this was certainly the case immediately after the Migrations, when the various races began to settle down. But these differences, consisting presumably in matters of phonology and vocabulary, were nowhere so pronounced as to exclude a mutual understanding of individuals belonging to different tribes. One might compare the case of the Poles and Czechs of the present day. During the 6th century, however, a phonological process set in, which ultimately resulted in the separation of Germany into two great linguistic divisions, south and north, or, as the languages are called, High and Low German. This fundamental change, which is known as the second or High German Soundshifting (Lautverschiebung), spread northward from the mountainous districts in the south, and, whatever its cause may have been,[1] left behind it clear and easily recognizable effects on the Germanic voiced stop d, which became changed to t, and more especially on the voiceless stops t, p and k. Dialects which have shifted initial t and tt in the middle of a word to the affricate tz (written z, tz) and p and k in corresponding positions to the affricates pf and kχ (written ch), further, t, p and k in the middle of words between vowels, to the double spirant zz (now written ss, sz), ff, hh (written ch), are called High German; those in which these changes have not taken place form the Low German group, this group agreeing in this respect with English and Frisian.
Of these sound changes, that of t to tz and zz (ss) is the most universal, extending over the whole region in which shifting occurs; that of k to kχ (ch), the most restricted, being only found in Old Bavarian, and in the Swiss pronunciation, e.g. in chind. The remaining dialects occupy positions between the two extremes of complete shifting and the absence of shifting. Some Franconian dialects, for instance, leave p unchanged under certain conditions, and in one dialect at least, Middle Franconian, t has remained after vowels in certain pronominal forms (dat, wat, allet, &c.). On this ground a subdivision has been made in the High German dialects into (a) an Upper German (Oberdeutsch) and (b) a Middle German (Mitteldeutsch) group; and this subdivision practically holds good for all periods of the language, although in Old High German times the Middle German group is only represented, as far as the written language is concerned, by Franconian dialects.
As the scientific study of the German language advanced there arose a keen revival of interest—and that not merely on the part of scholars—in the dialects which were so long held in contempt as a mere corruption of the Schriftsprache.[2] We are still in the midst of a movement which, under the guidance of scholars, has, during the last three decades, bestowed great care on many of the existing dialects; phonological questions have received most attention, but problems of syntax have also not been neglected. Monumental works like Wenker’s Sprachatlas des deutschen Reiches and dialect dictionaries are either in course of publication or preparing;[3] while the difficult questions concerned with defining the boundaries of the various dialects and explaining the reasons for them form the subject of many monographs.[4]
Beginning in the north we shall now pass briefly in review the dialects spoken throughout the German-speaking area.
A. The Low German Dialects
The Low German dialects, as we have seen, stand nearest to the English and Frisian languages, owing to the total absence of the consonantal shifting which characterizes High German, as well as to other peculiarities of sounds and inflections, e.g. the loss of the nasals m and n before the spirants f, s and p. Cf. Old Saxon fif (five), us (us), kup (cf. uncouth). The boundary-line between Low and High German, the so-called Benrather Linie, may roughly be indicated by the following place-names, on the understanding, however, that the Ripuarian dialect (see below) is to be classed with High German: Montjoie (French border-town), Eupen, Aachen, Benrath, Düsseldorf, north of Siegen, Cassel, Heiligenstadt, Harzgerode, to the Elbe south of Magdeburg; this river forms the boundary as far as Wittenberg, whence the line passes to Lübben on the Spree, Fürstenwald on the Oder and Birnbaum near the river Warthe. Beyond this point the Low Germans have Slavs as their neighbours. Compared with the conditions in the 13th century, it appears that Low German has lost ground; down to the 14th and 15th centuries several towns, such as Mansfeld, Eisleben, Merseburg, Halle, Dessau and Wittenberg, spoke Low German.
Low German falls into two divisions, a western division, namely, Low Franconian, the parent, as we have already said, of Flemish and Dutch, and an eastern division, Low Saxon (Plattdeutsch, or, as it is often simply called, Low German). The chief characteristic of the division is to be sought in the ending of the first and third person plural of the present indicative of verbs, this being in the former case -en, in the latter -et. Inasmuch as the south-eastern part of Low Franconian—inclusive of Gelderland and Cleves—shifts final k to ch (e.g. ich, mich, auch, -lich), it must obviously be separated from the rest, and in this respect be grouped with High German. Low Saxon is usually divided into Westphalian (to the west of the Weser) and Low Saxon proper, between Weser and Elbe. The south-eastern part of the latter has the verbal ending -en and further shows the peculiarity that the personal pronoun has the same form in the dative and accusative (mik, dick), whereas the remainder, as well as the Westphalian, has mi, di in the dative, and mi, di or mik, dik in the accusative. To these Low German dialects must also be added those spoken east of the Elbe on what was originally Slavonic territory; they have the ending -en in the first and third person plural of verbs.[5]
B. The High German Dialects
1. The Middle German Group.—This group, which comprises the dialects of the Middle Rhine, of Hesse, Thuringia, Upper Saxony (Meissen), Silesia and East Prussia to the east of the lower Vistula between Bischofswerder, Marienburg, Elbing, Wormditt and Wartenberg—a district originally colonized from Silesia—may be most conveniently divided into an East and a West Middle German group. A common characteristic of all these dialects is the diminutive suffix -chen, as compared with the Low German form -ken and the Upper German -lein (O.H.G. līn). East Middle German consists of Silesian, Upper Saxon and Thuringian,[6] together with the linguistic colony in East Prussia. While these dialects have shifted initial Germanic p to ph, or even to f (fert = Pferd), the West Middle German dialects (roughly speaking to the west of the watershed of Werra and Fulda) have retained it. If, following a convincing article in the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum (37, 288 ff.) by F. Wrede, we class East and South Franconian—both together may be called High Franconian—with the Upper German dialects, there only remain in the West Middle German group:[7] (a) Middle
- ↑ Cf. P. Kretschmer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der griechischen Sprache (Göttingen, 1896), who holds the mingling of Celtic and Germanic elements in southern and south-western Germany responsible for the change. It might also be mentioned here that H. Meyer (Zeitschrift f. deut. Altertum, xlv. pp. 101 ff.) endeavours to explain the first soundshifting by the change of abode of the Germanic tribes from the lowlands to the highlands of the Carpathian Mountains.
- ↑ Of writers who have made extensive use of dialects, it must suffice to mention here the names of J. H. Voss, Hebel, Klaus Groth, Fritz Reuter, Usteri, G. D. Arnold, Holtei, Castelli, J. G. Seidl and Anzengruber, and in our own days G. Hauptmann.
- ↑ Cf. F. Staub and L. Tobler, Schweizerisches Idiotikon (1881 ff.); E. Martin and F. Lienhart, Wörterbuch der elsässischen Mundarten (Strassburg, 1899 ff.); H. Fischer, Schwäbisches Wörterbuch (Tübingen, 1901 ff.). Earlier works, which are already completed, are J. A. Schmeller, Bayrisches Wörterbuch (2nd ed., 2 vols., Munich, 1872–1877); J. B. Schöpf, Tiroler Idiotikon (Innsbruck, 1886); M. Lexer, Kärntisches Wörterbuch (1862); H. Gradl, Egerländer Wörterbuch, i. (Eger, 1883); A. F. C. Vilmar, Idiotikon von Kurhessen (Marburg, 1883) (with supplements by H. von Pfister); W. Crecelius, Oberhessisches Wörterbuch (Darmstadt, 1890–1898). Professor J. Franck is responsible for a Rheinisches Wörterbuch for the Prussian Academy.
- ↑ Cf. the article “Mundarten” by R. Loewe in R. Bethge, Ergebnisse und Fortschritte der germanistischen Wissenschaft (Leipzig, 1902), pp. 75-88; and F. Mentz, Bibliographie der deutschen Mundartforschung (Leipzig, 1892). Of periodicals may be mentioned Deutsche Mundarten, by J. W. Nagl (Vienna, 1896 ff.); Zeitschrift für hochdeutsche Mundarten, by O. Heilig and Ph. Lenz (Heidelberg, 1900 ff.), continued as Zeitschrift f. deutsche Mundarten, Verlag des Allgemeinen Deutschen Sprachvereins. Owing to its importance as a model for subsequent monographs J. Kinteler’s Die Kerenzer Mundart des Kantons Glarus (Leipzig, 1876) should not be passed unnoticed.
- ↑ Cf. especially H. Tümpel, “Die Mundarten des alten niedersächsischen Gebietes zwischen 1300 und 1500” (Paul und Braune’s Beiträge, vii. pp. 1-104); Niederdeutsche Studien, by the same writer (Bielefeld, 1898); Bahnke, “Über Sprach- und Gaugrenzen zwischen Elbe und Weser” (Jahrbuch des Vereins für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, vii. p. 77).
- ↑ Upper Saxon and Thuringian are sometimes taken as a separate group.
- ↑ Cf. W. Braune, “Zur Kenntnis des Fränkischen” (Beiträge, i. pp. 1-56); O. Böhme, Zur Kenntnis des Oberfränkischen im 13. 14. und 15. Jahrh. (Dissertation) (Leipzig, 1893), where a good account of the differences between the Rhenish Franconian and South Franconian dialects will be found.
