rate of language change

[Eduard Selleslagh]

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter &/or Graham <petegray at btinternet.com>
Date: Thursday, April 22, 1999 10:16 AM

[ moderator snip ]

>Hardly.   The High German dialects covered perhaps two thirds of the modern
>German-speaking area.   The standard language is most closely allied to the
>dialect around Meissen, precisely because that was the dialect most widely
>known.   Nowhere near the Alps.   We might however look at the timing.
>Luther's Bible fixes High German to some extent (e.g. the -e endings in ich
>mache etc, for which he was laughed at even in his own time).   Without a
>literary standard the Low German dialects could change more rapidly.  So
>just when did their loss of inflection occur?

[Ed. Selleslagh]

Aren't you speaking about a relatively late period, when High German had
already spread to more northern regions, maybe, inter alia,  under the
centralizing (but generally opposed) influence of the Holy Roman Empire e.g.
?  Do you - or anybody else - have any data about the 'advancement' of HG,
let's say from the large-scale migrations onward?
I'm not sure, but dialects like that from the N Rhineland seem to indicate a
progressing encroachment by HG.

The lack of a litterary standard for Low German is not entirely true: Dutch
is just that for a subset of Low German dialects.  Even though there are
virtually no Dutch texts from before the 10th century, all available
evidence points to an early loss of most of its inflection, only slightly
less than in English.

The choice of Luther for High German instead of Low German is probably due
to 'marketing opportunism' brought about by the linguistic situation in his
time, as described in your posting. Anyway, his choice paved the road for HG
to become the standard for the whole of the High and Low German speaking
regions, except the Low Countries by the sea. (The isolated, basically HG,
Schwyzertuetsch resisted for a long time, but is caving in except for
informal conversation - but that is also true for Hamburg Low German, which,
BTW,  sounds a lot like Antwerp Flemish dialect and is mutually quite
intelligible).

Best regards,
Ed. Selleslagh