AND OLD ENGLISH VERGLEICH VON PHONOLOGIE ZWISCHEN ALTHOCHDEUTSCH UND ALTENGLISCH Course: History of the English language I Instructor: Guzmn Mancho January 2010 Jorge Solans Santana Table of contents 1. Introduction...........................................................................................3 2. The Lords 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 Lords 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 Lords 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. Fder re, e eart on heofonum, S n nama gehlgod. T becume n rice. Gewurde n willa On eoran sw sw on heofonum. Urne dgwhamlcan hlaf syle s tdg. And forgyf s re gyltas, Sw sw w forgyfa rum gyltendum. And ne geld u s on costnunge, Ac ls s of yfele. Slice. 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 4 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 Rheinfrnkisch (Rhin Frank dialect) which, along with the others, compound the so- called High German in its old stage. 3.1 South Rhin Frank Dialect More specifically, the version of the Lords 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. 1 Fernndez Lpez, Justo, Indogermanisch (Indogermnico), http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca
5 2 In this city lived an important monk called Otfrid (800-870), who wrote about Christs 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 (871- 899) 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 Fernndez lvarez, Maria Pilar, Manual de antiguo alto alemn, 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 fostering 4 . 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 Lords Prayer which has arrived to our days, which is the one I have chosen. We have then, the two different versions of the Lords 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 450- 1150. (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, Fder re, e eart on heofonum, O.H. German fater unser thu In himilom bist Old English fder re on heofonum eart German Vater unser du in Himmel bist English father our thou in 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 : Tr). 5 4. // (and its allophone []) became /d/ (this : dies). According to this, some evidence can be extracted from this line: Father OHG Fater |Iate1 OE Fder |Iet1 due to the 3rd law Thou OHG thu |du1 OE |u1 due to the 4th law Other characteristics that deserve attention: Heaven O.H. German |hm1om1 Old English |heovonum1 As the grapheme <f> in O.E., when had an intervocalic position, was pronouced as |v1 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 S n nama gehlgod O.H. German giuuihit si namo thin Old English gehlgod s nama n German sein Name dein English hallowed be name thy The phenomenon about the transformation of the interdental voiceless fricative into the alveolar stop is seen as well in this case: Thy OHG thin |dn1 OE n |n1 due to the 4th law 4. 3 Thy kingdom come quaeme richi thin T becume n rice O.H. German quaeme richi thin Old English t becume rice n German kommt Reich dein English come kingdom 6 thy 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. pff or final f tzz (later German ss) or final z (s) khh (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 Knigreich. 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. 9 Kingdom OHG richi |tcc1 OE rice |tte1 The interesting thing about this is the fact that, in OE, the grapheme <h> represented the sound |c1 when it was in contact with front vowels. One example would be OE niht |nct1 . Nevertheless, as OE evolved the grapheme <c> to the point that had two different sounds { |k1 with back vowels |t1 with 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 <k> transformed into the voiceless palatal fricative represented by the geminated <h>. In our case, the appearence of <ch> instead of <hh> 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 n willa O.H. German uuerdhe uuillo thin Old English gewurde willa n German geschehe Wille dein English be done will thy Here, we can survey one aspect concerning the semi-consonant |w1 if we focus on the word Will OHG uuillo |w1o1 OE willa |w1a1 In this case, we see that OE grapheme <w> was representing the aforementioned semi- consonant, whereas OHG preferred the geminated grapheme <u>. This distinction would develop eventually into a dramatic difference between English and German regarding the pronunciation of the same <w>. 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 |w01I1 and German Wolf |vo1I1 And as regards the OHG german uuerdhe we can see the same effect of the process explained above, but if we see the grapheme <dh> we have then a trace of what was 10 once the phoneme |1 This grapheme had its previous form as a thorn <>, the same as OE, but with the shift of this graphemes sound, the result was <dh> which later would lose the <h>. This grapheme was used indistinctly along with <th> in early OHG. It eventually would disappear. 4. 5 On earth as it is in heaven samam so in himile end in erthu On eoran sw sw on heofonum O.H. German samam so in himile in erthu Old English sw sw on heofonum on eoran German wie so auf im Himmel Erden English as it is in heaven on earth The same phenomenon that has been explained before about the 4th law is seen here: Earth OHG erthu |etdu1 OE eoran |eotan1 Overall, the thorn<>, which existed in Germanic, had two different deviations. The first one, on the one hand, in early OHG, changed into either <th> or <dh>. In this case the allophonic content of the thorn was lost, therefore having one single sound |d1. On the other hand, in OE this thorn was retained and its allophonic manifestation as well. Finally, as late OHG would have the grapheme <d>, Modern English would have substituted both graphemes <> and <> by <th>, retaining obviously both possible allophones. 8 4. 6 Give us this day our daily bread Brooth unseraz emezzigaz gib uns hiutu Urne dgwhamlcan hlaf syle s tdg O.H. German brooth unseraz emezzigaz gib uns hiutu Old English hlaf urne dgwhamlcan syle s tdg German Brot unser tgliches gib uns heute 8 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 <y>, 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 Watkins 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. 9 Taking at account that ME suffered several vowel developments, in this case, the digraph <eo> was pronounced as |e1: it would likely change into <e> in order to mantain certain correspondence, having finally changed breot into bread. As regards OHG, both spelling and pronunciation havent changed much up to the current German. Compare: OHG brooth |bto:t1 German Brot |bLot1 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 s re gyltas O.H. German end farlaz uns sculdhi unsero Old English and forgyf s gyltas re German und vergib uns schuld unsere English and forgive us trespasses our 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 |v1 shifted into |1 throughout the 12th Century 10 , it remained as such until present day English guilt |g1t1 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 Sw sw w forgyfa rum gyltendum O.H. German same so uuir farlazzem scolom unserem Old English sw sw w forgyfa gyltendum rum German wie auch wir vergeben Schuldigern unsern English as we forgive trespassing 11 our As we have seen before, the relative pronoun sw 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 |a1 was velarized and resulted into Io:| it is probably factible that this affected OE sw Iswa| and thus became ME Iso:| yet we cannot state the moment in which the digraph <wa> was lost. 4.9 And lead us not into temptation endi ni geleidi unsih in costunga And ne geld u s on costnunge O.H. German endi ni geleidi unsih in costunga Old English and ne geld u s on costnunge German und nicht fhre uns in Versuchung English and not lead us into temptation 10 D. Freeborn, From Old English to Standard English, p. 124 11 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 ls s of yfele. Slice. O.H. German auh arlosi unsih forn ubile Old English ac ls s of yfele German sondern erlse uns Von dem Bsen English but deliver us from evil 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 * (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 I'ubile| OE yfele I'vvele| Since the OE grapheme <f>, when it was in an intervocalic position, represented the voiced labiodental, it changed into <v> in the future. OHG, in this sense, retained the <b> up to its current equivalent, which should be bel instead of Bsen 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 Iy| had three different deviations in the arrival of ME; in 12 Temptation entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary 13 Waterman, John C, A History of the German Language, p.284 14 In this case, as we can see in German, Bsen means actually the whole evil: evil deeds, evil intent, and not the religious figure of the Evil. German bel does reflect this meaning and the etymological result as well. 14 this case the proper deviation would be Iy| changing into Ie| 15 as the following forms of evil reflect in early Modern English. However, the Great Vowel Shift would probably change Ie| into the current Ii:| having therefore English evil Ii:vol|. 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 I'ubile| German bel I'y:bol| OE yfele I'vvele| English evil Ii:vol| 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 Lords Prayer, in order to support with a higher number of evidence the phonological changes. OHG-> Voiced stops become voiceless / [0| turns into [d| while in OE not f ather OHG fater I'laIo| OE fder I'lor| German Vater I'laIo| English I'la:or| t hou OHG thu Idu| OE Iu| German du Idu| English Iao| t hy OHG thin Idin| OE n Iin| German dein Ida]n| English Iai| day OHG tag IIak| OE dg Id]| German Tag IIak| English Idei| e arth OHG erthu I'erdu| OE eoran I'eorOan| German Erde I'e:udo| English Ic:rO| OHG=> Voiceless stops became geminated intervocalic fricatives while OE retains the same stops r eign OHG richi or rihhi I'ricci| OE rice I'riI]e| German Reich Iuaic| English Irein| eat OHG essin I'essin| OE etan I'eIan| German essen I'esen| English eat Ii:I| OHG and OE=> In both, graphemes <u> and <w> represents sound [w| . OHG will develop into [v| while OE not. w ill OHG uuillo I'wilo| OE willa I'wila| German Wille I'vilo| English Iwil| we OHG uuir Iwir| OE w Iwe| German wir Ivi:r| English Iwi:| OHG=> [v| changes into [b| between two vowels, and also after [I|. In OE the sound does not change and lasts up to Modern English. evil OHG ubile I'ubile| OE yfele I'vvele| German bel I'y:bol| English Ii:vol| 16 have OHG haben I'haben| OE hfen I'hven| German haben I'haben| English Ihv| 17 6. Conclusion The survey of the Lords 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 didnt suffer much changes from Germanic to its early phase. Nevertheless, OHG, having suffered almost all the consonant shifts, didnt 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 16 th Century, it was the other way around: Modern German didnt 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 Knig, 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: Fernndez lvarez, Maria Pilar, Manual de antiguo alto alemn, 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 Kbler, Gerhard, Deutsches Etymologisches Wrterbuch, 1995 Electronic sources: The Online Etymoloy Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/ Old English Dictionary, http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm 19