Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/125

Rh man chief dialects prior to Luther have found a unification ("Einigungssprache") has been made the subject of careful research by Burdach. Virgil Moser, 1909, has collected everything what research work has thus far evolved. Yet he is not quite just to the linguistic importance of Luther. And that Gutjahr succeeded in an even lesser degree has already been mentioned. Alfred Goetze essayed the attempt to create an "Early High German Glossary" on the basis of independent reading and detailed study of the early High German literature and the various dictionaries of Swiss, Bavarian, Alsatian, Suebian, etc., dialects, a work which notwithstanding its brevity we always used with profit.64b

And now in what relation does Luther's language stand to the language prior to him? Did he simply receive it and pass it on? Or did it become a new language under his hands, which became the standard for the future? Did he take some particular dialect and develop it, leaving aside whatever of good and beautiful is contained in the others, thereby consigning them to lingering death? Or did he take the good and beautiful and assimilate it, thereby giving it residence in the German language? Burdach answers: "Luther's genius was the 'awakening sun' that shone over the development of the modern High German." Pietsch in the preface to volume XII of the Weimar edition, 1891, says: "One of the most important phases of the national importance of Luther is doubtless to be found in the fact that with his care and his influence he strengthened the young shoot of the common language to such an extent that it gradually grew to a tree overshadowing the whole of Germany.64b

Neubauer arrives at the same conclusion. He writes: "Ever since the 13th century the need became apparent,