COMPARISON OF PHONOLOGY BETWEEN OLD HIGH GERMAN AND OLD ENGLISH

VERGLEICH VON PHONOLOGIE ZWISCHEN ALTHOCHDEUTSCH UND ALTENGLISCH

Course: History of the English language IInstructor: Guzmán Mancho

January 2010Jorge Solans Santana

Table of contents

1. Introduction...........................................................................................3

2. The Lord’s Prayer in its several versions............................................4

3. Environment of the Frank-dialect and the West-Saxon dialect........53.1 Frank-Rhin Dialect.....................................................................................53.2 West-Saxon Dialect.....................................................................................6

4. Isolated analysis of each line.................................................................84.1 Our Father, who art in heaven, ................................................................84.2 Hallowed be thy Name...............................................................................84.3 Thy kingdom come.....................................................................................94.4 Thy will be done.........................................................................................104.5 On earth as it is in heaven.........................................................................114.6 Give us this day our daily bread...............................................................124.7 And forgive us our trespasses....................................................................124.8 As we forgive those who trespass against us............................................134.9 And lead us not into temptation................................................................144.10 But deliver us from evil............................................................................14

5. Summary of all the phonological changes...........................................16

6. Conclusion..............................................................................................17

7. Sources....................................................................................................18

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1. Introduction

The comparison of languages has been the major issue for research in the last two

centuries. Therefore, there is at our disposition a great amount of knowledge regarding

the comparison of languages and the language typology. As our important matters here

are the origins and evolution of English, and German is the closest language to English

nowadays, it would be interesting to go back in order to reconstruct the process by

which English and German followed their separate paths, yet they retained a great

amount of roots which have lasted until now.

The object of study I want to focus in is the phonology, since it is a field whose changes

are very well documented with numerous sources.. The two phases that I want to

compare are almost simultaneous in time. Besides, I have selected the Old High German

due to its precedence to the current German accepted as the modern standard, called

Hochdeutsch in German. In addition, the aforementioned correspondence in time will

adjust very well to my will of focusing in the diversion that these two languages, which

were even closer in the past, had sufffered.

The text of study that I have selected is the Lord’s Prayer. This selection was easy. On

the one hand, since in that time the religious texts were almost the only ones which were

written and translated, it is very easy to find this prayer in several languages. In

addition, its literary language and universal recognition will make things easier in order

to grasp the message which is already quite clear.

Thus, the aim of this essay is to survey specifically the phenomena that caused these

two languages to evolve and change its etymological roots due to the phonological

changes, so we can see now words such as hand or finger, which are the same both in

German and English (only in their written demonstration) and hund (dog or hound) or

welt (world), which bear an evident resemblance but they have evolved differently.

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2. The Lord’s Prayer in its several versions

Fater unser, thu in himilom bist,giuuihit si namo thinquaeme richi thinuuerdhe uuillo thinsamam so in himile end in erthuBrooth unseraz emezzigaz gib uns hiutuend farlaz uns sculdhi unserosame so uuir farlazzem scolom unseremendi ni geleidi unsih in costungaauh arlosi unsih forn ubile

Old High German, Rhin Frank dialect,, Catechism of Weissesburg, beginning of the 9th Century.

Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum, Sí ðín nama gehálgod. Tó becume ðín rice. Gewurde ðín willa On eorþan swá swá on heofonum. Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódæg. And forgyf ús úre gyltas, Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendum. And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge, Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice.

Old English, West-Saxon dialect, 11th Century

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen.

Present-day English, Book of Common Prayer, 1928

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3. Environment of the Frank-dialect and the West-Saxon dialect

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It is necessary to make a concrete tracking of both languages in their evolution from the

Germanic branch. This diagram highlights the line throughout which English evolved

from the Angeln node. The dialect we are surveying now is the West-Saxon, located in

the Old-English period (Ag. which stands for Alt Englisch) As regards German, the

current standard German is called Modern Hochdeutsch. Its precedence is located in the

Althochdeutsch which is composed by its many dialects. Our dialect here is the

Rheinfränkisch (Rhin Frank dialect) which, along with the others, compound the so-

called High German in its old stage.

3.1 South Rhin Frank Dialect

More specifically, the version of the Lord’s Prayer that we have here corresponds to the

South Rhin Frank Dialect. Notice that in the following picture, number 4 corresponds to

this delimitation (in the current frontier that separates France and Germany), since there

one can found the city of Weissenburg.

1 Fernández López, Justo, Indogermanisch (Indogermánico), http://culturitalia.uibk.ac.at/hispanoteca

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In this city lived an important monk called Otfrid (800-870), who wrote about Christ’s

life using this dialect in order to make closer the knowledge of religion to the low-level

people, who were not acquainted with latin. Yet, it is not sure whether he translated the

version of the prayer we are analyzing, since he was born in 800 and it is unlikely that

he was old enough to have translated the text.3

Thus, all the dialects were intelligible each other and the important fact here is that not

only the scribans and educated people could read religious book, but all the villagers

and townsfolk as well. Hence the prominence status of the religious texts, which are

quite easy to find.

3.2 West-Saxon Dialect

It corresponds to the South West of England. Under the reign of Alfred the Great (871-

899) Wessex enjoyed an epoch of high culture and politics. Besides, research about

Old-English manuscripts has shown that a great part of the documentation belonged to 2 Fernández Álvarez, Maria Pilar, Manual de antiguo alto alemán, Salamanca: Ediciones Univ. Salamanca, 1988, p.273 Id., 24

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this dialect, which confirms the idea that this region was the leading one regardind

culture fostering4. Since Alfred the King had a court where a lot of translators did work,

this region had thus a better basis for the translation of the Lord’s Prayer which has

arrived to our days, which is the one I have chosen.

We have then, the two different versions of the Lord’s Prayer to compare. Their

geographical separation (though some contact could have happened, since the distance

was not so much) and the proximity of time can be two good factors to take at account,

as they allow a view of two different and independent processes. Bear in mind that Old

High German is considered as such from 500 to 1050. Old English lasted from 450-

1150. (These are approximate dates)

To sum up with this part, it is important to bear in mind that explanations about some

changes that began in Germanic and ended in Old High German are essential in order to

compare the differences between O.H German and Old English. Much references will

be done to the so-called High German consonant shift throughout the analysis of the

words and lines.

4 Fisia, Jacek, An outline history of English, “Volume One: External History”, 1995

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4. Isolated analysis of each lineThe procedure now will be the following: for each line, a subcategory will be created

where the phonology and morphology will be taken into account in order to compare

both lines. A chart will show the current equivalent in the respective languages for

every word. This equivalence is a correspondance but not necessarily a translation. In

addition, it is important as well to bear in mind that the common reference for the words

will be present-day English.

4.1 “Our Father, who art in heaven”

Fater unser, thu in himilom bist,

Fæder úre, ðú ðe eart on heofonum,O.H.

Germanfater unser thu In himilom bist

Old English fæder úre ðú on heofonum eartGerman Vater unser du in Himmel bistEnglish father our thou in heaven art

The main laws of the High German consonant shift are the following:

1. The three Germanic voiceless stops became fricatives in certain phonetic environments (English ship maps to German Schiff);

2. The same sounds became affricates in other positions (apple : Apfel); and

3. The three voiced stops became voiceless (door : Tür). 5

4. /θ/ (and its allophone [ð]) became /d/ (this : dies).

According to this, some evidence can be extracted from this line:

Father OHG Fater OE Fæder ædue to the 3rd lawThou OHG thu OE ðú due to the 4th law

Other characteristics that deserve attention:

Heaven O.H. German Old English

As the grapheme <f> in O.E., when had an intervocalic position, was pronouced as

it bears a bit resemblance with the current word in English.

5 Taken from dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache (p. 63).

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4. 2 “ Hallowed be thy Name ”

giuuihit si namo thin

Sí ðín nama gehálgodO.H.

Germangiuuihit si namo thin

Old English gehálgod sí nama ðínGerman sein Name deinEnglish hallowed be name thy

The phenomenon about the transformation of the interdental voiceless fricative into the

alveolar stop is seen as well in this case:

Thy OHG thin OE ðín due to the 4th law

4. 3 “ Thy kingdom come ”

quaeme richi thin

Tó becume ðín riceO.H.

Germanquaeme richi thin

Old English tó

becume

rice ðín

German kommt Reich deinEnglish come kingdom6 thy

Let us explore more this Great consonant shift:

The first phase, which affected the whole of the High German area, has been dated as early as the fourth century, [...]In this phase, voiceless stops became geminated intervocalic fricatives, or single postvocalic fricatives in final position.

p→ff or final f t→zz (later German ss) or final z (s) k→hh (later German ch) 7

Thus, this phase affected OHG much before the appearence of this version which dates

five centuries later. We can see this change in the following case:

6 Notice that, in this text, present day English uses the word Kingdom whereas German, having suffered a minor semantic change, uses Reich which means specifically empire, but not Kingdom as such. The proper word in German would be Königreich. Besides, etymologically speaking the proper word in English would be reign, which has ended in literary and formal use.7 Waterman, John C. (1991). A History of the German Language (Revised edition 1976 ed.). Long Grove IL: Waveland Press Inc. p. 284.

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Kingdom OHG richi OE rice

The interesting thing about this is the fact that, in OE, the grapheme <h> represented the

sound when it was in contact with front vowels. One example would be OE niht

. Nevertheless, as OE evolved the grapheme <c> to the point that had two

different sounds ( with back vowelswith front vowels) the sound

correspondence of this word, rice with its OHG equivalent was lost, since OHG

suffered this change, where the voiceless velar stop represented by <k> transformed into

the voiceless palatal fricative represented by the geminated <h>. In our case, the

appearence of <ch> instead of <hh> is explained by both diacronic and dialectal

reasons. This stage of the word richi in OHG bears great resemblance with its current

equivalent in German.

4. 4 “ Thy will be done ”

uuerdhe uuillo thin

Gewurde ðín willaO.H.

Germanuuerdhe uuillo thin

Old English gewurde willa ðínGerman geschehe Wille deinEnglish be done will thy

Here, we can survey one aspect concerning the semi-consonant ,if we focus on the

word

Will OHG uuillo OE willa

In this case, we see that OE grapheme <w> was representing the aforementioned semi-

consonant, whereas OHG preferred the geminated grapheme <u>. This distinction

would develop eventually into a dramatic difference between English and German

regarding the pronunciation of the same <w>. At this moment, different graphemes

were used but just one single phoneme was uttered. Currently, it is the other way

around, the same grapheme is represented by two different sounds: e.g. English wolf

and German Wolf

And as regards the OHG german uuerdhe we can see the same effect of the process

explained above, but if we see the grapheme <dh> we have then a trace of what was

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once the phoneme This grapheme had its previous form as a thorn <þ>, the same

as OE, but with the shift of this grapheme’s sound, the result was <dh> which later

would lose the <h>. This grapheme was used indistinctly along with <th> in early OHG.

It eventually would disappear.

4. 5 “ On earth as it is in heaven ”

samam so in himile end in erthu

On eorþan swá swá on heofonumO.H.

Germansamam so in himile in erthu

Old English swá swá on heofonum on eorþanGerman wie so auf im Himmel ErdenEnglish as it is in heaven on earth

The same phenomenon that has been explained before about the 4th law is seen here:

Earth OHG erthu OE eorþan

Overall, the thorn<þ>, which existed in Germanic, had two different deviations. The

first one, on the one hand, in early OHG, changed into either <th> or <dh>. In this case

the allophonic content of the thorn was lost, therefore having one single sound . On

the other hand, in OE this thorn was retained and its allophonic manifestation as well.

Finally, as late OHG would have the grapheme <d>, Modern English would have

substituted both graphemes <þ> and <ð> by <th>, retaining obviously both possible

allophones.8

4. 6 “ Give us this day our daily bread ”

Brooth unseraz emezzigaz gib uns hiutu

Urne dægwhamlícan hlaf syle ús tódægO.H.

Germanbrooth unseraz emezzigaz gib uns hiutu

Old

Englishhlaf urne dægwhamlícan syle ús tódæg

German Brot unser tägliches gib uns heute

8 Nevertheless, here is some perduration of the thorn using another form. Up until the XVIth Century, the thorn survived in a form that resembled a <y>, retaining the same phonological attribute according to D. Freeborn in his From Old English to Standard English

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English bread our daily give us this day

We have an interesting etymological issue here. For the same concept, “bread”, we have

two different words: brooth and hlaf. Whilst OHG used brooth as a general

nourishment, OE English used bread to refer specifically to a single crumb of this food.

About the year 1200 the word bread was used instead of hlaf in ME. The clear

difference that nowadays exists between English bread and German Brot can be

explained as follows: According to Watkin’s theory, the Proto Germanic word

braudsmon which means “to crumble” (hence the meaning of a crumb of bread)

developed into OHG brosma and OE breotan. 9Taking at account that ME suffered

several vowel developments, in this case, the digraph <eo> was pronounced as

it would likely change into <e> in order to mantain certain correspondence,

having finally changed breot into bread.

As regards OHG, both spelling and pronunciation haven’t changed much up to the

current German. Compare:

OHG brooth German Brot

Definitively, OHG developed this word without many modifications whereas OE

suffered both semantic and phonologic changes.

4.7 “And forgive us our trespasses”

end farlaz uns sculdhi unsero

And forgyf ús úre gyltas

O.H.

Germanend farlaz uns sculdhi unsero

Old

Englishand forgyf ús gyltas úre

German und vergib uns schuld unsereEnglish and forgive us trespasses our

Here, the word trespass does not show the actual development of its OE equivalent.

Tresspass was borrowed by Frech trespasser so we will discard this word and focus on

9 Bread entry in the Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com

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the word guilt which means nowadays “blame” or “the responsibility of a criminal”.

Nevertheless, in OE the word gylt (singular of gyltas) meant also “offence” or “sin”.

It is probable to think that, as the sound shifted into throughout the 12th

Century10, it remained as such until present day English guilt In fact, this

sound lost its roundness, which was the only change; it was not lowered nor velarised.

4.8 “ As we forgive those who trespass against us”

same so uuir farlazzem scolom unserem

Swá swá wé forgyfaþ úrum gyltendumO.H.

Germansame so uuir farlazzem scolom unserem

Old

Englishswá swá wé forgyfaþ gyltendum úrum

German wie auch wir vergeben Schuldigern unsernEnglish as we forgive trespassing11 our

As we have seen before, the relative pronoun swá is used as its current equivalent “the

same way” of present day English. It is important to compare a word with so

importance and to determine why this form ended as it ended in German so, although

German has not exactly the same usage of this word. This point of convergence can be

explained following the vowel changes in the Middle English period.

If was velarized and resulted into it is probably factible that this affected OE

swá and thus became ME yet we cannot state the moment in which the

digraph <wa> was lost.

4.9 “And lead us not into temptation”

endi ni geleidi unsih in costunga

And ne gelæd ðu ús on costnungeO.H.

Germanendi ni geleidi unsih in costunga

Old

Englishand ne gelæd ðu ús on costnunge

German und nicht führe uns in VersuchungEnglish and not lead us into temptation

10 D. Freeborn, From Old English to Standard English, p. 12411 This is an invented form in order to retain the one-to-one correspondence.

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It is surprising to see that, a concept that was shared by the same word both in OHG and

OE, diversed with their respective evolutions. What we can say about temptation is that

it was a loan-woard borrowed from Old French in the 13th Century which substituted

OE costnunge.12

4.10 But deliver us from evil

auh arlosi unsih forn ubile

Ac álýs ús of yfele. Sóþlice.

O.H.

Germanauh arlosi unsih forn ubile

Old

Englishac álýs ús of yfele

German sondern erlöse uns Von dem BösenEnglish but deliver us from evil

And finally, we have here a word, universal one, that illustres two different phenomena

at the same time. According to this change, in the previously mentioned High German

consonant shift, we have:

West Germanic *ƀ (presumably pronounced [v]), which was an allophone of /f/ used in

medial position, shifted to Old High German /b/ between two vowels, and also after /l/.13

Let us compare the following forms

Evil OHG ubile OE yfele

Since the OE grapheme <f>, when it was in an intervocalic position, represented the

voiced labiodental, it changed into <v> in the future. OHG, in this sense, retained the

<b> up to its current equivalent, which should be Übel instead of Bösen to understand

this etymological inheritance.14

On the other hand, we can focus now in the vocalic change at the same word: It is

reasonable to speculate that, as had three different deviations in the arrival of ME; in

12 Temptation entry at the Online Etymology Dictionary13 Waterman, John C, A History of the German Language, p.28414 In this case, as we can see in German, Bösen means actually the whole evil: evil deeds, evil intent, and not the religious figure of the Evil. German Übel does reflect this meaning and the etymological result as well.

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this case the proper deviation would be changing into 15 as the following forms

of evil reflect in early Modern English. However, the Great Vowel Shift would probably

change into the current having therefore English evil .

Regarding German, it is curious to see that, contrary to English, it recovered the

roundness of the vowel, which was not present yet in OHG. To summarize, the current

situation would be as follows:

OHG ubile German Übel OE yfele English evil

15 This change affected the South Dialects, but as London was in a strategic position sociolinguistically speaking, it would proably adopt this change to keep it for the future.

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5. Summary of all the phonological changes

Once the isolated, in-depth analysis has been done, it would be better to summarize all

the main points that have been mentioned. Besides, I have added a few more examples

that do not belong to the Lord’s Prayer, in order to support with a higher number of

evidence the phonological changes.

OHG-> Voiced stops become voiceless / turns into while in OE not

f ather OHG fater OE fæder æ German Vater English t hou OHG thu OE ðú German du English

t hy OHG thin OE ðín German dein English

day OHG tag OE dæg æ German Tag English

e arth OHG erthu OE eorþan German Erde English

OHG=> Voiceless stops became geminated intervocalic fricatives while OE retains

the same stops

r eign OHG richi or rihhi OE rice German Reich English

eat OHG essin OE etan German essen English eat

OHG and OE=> In both, graphemes <u> and <w> represents sound . OHG

will develop into while OE not.

w ill OHG uuillo OE willa German Wille English

we OHG uuir OE wé German wir English

OHG=> changes into between two vowels, and also after . In OE the

sound does not change and lasts up to Modern English.

evil OHG ubile OE yfele German Übel English

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have OHG haben OE hæfen æ German haben English

æ

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6. Conclusion

The survey of the Lord’s Prayer in its several versions has brought light to many

phonological changes that affected Old High German. While OHG was being analyzed,

OE was also taken at account and the ultimate result is that OE didn’t suffer much

changes from Germanic to its early phase. Nevertheless, OHG, having suffered almost

all the consonant shifts, didn’t change much in this sense up to Modern German,

whereas ME did change a lot to its Modern stage.

We could see that German has retained many roots of its earlier OHG phase, and the

same happens for the pronunciation. English, however, suffered dramatic

transformations in the Modern phase, which has not been studied here. Overall, we have

seen that from 100 AD to 1000 AD, Germanic was divided first due to the strong

dialectalization and later due to the High German consonant shift, that affected only the

continental continuums, leaving Old English alone. Therefore, in the lapse of time we

have surveyed, it was OHG which suffered real changes and not OE, whereas from the

16th Century, it was the other way around: Modern German didn’t seem to change so

much as it did Modern English, in opposition to its earlier phase, Middle English.

The overall conclusion is that a work of such characteristics is interesting to understand

the etymological evolution and to understand definitively why German and English bear

weak phonological resemblances in words that, in written form, are identical.

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7. Sources

Many different sources, both in electronic and written format, have been consulted. The

first two books’ information was consulted in the High German consonant shift article

at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift

König, Werner, dtv- Atlas zur deutschen Sprache, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag

GmbH & Co, 1978

Waterman, John C. (1991). A History of the German Language (Revised edition 1976

ed.). Long Grove IL: Waveland Press Inc.

Written sources:

Fernández Álvarez, Maria Pilar, Manual de antiguo alto alemán, Salamanca:

Ediciones Univ. Salamanca, 1988,

Fisia, Jacek, An outline history of English, “Volume One: External History”, 1995

Freeborn, Denis, From Old English to Standard English, Palgrave Macmillan, 3rd

Edition, 2006

Köbler, Gerhard, Deutsches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1995

Electronic sources:

The Online Etymoloy Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/

Old English Dictionary, http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm

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