The Manuscript, Orthography, and Dialect of the Hildebrandslied

PMLA ◽  
1897 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-250 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick H. Wilkens
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
Unique Position

The Old Saxon (or Old High German) Hildebrandslied occupies a unique position among the remains of Germanic antiquity. It is the only specimen of the ancient German national epic preserved in the O.H.G. or the O.S. language. Interesting as this noble poem is, when considered by itself, it gains still more in interest when viewed as an older type of the epic poetry developed into perfection, at a later period, in works like the Nibelungenlied. Its orthography and dialect also offer most interesting problems. These considerations will explain why a renewed detailed examination of the manuscript, orthography, and dialect of the poem were deemed justifiable.

Temporal Deixis in Old Saxon and Old High German

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-181
Author(s):  
Valentina Concu
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Old Saxon ◽  
The Past ◽  
Specific Event ◽  
Chronological Sequence ◽  
Past Tenses

Abstract Jetzt ›now‹ and bald ›soon‹ are frequently used in German to express temporal references with present and future readings, respectively. However, it is not unusual to find them combined with the Perfekt and Präteritum, which are commonly described in the literature as past tenses. Although such use of temporal deixis in Modern German is well studied, there is still little research on this topic from a historical perspective. In this paper, I attempt to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the use of the adverb nu ›now‹, ›then‹ in Old Saxon and Old High German. Textual analyses of these works reveal that the ›Hêliand‹ and the ›Evangelienbuch‹ exhibit a use of the adverb nu similar to the use of jetzt and bald in Modern German, since it was found in combination not only with the Präsens, but also with the Präteritum, and with what can be recognized as the prototype of the modern Perfekt. The analyses also show that, although nu was often used as a pragmatic marker to highlight particular passages or convey the author’s attitude in relation to a specific event, it also retained its temporal meaning, especially when combined with the past tenses, establishing the chronological sequence of the narration.

Urgermanisch *þe-na-z ‘Gefolgsmann’

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-299
Author(s):  
Stefan Zimmer
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Old Norse ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Old Saxon

Proto-Germanic *þe-na-z (Old English, Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Norse) is traditionally understood as ‘child, follower, servant’, connected with Greek teknon ‘child’, both from *tek- ‘to beget’.This is unfounded; the meaning ‘child’ is unattested, the traditional etymology highly improbable. Proto-Germanic *þe-na-z is from *tek- ‘to stretch out one's hand, touch, receive’, designating basically ‘follower, retainer’, thus a technical term of Germanic Gefolgschaftswesen. Pertinent textual passages, the theory of Germanic heathen baptism, and the rites whereby a warrior is accepted into a lord's retinue are crucial for the analysis.

Zusammenschreibung im Althochdeutschen und Altniederdeutschen bis ca. 975: Ergebnisse einer paläographischen Untersuchung

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathanael Busch ◽  
Jürg Fleischer
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Old High German ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Old Saxon

AbstractWord separation, an innovation of the early Middle Ages, was not yet as prominent in Old High German and Old Saxon records as it is in modern printing. A paleographic investigation, based on individual pages of ten different manuscripts mostly dating from the 9th century and originating from different scriptoria and dialect regions, unveils that clitics were often written together with their hosts. Individual differences between scribes are more important than date of a manuscript, dialectal provenance, or the language written: the usage of scribes by whom Latin as well as Old High German passages are attested does hardly display differences depending on the language.

Quanterness, radiocarbon and the Orkney cairns

Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (199-200) ◽  
pp. 194-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Renfrew ◽  
Douglas Harkness ◽  
Roy Switsur
Keyword(s):  
Building Material ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Architectural Problem ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Insight Into

The chambered cairns of Orkney are among the most sophisticated architectural products of prehistoric Europe. Maes Howe, since the chamber was re-entered a century ago (Petrie, 1861) has excited the admiration of all who have visited it. In Stuart Piggott’s words (1954, 244): ‘The assured competence and mastery over the building material shown at Maes Howe mark it out as a monument comparable in prehistoric Britain only to Stonehenge in its individual handling of an architectural problem. In both a contemporary existing conception—that of a chambered tomb or that of a stone circle—has been used to produce a superlative monument that by its originality of execution is lifted out of its class into a unique position.’Quanterness has proved to be one of the best preserved of the Orcadian monuments, with four of the six side chambers still standing, very much as they were built some five thousand years ago. Much of the importance of the excavation comes from the detailed examination of the deposits within the chamber which have offered an unusual insight into neolithic burial practice, and these are fully discussed in the forthcoming final publication (Renfrew et al., in press).

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.

Quanterness, radiocarbon and the Orkney cairns

Antiquity ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 50 (200) ◽  
pp. 194-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Renfrew ◽  
Douglas Harkness ◽  
Roy Switsur
Keyword(s):  
Building Material ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Architectural Problem ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Insight Into

The chambered cairns of Orkney are among the most sophisticated architectural products of prehistoric Europe. Maes Howe, since the chamber was re-entered a century ago (Petrie, 1861) has excited the admiration of all who have visited it. In Stuart Piggott’s words (1954, 244): ‘The assured competence and mastery over the building material shown at Maes Howe mark it out as a monument comparable in prehistoric Britain only to Stonehenge in its individual handling of an architectural problem. In both a contemporary existing conception—that of a chambered tomb or that of a stone circle—has been used to produce a superlative monument that by its originality of execution is lifted out of its class into a unique position.— Quanterness has proved to be one of the best preserved of the Orcadian monuments, with four of the six side chambers still standing, very much as they were built some five thousand years ago. Much of the importance of the excavation comes from the detailed examination of the deposits within the chamber which have offered an unusual insight into neolithic burial practice, and these are fully discussed in the forthcoming final publication (Renfrew et al., in press).

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