no standard German?

[CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU]

>From:	IN%"Indo-European at xkl.com" 22-MAR-1999 02:17:09.03
>Subj:	RE: no standard German?

>Joat said:>

>>Check out Martin Luther's choice of language for his German bible.  There was
>>nothing _but_ regional dialects until then.  Unless you count the language of
>>the German equivalent of troubadors, which nobody used but them.

Peter said:

>Rubbish, I'm afraid.
>(a) There was a substantial literature in Middle High German, in a form
>which avoided the more obvious local peculiarities.

Perfectly true.  But the scribes of the next few centuries felt no compunction
whatsoever about introducing more modern forms (especially in the vowel system)
which had been adopted in their dialects.  And even Middle HIgh German lit
isn't anywhere near as uniform as the normalized printed editions would suggest
-- check out the manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied.  Some of the poets did
*not* avoid their local peciliarities.

Also, when German began to be used for civil records (mainly from 1250 on), we
find something resembling, if not necessarily identical with, the local
dialects.  The scribes did *not* follow the literary tongue found in the epics
of Hartmann von Aue or Gottfried von Strassburg.  Their influence (and it seems
to have been great) was primarily on the literary works.

>(b) Saxony Chancery German was wide spread as a precise language, needed for
>legal use over a wide German speaking area.

Saxon chancery German was widely used.  But it was not identical with imperial
chancery German, which was also widely used.  Indeed, the imperial form, also
known as "das gemaine deutsch" (note _ai_ for Saxon _ei_), persisted into the
start of the 18th century as a written medium.  And then there was Low
German...

>(c) Luther himself says that he uses "the common German language which both
>High and Low Germans understand ... that is to say, the Saxon Chancery
>language ... which all princes and kings in Germany use."  (My translation -
>I'll give you Luther's German if you want it.)

You know, of course, that Luther, at the same spot, also credited the chancery
of Emperor Maximilian for helping develop this tongue.  Not that this is
strictly true, or that all the rulers actually used one of these standards.
And it is hard to believe that all Low Germans would have understood his
language -- his Bible was even translated into Low German for the use of
northerners!

I'm afraid both of you have misstated the situation.  There certainly were
written forms which were used and acknowledged even in places where people
talked differently.  There had been some in earlier times as well, at least in
the sense that manuscripts written in one place sometimes used the (apparently
more prestigious) dialect of another.  There were also attempts at
standardization (Notker's usage was even imitated).  But even if Luther's
language eventually came to be the standard, this process took a good long
time, during which many continued to write, wie ihnen der Schnabel (die Feder?)
gewachsen war.

I should also add that "minstrel" misstates the position of the medieval poets
and singers.  The word comes from Lat. _ministerialis_ 'court official', or
even one kind of knight.  Hartmann actually was a knight of this sourt -- and
proud of it.  A poet like Walther von der Vogelweide could eventually boast in
one song: "Ich ha^n mi^n le^hen!" -- 'I have my fief!'  He must have been
rather more than a poor wandering minstrel!  It is a matter of dispute whether
anyone but these poets actually used their language -- the only candidates are
the court nobles and officials, who certainly appreciated it but did not
necessarily use it themselves.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis