Old High German

Old High German (OHG) is the earliest form of the German language. It was used from around 500 or 750 until about 1050. It wasn't one single language. Instead, it was a group of many different West Germanic dialects that changed in sound in similar ways. This change is called the Second Sound Shift.

During this time, different areas began to come together under the rule of Charlemagne. This helped unite the OHG dialects into one larger region. It also set the language border between German and what would become French.

Old High German had many complex grammar rules from older Germanic languages. When these rules started to become simpler, it marked the beginning of Middle High German. Most texts from this time were written in special rooms in monasteries called scriptoria. These texts were mostly about Christianity, with some early examples being short notes called glosses that helped explain Latin writings.

Periodisation

Old High German is the earliest form of the German language. It was used from about 750 to 1050. During this time, people started writing in Old High German. They wrote small notes and later made bigger translations and stories. Some experts believe the sound changes that mark this period began even earlier, around the 6th century.

By the mid-11th century, the spelling of words changed a lot. This showed big changes in how nouns and adjectives were used. This time is usually seen as the end of Old High German and the start of Middle High German.

Territory

Further information: Francia, Carolingian Empire, and Frankish language

Old High German includes dialects that changed during the 6th century. This change is called the Second Sound Shift. It mostly affected Upper and Central German dialects.

In the west, the Franks began speaking Gallo-Romance. North of this area, they kept their language, but it changed differently. In the south, the Lombards lived in Northern Italy and kept their dialect. Later, Charlemagne conquered them, and they slowly began speaking the local Romance language.

Dialects

Further information: Proto-Germanic language and Germanic languages

Old High German did not have just one form. It had many different dialects. These dialects were grouped by where people lived and changes in sounds over time. The main dialects were Central German, Upper German, and a mix called East Franconian.

Important cities where these dialects were used included Trier, Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Freising, Passau, and Regensburg. Some dialects, like Thuringian and Langobardic, have very little evidence left today.

Literacy

Further information: Oaths of Strasbourg, Germanic Christianity, and Anglo-Saxon mission

Old High German writing grew because of monasteries. Important places were St. Gallen, Reichenau Island, and Fulda. It started when Saint Boniface built the German church in the mid-8th century. Writing grew more during the Carolingian Renaissance in the 9th century.

Important poems from this time, like the Hildebrandslied and the Muspilli, were saved by scholars. But only a little of this writing remains today.

Rabanus Maurus, a student of Alcuin and later abbot at Fulda, helped support German writing. His students were Walafrid Strabo and Otfrid of Weissenburg. Later, Notker Labeo became a great writer in Old High German and made a system for writing the language.

Writing system

Old High German changed from using runic writing to the Latin alphabet. The Latin alphabet did not have all the sounds needed for German. So writers made up their own ways to spell words. This led to many different spellings.

One writer, Otfrid von Weissenburg, wrote about these problems in his book. He said spelling was hard because sometimes too many letters were used. Other writers, like those in the Isidor, also knew about these issues.

Phonology

The charts show the vowel and consonant sounds of the East Franconian dialect from the 9th century. This dialect comes from the monastery of Fulda, especially from an old book called the Tatian. Dictionaries and grammar books about Old High German often use the spellings from the Tatian because they are close to the forms of words in Middle High German.

Vowels

Old High German had six short vowel sounds and five long vowel sounds. These vowels appeared in both stressed and unstressed parts of words. There were also six combinations of vowels called diphthongs.

Consonants

The biggest change between Old High German and earlier West Germanic languages was a series of sound shifts called the Second Sound Shift. This change made the consonant sounds of German different from other West Germanic languages, like English and Low German. Because the shift affected different areas in different ways, it is hard to describe one single system for all of Old High German.

Phonological developments

Here are some of the main sound changes that helped turn Common West Germanic into Old High German:

• Soft voiced sounds like /ɣ/ and /β/ became hard sounds like /ɡ/ and /b/.
• Voiceless sounds like /p/, /t/, and /k/ changed into fricatives and affricates in certain positions.
• The long vowel sounds *ē₂ and *ō turned into the combinations /ie/ and /uo/.
• The sound *ai became ei except in some positions where it stayed as ē.
• The sound /eu/ mixed with /iu/ in some cases and became /io/ in others.

Morphology

Nouns

Verbs

Tense

Old High German used a simple system with two tenses: present and past, called the preterite. It also developed three new tenses: perfect, pluperfect, and future. These new tenses were formed by combining helper verbs with past participles. Over time, these participles changed from acting like adjectives to becoming part of the verb itself.

Old High German also created ways to talk about the future using helper verbs like skulan and werden along with the main verb. The present tense was still used to talk about future events, just like in modern German.

Conjugation

The following is a sample conjugation of a strong verb, nëman "to take".

Syntax

Old High German syntax can be hard to understand because many texts were translations from Latin. This influenced how sentences were built. Poems also followed special patterns for rhyme and rhythm. But the basic rules for word order were similar to modern Standard German.

One big difference was that sometimes the subject pronoun, like "I" or "he," was left out of sentences. For example, an early Alemannic creed from St Gall starts with "kilaubu in got vater almahticun," which means "I believe in God the almighty father" in modern German. By the end of the Old High German period, using a subject pronoun became necessary, and definite articles started to appear.

Texts

Early Old High German times had many missionaries traveling around. By the year 800, most people in the Frankish Empire had become Christian. Most old writings from this time were made in special rooms in churches called scriptoria by people known as scribes. These scribes often wrote in Latin, so many Old High German books are about religion and use words from ecclesiastical Latin.

One of the oldest known Old High German texts is called the Abrogans, a book that lists words in both Latin and Old High German. Another old text is the Hildebrandslied, a story that was later written down in church books. There were also special prayers and poems from long ago, like the Wessobrunn Prayer and the Muspilli. Later, people wrote stories based on the Bible, such as the Evangelienbuch by Otfrid von Weissenburg.

Example texts

The Lord's Prayer is shown in four different Old High German dialects. These translations come from a religious service. They help us see how the language changed in different places. This gives us a clear look at the differences between the dialects.