LL-L: "Names" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 16.JUN.1999 (04)
Lowlands-L Administrator
sassisch at geocities.com
Wed Jun 16 19:27:16 UTC 1999
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L O W L A N D S - L * 16.JUN.1999 (04) * ISSN 1089-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: "Bryan E. Schulz" <bryans at northnet.net>
Subject: Names
> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com>
> Subject: Names
>
> Brian Schulz wrote under "Folk Beliefs":
>
> > I am looking for a definative collection of surnames( could be a subject
> > by itself) and their meanings i.e. what does Schulz mean in the early
> > German?
>
> Brian, as you can see, I have moved this to a new subject line, since it did
not
> belong to "Folk Beliefs." (Subjects must be kept separate.)
>
> I don't know if there's a definitive index of surnames. There are lots of
books
> and quite a few web pages dealing with the origin of familiy names, but I
don't
> think any of them is definitive or exhaustive.
>
> You might like to try http://www.familychronicle.com/surname.htm, but please
> don't for a second assume that all of the information there is correct.
>
> Of course, Schulz is a German name, and German is not one of the main focus
> languages of Lowlands-L. However, here is what I know:
>
> Schulz, Schultz, Scholz, Scholtz, Schulze, etc., are all derived from Old
High
> German _Scultheizzo_. This used to denote a position: that of the elder or
> headman of a settlement. From this has developed Modern German
_Schultheiß_,
> often translated as 'bailiff', used in reference to medieval and ancient
> history. Literally, _Scultheizzo_ denoted the person who was named as
bearing
> the guilt (_Schuld_) or to be scolded (or worse) for the supposed misdeeds
of
> his settlement's inhabitants, i.e., the person responsible. It is often
> translated as _Dorfschulze_ in Modern German. It is therefore something of
a
> Germanic equivalent of Meyer, Mayer, Meier, etc., which are related to
English
> 'mayor' and come from Latin _maior_.
>
> Getting back to the Lowlands, let it be mentioned that among the Low Saxon
(Low
> German) equivalents of the family name Schulz, etc., are Schult, Scholt and
> Schulte. (Being a Lowlands language, Low Saxon did not participate in the
> German t > ts shift.)
>
> I hope this helped.
>
> Reinhard/Ron
>
Ron;
Excellent---Thank you!!!
My question then is by inference. Is there a correlation of spelling of
a surname to the physical origin/location of that 'family' or is the
spelling related to the language form used by the participants?
Would you please more fully explain on your statement: '(Being a
Lowlands language, Low Saxon did not participate in the German t > ts
shift.)'?
Regards,
Bryan
----------
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at geocities.com>
Subject: Names
Brian Schulz requested:
> Would you please more fully explain on your statement: '(Being a
> Lowlands language, Low Saxon did not participate in the German t > ts
> shift.)'?
Brian, I don't know how fully this will be. Let me just say the following to
answer your basic question.
All the Lowlands languages we deal with here are West Germanic. German (i.e.,
German proper, not "Low German") is variously classified as West Germanic or as
South Germanic. It is different from the Lowlandic languages in that it
underwent certain sound shifts. The shift I was referring to is one of the
consonant shifts, known collectively as the "second consonant shift" or "High
German consonant shift," of about the 8th century C.E. This involved changing
stops into fricatives or affricates, e.g.,
-k > -kh (spelled ch)
p > pf-
t > ts (spelled z or tz)
Examples:
English - Low Saxon - Dutch - Afrikaans - German
make - maken - maken - maak - machen
book - bouk (Book) - boek - boek - Buch
path - pad (Padd) - pad - pad - Pfad
apple - appel (Appel) - appel - appel - Apfel
tide - tiid (Tiet) - tijd - tyd - Zeit
kat - kat (Katt) - kat - kat - Katze
Thus, German _Schulz(e)_ should be expected to correspond to Low Saxon
_Schult(e)_, and indeed it does.
You further asked:
> Is there a correlation of spelling of
> a surname to the physical origin/location of that 'family' or is the
> spelling related to the language form used by the participants?
I guess it could be either. In the days before strict spelling rules people
would write pretty much any old way they know how, and this would most likely
also reflect their local dialect (e.g., _Schulz_ vs _Scholz_, _Schulz_ vs
_Schulze_). Some people would write _z_ while others would write _tz_ for the
same sound. There might be local conventions involved in some cases, but I
doubt that you'd be able to pin the spelling _Schulz_ down to a particular area,
given that (1) the name is very common and (2) spelling of the same surname
oftentimes changed with time, especially among emigrants. If your name were
_Schulte_ I could at least tell you that it was from the north of what is now
Germany, namely from the Lowlands area in which Low Saxon (Low German) is the
original Germanic language.
I hope this helped.
Reinhard/Ron
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