Old Saxon

Old Saxon was an ancient Germanic language spoken by the Saxons, a Germanic tribe living in what is now northwestern Germany and the eastern Netherlands. It was the earliest form of Low German, a language still spoken today in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas, and parts of Eastern Europe. Old Saxon was used from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German.

This language was closely related to other West Germanic languages, such as Anglo-Frisian, which includes Old Frisian and Old English. One special feature Old Saxon shared with these languages was the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, which made it different from languages like Dutch, Luxembourgish, and German.

Old Saxon had a complex grammar system. It used five grammatical cases — nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental — to show relationships between words in a sentence. It also had three grammatical numbers: singular, plural, and dual, with the dual form used only for the first and second persons. Additionally, the language had three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

Characteristics

Old Saxon was a West Germanic language that was closely related to Old English and Old Dutch. During the early Middle Ages, there was a dialect continuum between Old Dutch and Old Saxon. One key difference among these languages was in how they formed plural nouns. For example, Old Dutch used the ending -a for certain plural nouns, while Old Saxon and Old English used -as or -os.

Over time, Old Saxon gradually changed into Middle Low German during the 11th and 12th centuries. Around the year 1150, there was a big shift from using Latin to using Low German in writing. One major change from Old Saxon to Middle Low German was in how vowels were pronounced in unstressed parts of words. This change, known as vowel reduction, affected many West Germanic languages and even some Scandinavian dialects like Danish.

Phonology

Old Saxon had unique sounds compared to other old German languages. It kept certain consonant sounds like p, t, and k that changed in other languages. For example, the word for "saviour" kept a sound that became different in related languages.

The language also had special vowel combinations and rules for how sounds changed between words. These patterns helped shape the way Old Saxon evolved into later forms of German.

Grammar

Old Saxon was an inflected language, meaning its words changed endings to show their role in a sentence. It used five different cases to show relationships between words, and it had three grammatical numbers: singular (one), dual (two), and plural (many). Nouns changed endings based on their gender and role in the sentence.

Verbs in Old Saxon also changed form to show tense and who was doing the action. The language had seven strong verb classes and three weak verb classes, with some verbs having special patterns. Sentences were structured differently from modern English, often placing the verb in the second position and allowing multiple negatives in a row for emphasis.

Orthography

Old Saxon has come down to us in various manuscripts, and their spelling systems can differ quite a bit. This section focuses on the letters used in normalized versions of the Heliand, and the sounds modern scholars have traditionally assigned to these letters. In general, the spelling of Old Saxon lines up well with other ancient Germanic languages, like Old High German or Gothic.

Some key points about Old Saxon spelling include:

• ⟨c⟩ and ⟨k⟩ were both used for the sound [k]. When followed by ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩, they made the sound /ts/ or /kʲsʲ/.
• ⟨g⟩ represented the sounds [ɣ] or [ɡ], as in brengian meaning 'to bring'.
• ⟨h⟩ stood for the sounds [h] and [x], like in naht meaning 'night'.
• ⟨i⟩ was used for the vowels [ɪ] and [iː], and also the consonant [j], as in ik meaning 'I'.
• ⟨qu⟩ and ⟨kw⟩ always represented the sound [kw], as in quāmun meaning 'they came'.
• ⟨th⟩ indicated the sound [θ], while ⟨ð⟩ was used for [ð].
• ⟨u⟩ represented the vowels [ʊ] and [uː], or the consonant [β] ~ [v].
• ⟨uu⟩ was normally used for the sound [w], before the letter ⟨w⟩ was commonly used.
• ⟨z⟩ appeared only in a few texts, mainly due to Old High German influence.

Literature

Only a few texts from Old Saxon survive today. Most of them are baptismal vows that the Saxons had to say because of Charlemagne. The main literary texts we have are called Heliand and pieces of the Old Saxon Genesis. Other surviving texts include:

• Beda homily (Homilie Bedas)
• Credo (Abrenunciatio diaboli et credo) – an Old Saxon baptismal vow
• Essener Heberegister
• Old Saxon Baptismal Vow (German: Sächsisches Taufgelöbnis)
• Penitentiary (altsächsische Beichte, altwestfälische Beichte)
• Trierer Blutsegen
• Spurihalz (Wiener Pferdsegen)
• Wurmsegen (Wiener Wurmsegen)
• Psalms commentary (Gernroder Psalmenkommentar)

Text sample

A poetic version of the Lord's Prayer is shown in Old Saxon. It uses a special style of Germanic poetry called alliterative verse, as found in the book called Heliand.