Old High German

In un’epoca che non riconosce più la centralità della storia della letteratura, dilaniata dal dibattito tra estetica e storicismo e polverizzata in una miriade di generi, sistemi e correnti, il volume fa luce in modo approfondito su un patrimonio letterario poco noto, discontinuo ed eterogeneo, risalente alle culture germaniche dell’Alto Medioevo.
Al netto degli stereotipi barbarici, queste rappresentavano il risultato di un lungo processo di integrazione tra la miriade di società segmentarie del Ferro, dalle Alpi alla Scandinavia, e le varie forme in cui si declinò l’esperienza culturale romana, diffusa ben oltre i limiti cronologici dell’Impero.
Lungamente dominate dall’oralità o da fenomeni scritturali epigrafici – o spesso di natura pragmatica e talora troppo intermittenti per essere definiti “letteratura” –, queste culture seppero dar vita, con il contributo essenziale del Cristianesimo e delle sue prerogative di trasmissione scritta, a una densa tradizione letteraria dalle caratteristiche disomogenee.

I had this paper (older version) already once uploaded and had then taken it down, as an edition by Haubrichs & Müller was said to be nearly finished. As now far over a year has passed and this edition has not come out yet and as good photos are available on pp. 66f. in the catalogue "Von Abrogans und Nibelungen" (2018), I decided to go again over my transcription and make it available again.

con il contributo di M. Digilio 1 ,00 € La nascita di uno statuto letterario germanico, durante l'Alto Medioevo, rappresentò una conquista culturale mediata dalla cristianizzazione e dalle relative necessità liturgiche, dottrinarie ed esegetiche. Poiché la conversione al Cristianesimo delle numerose etnie germaniche richiese quasi un millennio, non stupisce che il diverso grado di integrazione delle élite barbariche nell'universo dottrinario e culturale della Chiesa -erede di molti valori della cultura greco-romana -si tradusse in una altrettanto lenta percezione della dignità dei propri volgari in funzione di lingua scritta, la cui forma richiedeva l'acquisizione di una coscienza 'alfabetica' e di forme 'scrittorie' locali ancora inedite. La frammentazione culturale che ne conseguì e la prolungata assenza di un canone alfabetico univoco per le singole lingue -unitamente all'egemonia esercitata ancora per secoli dalla cultura latina -si tradusse in risultati letterari tra loro disomogenei in ciascuna area linguistica. Il monopolio degli studi e della cultura scritta, esercitato per secoli in Occidente dall'autorità ecclesiastica, ebbe conseguenze dirette sul piano del contenuto e della relativa trasmissione. All'interno dei codici manoscritti realizzati per lo più tra le mura di scriptoria monastici riuscì a filtrare soltanto una minima parte, opportunamente emendata, del patrimonio tradizionale delle culture volgari, patrimonio che continuò viceversa a essere tramandato attraverso i canali impalpabili dell'oralità. Le prime forme di una tradizione letteraria germanica restarono dunque confinate per lungo tempo ad ambiti istituzionali -giuridici, notarili e religiosi -, nei quali i volgari riuscirono inizialmente a far breccia sotto forma di strumenti interpretativi d'immediata utilità, come le glosse esplicative di concetti e di lessemi non immediatamente comprensibili. Medioevo volgare germanico cerca di raccogliere e introdurre i principali documenti e i relativi generi letterari delle singole tradizioni linguistiche del Medioevo germanico, a partire dalla più antica traduzione della Bibbia in gotico fino agli esempi più raffinati del patrimonio letterario poetico e prosastico.

This article discusses Peircean ideas and integrates them into a system that can be understood as magical communication within the Umwelt of the Runemaster of the elder runic tradition. I begin by discussing the issue with the word "magic," and I shed light on the problematic etymon. I then go through various schools of academic thought on what this word means and how it may or may not contrast with religion. Albeit rather briefly, I present various schools of thought from Tylor, Frazer, Peirce, Mauss, Durkheim, Malinowski, Lévy-Bruhl, Jakobson, and Nöth. After discussing these approaches, I offer my own idea, called the Law of Magical Semiosis, which is a definition for magical communication specific to the Runemaster and his Umwelt. The goal of this article is to create an objective framework that will allow runologists to use a model to measure magical communication specific to the Elder Futhark tradition.

Ein althochdeutsches Gedicht, das uns fragmentarisch in einer Handschrift aus der zweiten Hälfte des 9. Jahrhunderts überliefert wurde, ist von J. A. Schmeller erstmals im Jahre 1832 herausgegeben worden. 1 In dieser Edition benannte er dieses Gedicht, das von dem Schicksal der menschlichen Seele nach dem Tod handelt, nach dem immer noch ungeklärten Wort muspilli (im ahd. Text Dat. Sg. muspille) aus Vers 57. Das "Muspilli" ist wahrscheinlich das Werk, das in der althochdeutschen Forschung am meisten mit dem Begriff der Verzweiflung in Verbindung gebracht wird. Egal ob in Einleitungen oder Überschriften einzelner Forschungsbeiträge, wie zum Beispiel "Das >Muspilli< oder Über das Glück literaturwissenschaftlicher Verzweiflung" 2 oder in Äußerungen, wie der Steinmeyers, dass dieses Gedicht "das verzweifelste Stück der ahd. Literatur" 3 sei. Einmal mehr, einmal weniger, lässt sich diese Tendenz zum Verzweifeln finden, was auf den ersten Blick nicht gerade dazu beiträgt, sich mit diesem Gedicht beschäftigen zu wollen. Diese Verzweiflung rührt daher, dass während der langen Forschungsgeschichte des "Muspilli" viele problematische Aspekte aufgezeigt worden sind, für die es zwar zahlreiche Lösungsvorschläge gibt, die jedoch oftmals nie endgültig gelöst werden konnten. Diese Forschungsproblematiken reichen von der Etymologie des einzelnen Wortes muspilli, über die möglichen Quellen, bis hin zu der Überlegung, ob es sich bei dem überlieferten Gedicht überhaupt um einen einheitlichen Text handelt. Damit sind nur einige Aspekte kurz angeführt. Mit Verzweiflung in diese Arbeit zu starten, wäre jedoch nicht der richtige Weg.

Hybrid nouns, nouns which induce different agreements according to the target, have been described in various languages. The new question is why they exist at all. There is clear evidence that hybrids vary considerably in the agreement they control, even within a single language. It therefore seems logical to align this variability with lexical semantics, and this is convincing for some hybrids. But this motivation is hard to reconcile with the fact that some hybrids are hybrids only for part of their paradigm. These latter instances suggest that the underlying motivation for some hybrids is a form-meaning mismatch.

In this study I propose a reconsideration of several textual critical aspects of the Lay of Ildebrand, restricted to a comparison among its different editions in the anthology edited by Wilhelm Braune (1st ed. 1875), which has reached the seventeenth edition (1994), with the contribution formerly by Helm (from the 9th ed. 1928) and then by Ebbinghaus (from the 14th ed. 1962). As a matter of fact, I believe that Braune’s anthology, thanks to its 130 years of history, constitutes a unique and precious source of analysis for a reflection upon the trends of textual criticism, with particular regard to the problems arising from a work transmitted by a sole manuscript (“codex unicus”), which is a very frequent condition in the manuscript tradition of Medieval Germanic Literatures.

In questo studio propongo una riconsiderazione di alcuni aspetti critico-testuali del Canto di Ildebrando limitatamente a un confronto tra le sue diverse edizioni nell’antologia curata da Wilhelm Braune (I ed. 1875), giunta nel frattempo alla XVII edizione (1994), col contributo prima di Helm (dalla IX ed. 1928) e poi di Ebbinghaus (dalla XIV ed. 1962). Ritengo infatti che, per il successo ottenuto dall’Althochdeutsches Lesebuch e soprattutto per i suoi 130 anni di storia, l’antologia di Braune costituisca un osservatorio speciale e privilegiato per una riflessione sugli orientamenti della critica del testo, con particolare riferimento ai problemi posti da un’opera tramandata da un solo manoscritto (“codex unicus”), caso questo peraltro assai frequente nella tradizione manoscritta delle letterature germaniche medievali.

Сучасний етап розвитку мовознавства позначений посиленимінтересом науковців до вивчення природи мовних явищ та їх витоків.Серед необхідних лінгвістичних дисциплін, які закладають основипідготовки філологів-германістів, особливе місце належить “Вступу догерманського мовознавства”. Головна мета курсу – сформувати у студентіввищих навчальних закладів ґрунтовні знання з германістики як важливоїскладової історичної лінгвістики.У посібнику розглянуті ключові поняття порівняльно-історичногометоду – потужного інструменту вивчення процесу еволюції мов та їхспорідненості. Студенти отримають відомості про побут та культурудавніх германців, їх писемність, релігію і міфологію. Висвітлені основніпринципи фонетичної та граматичної будови германських мов таособливості їх розвитку в різні історичні періоди. Вивчення лексичногоскладу германських мов супроводжується значною кількістю прикладів,зокрема семантичні процеси в англійській лексиці досліджуються на тлі розвитку номінативних одиниць на позначення інструментальності (зброя,знаряддя виробництва, медичні інструменти, засоби пересування тощо) вписемних пам’ятках VII–XVII ст.Матеріал посібника поділено на теоретичний і практичний блоки.Кожен з дев’яти теоретичних розділів містить тематику рефератів і списокосновної та додаткової літератури. Практичну частину посібникаскладають плани семи семінарських занять, тестові або практичні завданнядо кожної з тем семінарів. Посібник містить короткий готсько-українськийсловник, який студенти можуть використовувати для виконанняпрактичних завдань.

Untersuchungsgegenstand der vorliegenden Arbeit sind die altdeutschen Zaubersprüche und Segen vom 9. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert. Jeder Text wird analysiert und ins Italienisch übersetzt. Die Wiedergabe der Texte erfolgt im allgemeinen vorhandenen Editionen: entweder Steinmeyer-Sievers oder Wilhelm oder MSD, weil keine dieser altdeutschen Anthologien eine vollständige Sammlung von Zaubersprüchen und Segen enthält. Die Untersuchung konzentriert sich auf die altdeutsche Zeit, aber es werden auch solche mitteldeutschen Texte eingeschlossen, welche die Überlieferung der altdeutschen Texte fortsetzen.
Zum Schluss der Arbeit wird versucht, die Texten nach strukturellen Gesichtpunkten einzuordnen, wobei auch die Ergebnisse von der Sprechakttheorie bestätigt werden. Als Ergebnis kann festgehalten werden, dass man keinen konkreten Unterschied zwischen Beschwörungen, Zaubersprüchen oder magischen Formeln feststellen kann, während jeder Text auf folgende Grundstruktur zurückgeführt werden kann:
wenn du x hast, mache (= sage) y
Innerhalb dieses Texttyps können einige Typologien unterschieden werden, die aber flexibel sein müssen und verschiedene Kombinationen erfahren können. Die Herausarbeitung dieser strukturellen Grundtypen kann als Basis für die weitere wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Textsorte genutzt werden.

Old High German as a Syllable Language on the Example of Otfrid of Weissenburg’s Evangelienbuch

This Master thesis presents the typological language analysis of an excerpt from Evangelienbuch of Otfrid of Weissenburg. The theoretical part introduces the cultural and historical context of the Old High German period. The emphasis lies on the phonology of the Old High German. The vowel system and the consonant system of this language period are discussed in detail. The evolution of every vowel is shown; as far as consonants are concerned, the only phonemes that are discussed are those that evolved in the time from Proto-Germanic to Old High German. The language typology of syllable and word languages is presented, and it is based on the phonological analysis of language structure. The emphasis is on the structure of the phonological syllable and the phonological word. The analytical part of the thesis presents the Heidelberg manuscript (Codex Palatina) and the chosen chapter Cur scriptor hunc librum theotisce dictaverit. The analysis of the syllable structure proves the hypothesis that the Old High German had the optimal type of syllables. The majority of the analysed syllables are open (type CV). The stressed and unstressed vowel systems were to some extent still symmetrical, and the gemination (consonant elongation) helped to optimise the contact on the syllable boundary. The results of the analysis confirm the hypothesis that Old High German was a syllable language.

This dissertation investigates the evidence for verb movement at the earliest stages of the Germanic languages. It is argued that already in the oldest documents of Germanic there are cases which must involve movement of the finite verb from the Verb Phrase to a functional head position higher up in the hierarchical structure. In a well-defined set of cases this is the Complementizer (C) position, but in other cases an IP-internal functional head position seems more likely as a landing-site for the verb. Moreover, it is argued that whereas in Gothic and Old English the verb does not move to C when complements are topicalized, in the other old Germanic languages, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon, V–to–C movement is obligatory in topicalizations. An examination of the runic inscriptions reveals that topicalized complements triggered movement of the verb to C already at the earliest stage in the northern part of the Germanic linguistic area.

Impaginazione a cura di Margherita I. Grasso È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, non autorizzata, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata, compresa la fotocopia, anche a uso interno e didattico. L'illecito sarà penalmente perseguibile a norma dell'art. 171 della Legge n. 633 del 22.04.1941

This article argues that two poems concerned with legends of Goths and Huns, the Old Norse Hlöðskviða and the Old High German Hildebrandslied, provide an illuminating literary context for The Dream of the Rood. The critical utility of these poems inheres in their ability to delineate more precisely the intertextual relationship that obtains between The Dream of the Rood and the vernacular tradition of heroic poetry. When the poem is read in this context, Christ appears not to be vaguely heroic, but to be modelled on a specific type of hero: the intransigent youth who compels his unwilling adversary to fight him and ultimately take his life. The figures of Hlöð and Hadubrand are shown to constitute the most relevant extant realizations of this type, while related examples from Waltharius and the Finnsburg fragment are adduced in order to confirm that the type was both traditional and widespread.

The seemingly contradictory influences of r on neighboring sounds in the early Germanic languages have fueled controversy over r’s articulation in Proto-Germanic and later dialects. In this paper, we examine a number of these early Germanic sound changes and compare their effects to those observed in recent phonetic studies of the coarticulation of different types of r on adjacent vowels. We conclude that an apical trill and a central approximate r are phonetically the most likely conditioners of the earliest Germanic sound changes, while later changes can be accounted for by rhotics which were phonetically related to these earlier articulations.

The Etymological Dictionary of Old High German, Vol. V: iba – luzzilo [Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Bd. V: iba – luzzilo].
In: Domínguez-Rodríguez, Victoria / Rodríguez-Álvarez, Alicia / Rodríguez Herrera, Gregorio / Trujillo-González, Veronica C. (eds.): Words Across History: Advances in Historical Lexicography and Lexicology. Las Palmas: Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (CD-ROM; ISBN 978-84-9042-256-4), S. 67–77.

There is a growing acceptance that many words in the Germanic languages cannot be etymologized properly: it is assumed that a large part of the Germanic lexicon is of substrate origin. In this article a few such words are examined. It will be shown that in each case an Indo-European origin can be made likely, and the idea that they are borrowed from an unknown substrate language has to be dismissed, thus casting doubt on the idea of a vast substrate influence in the Germanic lexicon.

thief derivatives of PIE √(s)tah-(Ht. tāyezzi 'steals', Gr. tētáomai 'I rob' and OSl. tajǫ 'I hide'): *(s)tahyú-in Ved. (s)tāyú and Av. tāyu-; *(s)tahtis in OIr. táid and OSl. tatĭ; also Ved. stená-, etc.; *b h ṓr in Gr. phôr and Lt. fūr. wolf PIE *wĺ̥ k w os In. vṛ́ ka-; Av. vəhrka-; Persian gorg; Mazandarani verg; Gr. lúkos; Arm. gayl; Alb. ujk; Blt. *vilkas (Pr. wilk(i)s; Lith. vilkas; Lv. vilks); OSl. vlĭkŭ; Toch. B walkwe; see also Ht. walkuwa-'something dangerous/evil'; OIr. olc 'evil', possibly Luw. *walwa/ī-'lion' and Lyd. walwe(li)-; Gmc. *wulfaz (Goth. wulfs; ON ulfr; OE wulf > E wolf; OHG wolf > Germ. Wolf) and Lt. lupus possibly influenced by PIE *wl̥ p(i)-'fox', see Ht. ulip(pa)na-; Luw. walipna/ī-'wolf'.

The so called Three Good Brothers charm (in German Drei Brüder Segen) is part of a rich corpus of Medieval remedies against bleeding and wounds. The text has a bipartite structure with a dialogical historiola in which Jesus Christ reveals the brothers how to cure all kind of wounds. As it also contains the Longinus motif it is also referred to as a “Longinus charm”.
The charm, whose origin is probably the Latin Tres boni fratres, has a very long and rich manuscript tradition which begins in the 12-13th century in almost all European languages.
The most significant features of this text are its linguistic, geographic and time extension, and a peculiar motif-combination. The 26 German versions survive in 24 manuscripts written between the 13th and the 17th century; the central chapter of the present book deals with the description and transcription of those manuscripts. The oldest German variant of the 13th century is also known as Münchener Wundsegen “Munic wounds Charm” (Clm. 23374, f. 16v, see Chapter 2.16).
The rich motifs collection and the different manuscript versions have hitherto inhibited a philological edition with traditional methods, but the difficulty to find the "original text" or the "best manuscript" should not impede a philological analysis of the text.
This book advances a combination between rigorous philological analysis and investigation of the variants as a proof of the circulation of the text in everyday life.
The purpose of this book is to enhance the study of the Three Good Brothers charm by inquiring into the matter of oral discourse and of variability of the text. At the same time, the book seeks to suggest a different method for editing variant-texts.
The sections contained in chapter 1 focus on theoretical and methodological issues as well as on a review on other studies on this charm. The purpose of chapter 1 is to draw attention to the assumed oral origin of the text, the presumed double transmission (oral and written) and, as a consequence, to the philological problems. This chapter argues that there is no original version and therefore asserts that it does not have any sense to look for the oldest, the original, the pure text. After examining some crucial theoretical points it focuses on the method or methods which may be applied to investigate this text.
The second chapter is a review of all the manuscripts containing the German version of the charm. Each one is described following the catalogues and adding personal observations. A truthful transcription of all the German versions as they are written in the manuscripts is here given for the first time, along with images of manuscripts. In chapter three all the motifs pattern are compared and analyzed. After having examined all the known German versions the concluding chapter advances a cultural and linguistic overview.
At the end, an appendix files all other versions of the charm in other languages (including Latin) and all the charms which in some way resemble the Three Good Brothers charm or contain one or more of its motifs. The texts collected in the Appendix are quoted from other studies and not always have been checked in the manuscripts, but they may be useful as a comparison.
The book mainly addresses scholars and students of German philology and historical linguistics but the result of my research may be also useful to medievalists and to specialists in folklore and folk narrative studies.

The theory of language change has in recent years increased its explanatory repertoire by pointing out the role of language contact in determining which paths of development are entered and followed under specified conditions. In particular, language shifting – as unmonitored second language learning – is recognized as a powerful mechanism for introducing new verbal categories into language systems as well as leading to the loss of verbal categories from language systems. In this paper I will relate several of the most important structural changes and categorial differences in the verb systems of Proto-Germanic, Old English and Old High German to the different contact histories of these languages, among them: (1) the reduction of the Proto-Indo-European TAM system (TAM for tense, aspect, mood) to half its size in Proto-Germanic, (2) the existence of a double copular paradigm in Old English (and again in Irish English) but not in German; (3) a number of properties of English but not of German attributed to Celtic influence by Filppula, Klemola, and Paulasto (2008), such as the loss of the affected possessor construction and the rise of the verbal noun in -ung/-ing and the progressive based on it.

Donum natalicium digitaliter confectum Gregorio Nagy septuagenario a discipulis collegis familiaribus oblatum / A virtual birthday gift presented to Gregory Nagy on turning seventy by his students, colleagues, and friends. Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies.

Argues for a reversal of the order linguistics > applied linguistics. Our concepts and terminology derive from the need in the Alexandrian and Roman empires  to teach administrative languages to local populations. 'Linguistics' is a set of short cuts to language learning.

To cover the various reflexes in the daughter languages, Proto-Indo-European is commonly assumed to have had three series of dorsal stops for which Kümmel's (2007: 319) notation *K : *Q : *Kʷ will be used.
Phonotactic statistics suggest that *Q and *Kʷ may not have occurred in the same contexts at some stage prior to reconstructed Proto-Indo-European, i.e. they were in complementary distribution, and might therefore be regarded as allophones of a single phoneme series.  In most of the daughter language families these variants were redistributed to give reflexes of two rather than three series of dorsal stops.
Prescott (2012) proposed pharyngealization both of Proto-Germanic *r, *w, *χ, *χʷ to account for lowering/retraction of preceding vowels in early Germanic dialects and also of *r, *u, *k, *i  in Baltic, Slavic and Indo-Iranian to account for retracted articulations of following reflexes of PIE *s (the RUKI Rule).
PIE *u̯, *s, at least, seem to condition the occurrence of *Q rather than *Kʷ, so it is proposed that they were already pharyngealized in the parent language and that this phonological feature, RTR, was the cause of the allophony, *Q thus being also pharyngealized and partly continued in the pharyngealized *χ of Germanic and the *k of the RUKI group.

The Roman church used national languages deliberately in its missionary and educational activities. Thanks to the language politics of Aquileian and Bavarian dioceses in Slavic lands, Germanic, Romance and Slavic language contacts in middle and south-western Europe resulted in the emergence of the earliest Slavonic Christian terminology of Latin, Old High German and Romance provenance. When Old Church Slavonic writings originated in Pannonian and Moravian lands after 863, western vocabulary was transferred into newly composed OCS texts. The Western Church Slavonic lexeme čьstь ‘solemnity’ reflects a Medieval Latin and Old High German semantic shift, cf. lat. honor → solemnitas, and OHG ērhaftida (lit. ‘honesty’) as a gloss for lat. solemnitas. The history of the term čьstь ‘solemnity’ indicates that Slavic priests of Roman rite, who practiced Latin and graduated from Carolingian schools, translated OCS texts of Roman rite along with Methodius and his companions who translated OCS Bible from Greek.

In this paper, Old High German mood alternations in the different types of subordinate clauses (complement, adverbial and relative clauses) are discussed. The use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses is notoriously more frequent than in Modern German and has not yet been thoroughly investigated. Based on a comprehensive corpus study, the paper will show that the licensing conditions for the subjunctive in Old High German are determined by notions such as veridicality and – in relative contexts – specificity. These conditions are thus similar (but not always identical) to those observed for Modern Greek and Romance languages. Furthermore, a syntactic analysis is provided in order to account for the licensing of the subjunctive in each type of subordinate clause.

This thesis approaches the question of how nominal compounds as linguistic means contribute to the construction of cultural meaning within the framework of knowledge transfer in the medieval monastic school. The starting point for the study is the semiotic definition of culture, which sees culture as shared models for perceiving, relating and interpreting among members of a social group. Language is seen as the place where cultural meaning is constructed and manifests itself in significant patterns, i.e., patterns of language usage that have meaning due to the fact that they are patterns. The central objective of this study is to reveal such patterns in nominal compounds drawn from Old High German (or rather bilingual hybrid) adaptations of Latin school texts translated, or adapted by Notker III (Labeo). Focus is placed on newly formed compounds, as well as compounds that differ distinctively from their Latin models. Methodologically this study combines the morphosemantic analysis of nominal compounds with a hermeneutic approach interpreting compounds in their textual and cultural context. Three significant patterns were established: (1) explication of implied meaning, (2) summary of complex expressions, and (3) explanatory translation. The first pattern can be observed in cases where the power of compounds to give additional information was utilised, e.g., in order to ensure a certain interpretation of a metaphorical expression. The second pattern demonstrates the capacity of compounds to refer to more complex concepts, expressing underlying syntactic constructions in a more memorisable manner. Finally, recourse was taken to explanatory translation in order to make the concept easier to understand. The three patterns are not necessarily the only patterns used by Notker III (Labeo); rather they are to be seen as an exemplification of the potential of nominal compounds for meaning construction.

Présentation, édition et traduction allemande d'un 'modus' en langue mixte (latin-vieil-haut-allemand) des environs de l'an Mil, conservé dans les "Carmina Cantabrigiensia". Ce petit texte de 27 vers décrit la rencontre fictive de l'empereur Otton III avec le duc bavarois Henri le Quérelleur, en compagnie de son fils homonyme, le futur empereur Henri II. Ce qui frappe est le rôle éminent du duc Henri : il est accueilli de façon la plus respectueuse possible par Otton et il est ensuite mis en valeur par le poète anonyme comme conseiller de l'empereur.

Redazione informatica: Margherita I. Grasso È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, non autorizzata, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata, compresa la fotocopia, anche a uso interno e didattico. L'illecito sarà penalmente perseguibile a norma dell'art. 171 della Legge n. 633 del 22.04.1941 ISBN 978-88-6274-016-6 Lingua enim haec velut agrestis habetur, dum a propriis nec scriptura nec arte aliqua ullis est temporibus expolita; quippe qui nec historias suorum antecessorum, ut multae gentes caeterae, commendant memoriae, nec eorum gesta vel vitam ornant dignitatis amore 1 .

Abstract (from reprint in T.V., Germania Semitica, 2012, p. 345): The Old High German Second Merseburg charm contains two theonyms assumed since Jacob Grimm’s pioneering work to refer to the same god: Phol and Balder. These names are shown in this chapter to be etymologically nearly the same: Phol derives from borrowed Phoenic. Ba’al with Grimm’s Law, the Second Consonant Shift, and the regular vowel change +ā > ō. Balder is the same as Punic Baldir (< Baliddir < Ba‘al ’Iddīr < Ba‘al ’Addīr ‘Mighty Baal’), a young, Neo-Punic name form borrowed after Grimm’s Law. Thus Phol and Balder form a Lautverschiebung doublet of the kind known better for the Second Consonant Shift. The etymologies of folk and plough (from Semit. p-l-g ‘to divide’) are cited as showing another Grimm’s Law doublet (p > f, g > k in folk but not in plough, where plough is known to be a late borrowing). — The closing section interprets these and other religious borrowings in the context of  the economic activities of Carthage in the European North, which influenced the development of Germanic at the time of one of its defining transformations.

This paper studies exaptation from the perspective of language contact and structural borrowing. Drawing on data from different language-contact settings, I show that exaptation differs from grammaticalization, secondary grammaticalization, and degrammaticalization. I argue that exaptation is, also from the perspective of language contact, a suitable descriptive term and provides useful insights into the investigation of diachronic change, as it shows the functions targeted and the structural properties of the linguistic elements selected for exaptation.

Etymologischen Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen 0. Einleitung Das Etymologische Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen (EWA) ist bemüht, den Wortschatz des Althochdeutschen in dessen etymologischen Zusammenhängen darzustellen. Diese Zusammenhänge beziehen sich zunächst auf die Verbindungen innerhalb der germanischen Sprachgruppe, sodann innerhalb der indogermanischen Sprachfamilie, eine Gruppe miteinander genetisch verwandter Sprachen. Jedoch wird man bei der etymologischen Arbeit am EWA immer häufiger mit solchen Wörtern konfrontiert, die angeblich aus einer Substratsprache stammen sollen und daher nicht als aus dem Indogermanischen ererbt anzusehen wären. Die Zuweisung von Wörtern zu einer Substratsprache ist selbstverständlich keine neumodische Erscheinung, sondern hat es schon immer gegeben. Jedoch war die Annahme eines Substratwortes in früherer Zeit deutlich eingeengt, und zwar auf solche Wörter, die einerseits in der Indogermania völlig allein (also ohne einen möglichen etymologischen Anschluss) dastehen und von denen eine nicht-indogermanische Ursprung aus soziokulturellen Gründen wahrscheinlich gemacht werden konnte. Die Einordnung von Wörtern als Substratwörter hat heutzutage jedoch eine dramatische Erweiterung erfahren. Denn nicht nur Wörter dieser Art, sondern sogar solche, die nach gängiger Ansicht eine (mehr oder weniger) gute inner-indogermanische Etymologie haben, werden immer häufiger als Substratwörter angesehen. Die wachsende Zuweisung von Wörtern zu einer Kategorie "Substrat" findet sich momentan hauptsächlich in: 1) etymologischen Arbeiten, die ihren Ursprung in den Niederlanden habendiese Ansicht wird momentan gerade kanonisiert in der Wörterbuchreihe ‚Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series', so dass diese Gruppe im Folgenden als ‚Leidener Gruppe' benannt wird; 2) etymologischen Arbeiten von Vennemann und ihm verbundenen Forschern. Diese beiden Gruppen müssen voneinander unterschieden werden, weil ihre Herangehensweise eine völlig Unterschiedliche ist. Vennemann ist der Ansicht, dass eine genau identifizierbare Sprache als Gebersprache für die Substratwörter ausgemacht werden kann. In seiner Theorie wird diese Sprache Atlantidisch genannt, eine Sprache, die zur semitischen Sprachgruppe gehört. Diese soll sich als Superstrat über die vaskonischen Sprachen, die seiner Meinung nach in ganz Europa gesprochen wurden, gelegt haben, deren letzten Vertreter er im Baskischen erblickt. 1 Die ‚Leidener Gruppe' gibt demgegenüber für die Substratwörter keine explizite Gebersprache an. Im Folgenden werden einige Beispiele für Substratwörter herausgegriffen und untersucht. Dabei sollen folgende drei Fragen angesprochen werden: 1) Warum werden Substrateinflüsse überhaupt angenommen? 2) Was spricht eigentlich prinzipiell für eine indogermanischen Etymologie, was für die Annahme eines Substratwortes, m.a.W.: Wann hat ein Wort keine indogermanische Etymologie? 3) Was ist der methodologische Vorteil und der wissenschaftliche Wert bei der Annahme von Substratwörtern? Im Nachfolgenden werden die selbstverständlich vorhandenen Lehnwörter im Germansichen aus dem Keltischen und dem Lateinischen nicht zu Sprache kommen. 2 1. Der Fall althochdeutsch karpfo ‚Karpfen' Ein einziger Blick auf den althochdeutschen Gesamtwortschatz zeigt deutlich, dass nicht jedes einzelne Wort einen etymologischen Anschluss in anderen idg. Sprachen findet. In solchen Fällen scheint die Annahme eines Substrateinflusses naheliegend zu sein. 3 Ein Beispiel für Wörter dieser Art mag genügen: althochdeutsch karpfo maskuliner n-Stamm (neben karpfa femininer n-Stamm und kerpfo maskuliner n-Stamm) ‚Karpfen'. Während das althochdeutsche Wort auf eine Vorform urgermanisch *karppan/ōn-zurückgeht, weisen die Entsprechungen der anderen germ. Sprachen, nämlich mittelniederdeutsch karpe, 1 Ein kurzer, handlicher Überblick über die Theorie von Vennemann samt einer kritischen Stellungnahme findet sich jetzt in Michel Meier-Brügger, Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft. 9., durchgesehene und ergänzte Auflage, Berlin/New York 2010, S. 166-172. 2 Zu diesen vgl. überblicksmäßig etwa D.H. Green, Language and history in the early germanic world, Cambridge 2000, S. 145-163 und 201-218. 3 Jedoch werden in der Regel übertriebene Zahlenangaben von Substratwörtern gegeben; so geht John A. Hawkins, "The Germanic Languages", in B. Comrie (ed.), The World's major languages, London 2009, S. XXX-XXX davon aus, das 1/3 des germanischen Wortschatzes auf Substrateinfluss basiert. Dies steht ganz in Gegensatz zu den Angaben in den unterschiedlichen Auflagen von The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, rev. and ed. by Calvert Watkins, Boston/New York, in der die Zahl der Wurzel, die nur im Germanischen bezeugt sein soll, immer weiter abnimmt. mittelniederländisch carpe(r) ‚Karpfen' auf urgermanisch *karpan/ōn-. 4 Schwierig in der Beurteilung ist die altisländische Entsprechung karfi ‚Karpfen'. In der Regel wird es als ein Lehnwort aus mittelhochdeutsch karpfe angesehen, wobei dann angenommen werden müsste, dass altisländisch -f-eine Lautsubstitution für althochdeutsch -pf-darstellt. 5 Da dies nicht unbedingt naheliegend ist, 6 wird altisländisch karfi teils auch als ein im Nordgermanischen ererbtes Wort angesehen. In diesem Fall wäre urgermanisch *karƀan-als Vorform für altisländisch karfi anzusetzen. 7 Wie auch immer die altisländische Form zu beurteilen ist, klar ist, dass die rekonstruierte urgermanische Vorform etymologisch nicht weiter anschließbar ist. Die außergermanischen Entsprechungen, nämlich mittellateinisch carpo, carpa, carpio ‚Karpfen' (die Grundlage für mittelenglisch carpe, neuenglisch carp, woraus wiederum kymrisch karp entnommen wurde), 8 litauisch kárpa, lettisch karpe, 9 russisch karp ‚Karpfen' (aus dem Slawischen stammt albanisch krap ‚ds.'), 10 sind nämlich letztendlich sämtlich Entlehnungen aus dem Germanischen (und zwar aus der germanischen Form mit *-p-). Die Verbreitung des Wortes ist aus seiner Bedeutung als Fastenspeise zu erklären. Wie kommt es, dass nach relativ einhelliger Auffassung dieses Wort als ein Substratwort angesehen wird? Die Antwort auf diese Frage ist, dass dieser Fisch im Alpengebiet und in der Donau heimisch ist, der geographische Lebensraum des Fisches somit ziemlich beschränkt ist. Es scheint aus diesem Grund naheliegend zu sein, dass die Germanen in der Zeit, als sie den Fisch kennenlernten, gleichzeitig dessen einheimischen Namen übernahmen. Ist diese Annahme eigentlich irgendwie gesichert? Leider nein. Wenn man sich nämlich die genauen urgermanischen Vorformen *karppan/ōn-: *karp(/ƀ)an/ōn-näher

Vor 1000 Jahren starb der St.Galler Mönch Notker III., genannt "Notker der Deutsche". Seine Leistungen auf dem Gebiet der Übersetzung damals zentraler Schultexte in die althochdeutsche Volkssprache markieren einen Höhepunkt in der europäischen Bildungsgeschichte des Mittelalters und in der Überlieferung des Althochdeutschen. Notkers Werk ist traditioneller Forschungsgegenstand der historischen Germanistik. Seit jüngerer Zeit sind auch breitere Kreise auf Notker aufmerksam geworden, darunter die Geschichtswissenschaft, Mittellatinistik, Philosophie, historische Astronomie und Musikwissenschaft. Die Tagung befasst sich mit der interdisziplinären Ausweitung der Notker Forschung und bezweckt eine erstmalige Erarbeitung von Notkers Gesamtprofil.

This book presents the studies on the history of words denoting ancient realia and processes of textile and metal handcrafts and pottery among the Germanic people, carried out by the Russian linguist Ekaterina Skvairs (Catherine Squires) over a longer period. While the main focus is on Old High German, Old English and Old Scandinavian language material is also presented on a comparative basis. By analyzing the etymology, word building and semantic change the author offers an insight into the oldest contacts between Germanic, Celtic and Slavonic languages and cultures. Numerous illustrations show authentic archeological objects as well as historical reconstructions. The book is aimed at academics in the fields of ancient European history, paleolinguistics and the history of Germanic, Celtic and Slavonic languages, while those who are simply curious about these subjects will also find it interesting; the material and methodological approach shown in the book will be useful for teaching and lecturing.

Vor mehr als tausend Jahren war die deutsche Sprache sehr verschieden: der Mond hieß māno, un die Sonne sunna. In einer Gegend Italiens, die vom Breitengrad und von der Kultur her, als so italienisch wie z.B. Mailand oder Padua angesehen werden kann, hat man bis in den Beginn des 2. Jahrtausends alte Leute hören können, die diese Wörter genauso wie im Althochdeutschen aussprachen. Solche besonderen Italiener sind die Zimbern. In diesem kleinen Buch wird sowohl ihre Geschichte als auch ihre Sprache kurz gefasst beschrieben.