s] in Hungarian, on the grounds of German influence.Manfariel (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  s ~ sh 

message: There's a problem with the Region in the infobox.
#it has a mixture of modern and medieval states/areas (you can't have Gaul and Switzerland together!)
#much of the eastern part of modern Germany was not OHG speaking.
#the amount of OHG spoken in Bohemia is negligible if not questionable.
#no mention of the Lombards.
I think it would be both less muddles and more accurate to say something like: "Eastern Carolingian Empire and Kingdom of Lombardy. An alternative would be to list the individual areas, e.g. Eastern Austrasia, Swabia, Thuringia, etc. But I don't see the need for a lot of detail here - the article is the place for that. --Pfold (talk) 13:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Region? 

message: I've checked the map of the OHG-speaking area against the original source and there's a been an error in the recreation - the whole of the Rhine south of Strassburg should be shaded as OHG-speaking up to the western boundary of the the Duchy of Swabia. I can't find an SVG of this map anywhere, so it's not something I can easily fix. --Pfold (talk) 09:04, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in Map 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: To what extent are Old High German and Middle High German intelligible with modern German? 
Information like this might be noteworthy for the article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.170.42.94 (talk) 09:50, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intelligibility With Later Stages of German