Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/539

Rh L..1xGU.s.eE.] best pattern of High German. It is true that in tlie 10th century many writers, especially in Switzerland and Lower Germany, still clung with great pertinacity to their native dialects. But about 1600 Luther’s lang11age was fully establishe-:l as the only idiom of literary intercourse through- out Germany.1 The changes the language has undergone since Luther’s time mostly concern the inﬂexional system. In the strong verbs the dif’ferences between the singular and pl11ral and the indicative and subjunctive of the past have been levelled in the course of time: thus, 2'c/afcmd, 1I.'z'rfan- Jen, I, we found, subj. ic/1, j'¢'imle, or it/L sc/mitt, zcir sr-7i.nz'ltm, I, we cut, for it/a_frmd, wir funden, ic/a_/'z‘im.Ie, or iv]; st.-/meit, wir sc/mitten. At present the verb zlierden, to become, is the only specimen left of the old regular inflex- ion :—ic/L ward, wir wm'z_lm, £4:/L wiirrle; b11t even here a new irregular form, iv]; wurde, has come into use and almost superseded the more archaic it.-/L ward, which is now chieﬂy conﬁned to poetry. Many other vowel changes have taken place besides, as in u'e€, web, gm-oben, weave, wove, woven, for Middle High German wibe, wup, gezlvebc-22, so that the old system of “ Ablaut,” or vowel change in the root syllables of the strong verbs has often become quite indis- tinct. A great number of verbs have passed from the strong inflexion to the weak, a11d 2--ice -vcrsa. The declension of subs-tantives has also been greatly altered. Umlaut is now regularly used as a plural sign with most monosyllabic and many dissyllabic masculine words, as in bamu, biizmze, or ml;/cl, 72a;/cl, for Middle High German boum, boume, and angel, 7uI_r/ele; originally it was confined to a much smaller number of words (i-stems, as gust, _r/(Lste, Middle High Ger- man _r/ast, gestc). Other masculine words have adopted the plural -62-, together with Umlaut of tlie root syllables, from the neuter declension,as 1n_runL,1m'(?mm', geist, geistcr, besides frequent exchanges between the strong and weak declen- sions, which cannot be specified here. The strong and the weak declension of feminine words originally ending i11 e have been melted together, one form (ending in e or a. consonant) being used for all singular, and one (ending in an or 72. after a consonant) for all plural cases, as gabr’, ta/«.1/;en., za/J, za/den, szmgc, Ellllf/€11, for Middle High German (/1269, _r/(Z/M, gen. aml dat. gdben; ml, :4], gen. and dat. :uln; zmzbr/e, gen. (lat. a11d acc. 2'mz_r/en, pl. 2201;/mt through- out. As to phonology, no change of vowel q11ality is noticeable in literary German. Modern IIigl1 German still l1as the Midland sounds i (often spelt 1'6), 77, 1?, for Southern ie, un, fie, as well as the Bavarian diphthongs ei, rm, cu (ciu), for the older sounds -F, 27, in, the latter not being distinguished either in spelling or in educated pro- nunciation from the older diphthongs ei, on, 614. We have thus zwei, clrei, bcmm, /mus, frezule, /ufiuser, leute for Middle lligh German zwci, (I2-Z, bomn, /uis, wiizule, /ciuscr, liute. (‘hange of vowel quantity is the most prominent phonetic feature of Modern High German when compared with the earlier stages of the language. All root—syllables ending formerly in a short vowel followed by a simple consonant l1ave now become long, either by lengthening the vowel or by doubling the consonant, thus 1173/, (age, sd/, bate, or golf, _r/ottes, blrlll, bl(t‘ltcr, for Middle High German My (or me), (dye, sril, Mic, (/61, (/5165, Neil, Lléler. The r11les for dropping unaccented vowels have often been changed accordingly. It must not be forgotten, however, that all these rules are only applicable to the literary idiom ; the dialects, and even those of the educated people, often differ very materially from the rules laid down above. There is, indeed, no such thing as a generally recognized standard pronunciation of German, except perhaps on the stage, which no doubt has exercised and still exercises a certain influence on the cur- ‘ For fuller ptlrticulars readers are referred to H. Riickcrt. C'rscIu'cI.lc dcr nculwchzlcutschcn Sch'rz:ft.spracIzc, 2 vol.~;., Leipsic, 1575. GERMANY 521 rent opinions as to how one ought to pronounce, but has not been powerful enough to abolish all dialectal peculi- arities iii the case of even the highest classes. Only avery few general r11les can be given. Englishmen will do well to pronounce the vowels as in Italian : ii and 6 are rounded or labialized i and e sounds, formed by pouting the lips while trying to pronounce 2' or e. Long vowels are always pronounced simple, never as diphthongs (which is fre- quently the casein English, especially with (L and 0). Un- accented e is invariably dropped in the terminations el, en, the real pronunciation of such words as /eamlel, bitte-n, lippcn, /aaben, 7l(’]U}l€l& being /zcuzrll, l;itm, lippn or lipp-272, /zcibn or /«Z/mz, 126222, (with a lengthened m).2 Among the peculiarities of the consonantal system we may mention the sound of (‘IL (in two distinct varieties as in ac]; and ic/L), the 2, which is a combination of t and s, and the 1', which ought to be trilled with the tip of the tongue, but is often pronounced as a 11v11lar or g11ttural sound. S initial is generally sounded like the English 2, iii stage pronunciation, but not usually elsewhere ; st and sp initial are never pro- no11nced on the stage like English st or sp, but are always s/it, slap, as in stein, spiel, pronounced (to use English spelling) as s/itine, s/zpeel. The English 20 ought to be avoided. The German 10 sound is more like English 2.1, b11t somewhat softer; in Midland pro1111nciation a sound intermediate between English 20 a11d -1) takes its place. German 22 is simplyf.3 The varieties of the German dialects of the present are I too numerous to be described here. It may suffice to state that the old divisions of Low German, Midland, and Upper German dialects are still applicable. Among the ﬁrst, the Vestern or Westphalian dialects are distinctly marked by the pronunciation of 9 initial as a g/z, or voiced ch (sometimes even voiceless), a11d the use of numerous diphthongs, both long and short, instead of simple vowels. The principal sub- divisions of Midland German are the Lower Ilhenish or Middle Frankish dialect (including the German dialects of Transylvania), South—Veste1'n a11d Eastern or High Frankish, Hessian, Thuringian, Saxon, and Silesi-an. Alemannian is divided into the three main groupsof Swabian, Alsatian, and Swiss, while Bavarian is constituted by several subdialects spoken in Bavaria and Austria. The study of these (lia- lects has been carried 011 in Germany for a considerable time,“ but not always very successfully, especially so far as phonology is concerned; for many observers, while well- trained in all the disciplines of the ohler school of philology, have been totally ignorant of the simplest laws of phonetics. It is only within the last few years that the value of phonetic studies (although they began i11 German researches) has been duly recognized iii the country of their origin, and dialectology has not hitherto gained m11ch by the more theoretical study of general phonetics. Some excellent beginnings indeed have been made, among which Dr Win- teler’s book on his native Swiss dialect holds by far the foremost rank ;5 b11t it is probable that a long time must yet elapse before Germany ca.n possess so well trained and inde- pendent a school of phonetists as that which already exists in England headed by Mr A. Melville Bell and Mr Alex- ander J. Ellis. Not till then, however, ca11 a real history of the German language be written. (E. SI.) '-’ F oreigncrs are easily detected by their generally inserting a real vowel-sound before the l, 71. 3 For more accurate descriptions of the German sounds see E. Sievers, G’-rmz(l:¢'i._r/e der Lau./p/1_1/sz'oI0gz'¢', Leipsie, 1876. 4 A very full list of books referring to German dialer-tology has been given by C‘. H. Herrmann, ]}¢'bl1'ot/zeca (z'c-rma~n1'ca., Ilalle, 1878, p. 67 sr/q. 5 J. Vintc1cr, Die Kcrcnzcr .l[muIa.-rt (.7(.5’ 'm1[0ns (7I((.r2Is, Leipsic, 1876. This is indeed the only work that can be justly compared with I)r J. A. H. Murray's 1)z'aIcct of the .§'0utI1c/‘n Cozmlics rf Scollaml, published i11 1873. X. —— 66