Stackmann’s Lachmann

Gothic <i>leiþu</i>, “strong drink; fruit wine?” and its Cognates in the Germanic Languages

Nietzsche-Forum-München

There is considerable debate regarding the effect of population subdivision (heterogeneity) on the probability of a chance or coincidental match between two DNA samples studied with respect to multiple, polymorphic genetic markers. We have theoretically investigated the relationship between the average similarity between two randomly chosen DNA samples and the probability of an identical match between these samples, and population subdivision. Our results demonstrate that the average similarity and the match probability is smaller when population heterogeneity exists as compared to a random mating population with identical gene frequencies, for realistic values of heterogeneity. In other words, ignoring subdivision provides numerical values only slightly larger than the true values and are, thus, conservative.

Charlemagne in Medieval German and Dutch Literature

MLR, 98.4, 2003 1075 in the middle of a liturgical procession through the streets of Rome. Since then, the tale continues, papal processions have made a detour to avoid the spot, now marked by a statue, and it has been a fixed part of the investiture ritual that prospective popes must sit on a chair with a hole in its seat, while the 'lowest ofthe deacons' verifies his gender by means ofa medical examination conducted from underneath. The resulting term 'pontificals' as a euphemism formale pudenda deserves to have wider currency. In this study, originally published as La Papessejeanne (Paris: Aubier, 1988), Alain Boureau investigates the thirteenth-century origins of this myth with painstaking attention to detail. He begins with the chairs, which still exist; they are a magnificent pair of marble bathing chairs, or just possibly birthing chairs, which were presumably part of the furnishings of the Lateran when it was an imperial palace. Boureau argues that they were used in the investiture ceremony because their shape could be seen as an echo of the folding curule chairs which were a symbol of the power of consuls and praetors, but as they also echo a commode, they invited scurrilous parodies, including the fiction of the verification ceremony. The 'four times' were pre-Christian nights of misrule in which a bawdy inversion of the liturgy developed; Boureau sees the female pope as an inevitable extension of this. Along these and similar byways of history he is able to explain each element of the myth in terms of the dynamics of papal power, its outward demonstration, and the reactions it provoked. Next, Boureau traces the historical development of the figureofJoan as a weapon in a succession of ecclesiastical debates from the teething troubles of the early Franciscans through the bitter polemic ofthe Reformation to the anticlericalism ofthe French Revolution, revealing her as a supple jade, adaptable to every need. As her political usefulness wanes in the Enlightenment, she finds a new life as a theme for literary representations, such as Achim von Arnim's Pdpstinjohanna. This excellent investi? gation of the history of a motif raises profound questions about gender constructions and the self-understanding of Church and papacy in the Middle Ages. A lengthy dis? course on Joan's 'sisters'?Hildegard of Bingen, Joan of Are, and others who, in dif? ferent ways, challenged the patriarchalism of medieval institutions?places the myth of the she-pope in the context of the tensions and frustrations of gender and power. The book is beautifully written. In the discursive style typical of French academies, Boureau does not lead us in a straight line from the beginning to the end of his ar? gument, preferring to approach issues from obscure angles, circle around them, and spiral in towards his central point. For the Anglo-Saxon reader it is a delight to peruse such accomplished Gallic writing so proficiently translated. The distanced irony and dry humour of the book make it a thoroughly entertaining read, without ever compromising scholarly integrity. The language of the translation is extremely fine; Ms Cochrane has clearly taken time and care, for which an academic translator is rarely compensated adequately. Given so many virtues in a single volume, it would be boorish to quibble about details, and I therefore merely mention that a thirteenth-century German poet wrote Middle High German, not Old High German (p. 116). University of Regensburg Graeme Dunphy Res et verba in der Renaissance. Ed. by Eckhard Kessler and Ian Maclean. (Wolfenbutteler Abhandlungen zur Renaissanceforschung, 21) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz . 2002. 398 pp. ISBN 3-447-04654-6 (hbk). Conferences on the Renaissance and the volumes of their proceedings are legion, but relatively few of them explore neglected topics. The organizers of the colloquium at Wolfenbuttel out of which this volume has emerged deserve to be congratulated for 1076 Reviews thinking of the relation between words and things in the Renaissance as a possible topic, as well as for putting together a team that could engage with the subject in an interesting and scholarly way. The resulting volume consists of fifteenpapers, one in French, four in German, and ten in English, by scholars in fields that include...

Special cases call for special editorial principles. The real longsellers under Early New High German chapbooks are retold for half a millennium again and again. If you perceive these works as a material transmitted, multi-dimensional ‘type of book’, the philological attention switches from the original authors to printers, engravers, tradesmen, and other artisans. These become the actual agents of the history of literature. Therefore the editorial practice has to precede a transmission orientated literary historiography and analysis. This is shown in the present case by considering the example of a hybrid edition of the prose-novel Herzog Ernst. The printed book and its ‘paratexts’ become the historical object of philology. This approach gains relevance beyond the genre of chapbook.

The Historic German Valency Dictionary should not be only a synchronic description of the valency of a selection of Old High German, Middle High German and Early Hew High German verbs, but also illustrate the history of valency (diachronic) of these verbs within a semantic field. This paper gives an overview of the previous research undertaken in the field of the history of valency. Based on a case study, it develops a method to illustrate the history of valency by the comparison of synchronic historic cross-sections.

While the development of German -ung-nominalization (e. g. Landung ›landing‹, Bildung ›education‹, Heizung ›heating installation‹, Bedienung ›service; waiter/waitress‹) from Early New High German to New High German is fairly well-studied, the Middle High German (MHG) period has been neglected so far. This paper aims at filling this gap with a corpus-based study of MHG -ung-nominals. The data are derived from the document archive of the new MHG dictionary, containing about 7 million word forms from 207 texts. From these data, a corpus of 2355 -ung-nominals in their respective contexts has been assembled and analyzed. The corpus provides evidence for the hypothesis that the MHG -ung-nominals adopt the semantic content of their respective base verbs altogether more comprehensively than their NHG equivalents. However, the tendency towards lexicalization (and, thereby, loss of transparency and decrease of ›verb-proximity‹) is already visible. Therefore I argue that the development of ung-nominals from rather peripheral to more prototypical nouns by means of lexicalization started as early as in the MHG period.

Reviewed by: Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Dialektliteratur seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts: Ein literaturhistorischer Überblick mit Textbeispielen in 6 Büchern by Peter Pabisch Albrecht Classen Peter Pabisch. Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Dialektliteratur seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts: Ein literaturhistorischer Überblick mit Textbeispielen in 6 Büchern. Germanistische Lehrbuchsammlung, 20.I-VI. Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag, 2019. Vol. 1, 483 p. There are many more dialects in this world than so-called standard languages (ca. 26,000 vs. ca. 7100). Dialects represent a linguistic dimension, which is hard to evaluate, especially regarding their social status, their rank within literary discourse, their communicative function and effectiveness, and their emotive value. They represent a linguistic minority, despite their much larger number all over the world, probably because all human societies have tried hard throughout time to establish a universal language—spoken, written, and understood by most people within one "nation"—while every region, province, or territory (even every village or city) maintained, willy-nilly, its own version. Dialect, however, has much to do with local culture and identity, and it still assumes a significant role in Europe and other parts of the world, whereas the situation in the United States (or Russia?) seems to be rather different, especially in light of the mass media since the early twentieth century, which contributed significantly to the elimination of dialects. However, even in the New World, a native speaker of New York might not be easily understood by someone from New Orleans, for instance, and vice versa. Peter Pabisch, Professor Emeritus of the University of New Mexico, explores the history of dialects in German literature since the time of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) until the recent past. His magisterial, six-volume treatment of this topic deserves our respect for its erudition, the author's enormous energy in collecting a vast range of relevant texts, and the sensibility regarding the many efforts across the German-speaking world to preserve and practice dialects, especially in literary texts. The reviewer received only volume one, which is the most important one for the entire project because it outlines the historical framework of dialect literature, analyzes its evolution and function in the wider context and in specific works, and weighs and [End Page 73] balances the significance of dialects in the history of German culture since around 1800. Volume 2 contains the critical apparatus, the bibliography, appendices, and illustrations; volumes 3-6 present copies or excerpts of the relevant texts. Since the early Middle Ages, there was a constant effort throughout German-speaking lands to negotiate the relationship between regional and standard language. This first led to the emergence of Old High German, then Middle High German, and finally Early New High German, with Martin Luther having been one of the most influential catalysts (not the creator!) in the development of the new standard language. Nevertheless, dialects are rather conservative, and they have survived until today, both in spoken and written German (and this actually in many parts of the world, including the USA); hence, the existence of dialect literature, although its function and relevance have always been questioned, debated, and fought about. Pabisch traces these ongoing negotiations in theoretical and practical terms, mostly beginning with central contributions by Herder, to whose insights he returns repeatedly. Much previous scholarship is reviewed at length, which might exhaust some readers since it amounts to a kind of bibliography within the text (not in the notes). However, the author is right to overview the vast field of research focused on dialects and especially on literature composed in dialect. The discussion then turns to the many writers of dialect literature, tracing the tradition from mid-eighteenth century to the recent past by offering brief biographical sketches and critical comments. Might it not have been better to place that information directly in front of the respective text editions in the subsequent volumes? We observe with great interest that there was obviously never any hiatus in the use of non-standard language, but very often a rather deliberate decision by literary historians simply to ignore those texts written in dialect as unwelcome competition. However, the use of dialect made it possible for many writers to preserve...

Reviewed by: Germanica selecta: Ausgewählte Schriften zur germanischen und deutschen Philologie zum 75 by Stefan Sonderegger John M. Jeep Germanica selecta: Ausgewählte Schriften zur germanischen und deutschen Philologie zum 75. Geburtstag des Autors. By Stefan Sonderegger. Ed. by Harald Burger and Elvira Glaser. Tübingen: A Francke, 2002. Pp. 659. ISBN 3772027830. $153.83 (Hb). Published in recognition of Professor emeritus Stefan Sonderegger’s 75th birthday, Germanica selecta contains thirty-three of the honoree’s many published articles on Germanic and German philology. Dating from 1959 through 2000, the articles display Sonderegger’s unusual scholarly breadth and depth while simultaneously documenting and acknowledging a long and illustrious research agenda. Sonderegger taught at the University of Zurich for well over thirty years and was celebrated upon his retirement in articles by his colleagues, former students, and friends in a remarkable and important festschrift Verborum amor (ed. by Harald Burger, Alois M. Haas, and Peter von Matt, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992). These two collections present complementary aspects of Sonderegger’s solid work in Germanic philology, with a strong concentration on the medieval period as well as scholarly works which frequently draw on territory Sonderegger himself has charted. Germanica selecta includes an update of the bibliography in the festschrift, with some seventy-five items for the period 1992–2002. The six headings under which the essays are classified help outline Sonderegger’s wide range, thus the appeal this collection offers: ‘Comparative history of the Germanic languages’, ‘Germanic-German legal and charter language’, ‘The history of the German language in general’, ‘Old High German language and literature’, ‘Middle High German and Early New High German’, and ‘The history of the study of Germanic philology and the Brothers Grimm’ [translations mine]. Only one of the articles (‘Languages and culture in the Germanic-speaking world: The history of the written word’, translated for publication in 1997) is in English. But these headings, as broad as they sound, only hint at the areas Sonderegger commands: Gothic, his native Alemannic dialect, Swedish, Dutch, Latin, and Greek, onomastics, runes, historiography, legal issues, translation, rhetoric, oral and written registers, lexicology, humanism, theology, xenophobia, and St. Gall, among others. Had an index been provided, it would have been extensive and impressive indeed. No fewer than six articles deal with Notker Labeo, the Benedictine monk (d. 1022) whose translations and commentary of classical and Biblical texts Sonderegger has studied in great detail. In his descriptions of historical linguistic phenomena, Sonderegger strives to uncover both that which is consistent across time and that which is changing, following, as it were, in Jacob Grimm’s footsteps—Grimm having described language as ‘that which never stands still’ (das unstillstehende). One of the masterworks of twentieth-century historical linguistic studies of German is Sonderegger’s own Grundzüge deutscher Sprachgeschichte: Diachronie des Sprachsystems, vol. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979). The editors claim they have selected Sonderegger’s most important articles from 1959–2000, without attempting to justify their choices. Not only are [End Page 190] the essays reprinted (and retypeset), but some small corrections have been included. Equally important, the editors have thankfully added wording to alert the reader to cited articles that are in this collection. Original publication data are provided, although the references to the reprinted articles do not include updated pagination, a minor irritation. Nearly two-thirds of the essays first appeared in festschrifts, some of which may not be readily available in libraries, a further justification for this new volume. Some lack of consistency occurs naturally, due to editions being available at various junctures or to original editing norms (for example, the use of abbreviations). Those familiar with Sonderegger’s work will here again appreciate his use of reproductions from manuscripts and other books (some from his own remarkable private library), the inclusion of tables and charts, and his unfailing strategy of providing rich original linguistic documentation as well as critical footnotes. Like few others in the field, Sonderegger has a command of the history of the discipline of Germanic philology and has made its founder, Jacob Grimm, an object of his research. For readers of Language, of special interest might be Sonderegger’s investigation of Grimm’s...

ARTHURIANA Huston and Allen seem at least to be having fun with their parts. Huston maintains a gyno-sacerdotal demeanor appropriate to the Lady ofthe Lake, and Allen plays the vamp as heavy in a throwback to an acting style that seems inspired by Theda Bara. Margulies, try as she might, simply lacks gravitas—her still-intact-television ER midwestern accent making an already tinny dialogue sound only worse. Present in the miniseries is the battle between pagan/feminine/nurturing and Christian/masculine/destructive, with the Saxons thrown in for good measure as enemies to all. The time frame is correct, and some of the costuming and sets are close enough, but overall a great deal oftalent, time, money, and effort seems to have been for naught. It is encouraging that interest in movies and telefilms set in some version of the Middle Ages continues (cf. this Summer's A Knight's Tale which, for all its anachronisms, is still a better reimagining of the medieval). One only wishes that this interest provided us with something better to watch—and to write about. KEVIN J. HARTY 1.a Salle University w. H. Jackson and s. a. ranawake, eds., The Arthur ofthe Germans. The Arthurian Legendin Medieval German andDutch Literature. Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, III. Cardiff: University ofWales Press, 2000. Pp. xii, 337. isbn: o—7083-1595-x. $65. Volume III ofthe series Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, like the two previous volumes on Welsh (1991) and English (1999) Arthurian literature, was published in cooperation with the Vinaver Trust, established by the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society to commemorate the distinguished scholar Eugène Vinaver. The volumes in this series are intended to be successors to the now classic Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages (1959). In his Preface, W R. J. Barron notes that the volumes are 'primarily addressed to students of the individual culture in question, but also to those of other cultures who, for the appreciation of their own Arthurian literature, need to be aware ofthe various expressions ofthe legend' (p. ix). Therefore, 'the volumes aim to present the present state of knowledge as individual contributors see it' and who 'also address the needs ofspecialist scholars by discussing current academic controversies, and themselves treating open questions of research' (p. ix). The volume is divided into five parts: 1. 'Reception and Appropriation: The German Verse Romances, Twelfth Century to 1300'; 2. Continuity and Change in the Later Middle Ages'; 3. The Medieval Dutch Arthurian Material'; 4. Other Literary, Pictorial and Social Manifestations of Arthurian Culture'; 5. 'The Legacy' The Arthur ofthe Germans encompasses more than the subtitle would suggest, for the volume also contains a chapter on 'King Arthur and his Round Table in the Culture of Medieval Bohemia and in Medieval Czech Literature' by Alfred Thomas (pp. 249-56). In the Introduction (pp. 1-18), W. H. Jackson and Silvia Ranawake remark that 'the volume must be understood in the medieval, integrative sense ofthe words dietsch and tiutsch' REVIEWS123 (p. 1), that is, Middle High German and Middle Dutch respectively, which were just beginning to separate out as distinct languages. FIence also the inclusion of Czech literature, which shows 'a further eastward spread of Arthurian literature into the Slav world through the medium ofGerman' (p. 2). The first chapter, 'The Western Background' by Ingrid Kasten, sketches 'the early history of the Arthurian legend, which preceded its reception in German literature' (p. 21). And this is followed, as one would expect, by chapters on FIartmann von Aue, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich von dem Türlin, Der Stricker, Der Pleier, and the late thirteenth-century anonymous Wigamur, Gauriel, Lohengrin, as well as fragments of Arthurian romances. Gottfried von Strassburg is saved for Part Two, where Mark Chinea discusses the entire German Tristan tradition in 'Tristan Narratives from the High to the Later Middle Ages' (pp. 117-34), to which chapter Volker Mertens has contributed an appendix on 'Arthur in the Tristan Tradition' (pp. 135-41). The second part also contains chapters on the Wigalois narratives, the Prosa-Lancelot, late medieval summations, such as Ulrich Fiietrer's Buch der Abenteuer, and Lorengel. Parts...

The article deals with the transition from the Old High German diphthongs into Middle High German, there are established causes and trends of vowel combinations and the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of diphthongs of this period. There was held a statistic analysis of diphthongs which was based on the material of texts of Middle High period and there was established the frequency of the use of diphthongs as a percentage. Middle High German period is a transitional period in the history of the language.This phase covers the monuments of XII-XIII centuries and represents variety of dialects, which are characterized by diversity in the implementation of phonemes. However, the socio-historical and cultural-historical changes were the spur for the formation of common language. Therefore, on the basis of the functioning of the written fixation of sounds in the literature is presented the rather monotonous sound system, in particular diphthongs.The most important phonetic change in this period is the process of confluence of phonemes, which had led to a reduction in the future. The process of separating of phonemes led to the appearance of new phonemes - umlauts. The process of monoftongization and diphthongization has given the opportunity to analyse the transition of phonemes and diphthongs of Old High German into Middle High German . The study of the functioning of diphthongs which was based on material of texts from Middle High period prompted to determine the number and frequency of implementation of diphthongs in three positions of a word as a percentage.

The product of consecutive fora and colloquia in 2016 and 2017, the concurrently held Forum “Sprachvariation” of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Dialektologie des Deutschen and the doctoral seminar of the Verein für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, this volume assembles eight essays in four thematic areas: three studies on Middle Low German language, three on Middle Low German (MLG) literature, and one each on MLG and Early New High German (ENHG) literature, and ENHG language. Chronologically spanning the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries, the collection does not cohere strongly around a topic or disciplinary focus (“Schriftkultur,” p. 1, is rather broad). Rather it seeks to advance the field of MLG Studies, which have languished significantly compared to diachronic and synchronic studies in High German varieties. To this end, the studies provide fertile ground for future research, despite often rather narrow emphases without recourse to comparative developments in Middle High German (MHG) or other Germanic languages and literatures.

Beards and Texts. Images of Masculinity in Medieval German Literature

This paper focuses on the diachrony of Subject Gap Coordination in German, that is, coordination structures with a subject gap in one (or more) conjuncts. Subject Gap Coordination can be attested continuously from Early Old High German until the present day, but so far, it has been addressed almost exclusively in a synchronic perspective. Based on new Old High German and Middle High German data, I argue that the licensing conditions of the subject gap in coordination structures have changed considerably over time, the most fundamental change occurring during the Old High German period. Adopting the assumption that Early Old High German is an (asymmetric) null-subject language, I argue that in this time, Subject Gap Coordination-structures are simply coordinated main clauses and that the null subject is not licensed by the coordinate status of the conjuncts, but by the agreement-features of the finite verb in the C-head. From the Late Old High German period on, referential subject-pronouns become obligatory in all finite clauses, and at the same time, Subject Gap Coordination-structures without an antecedent for the subject gap in the first conjunct and with Verb-Second-order in the second conjunct disappear. This indicates that the omission of the subject pronoun in the second conjunct is now licensed by the coordinate status of the conjuncts in combination with the presence of an antecedent in the first conjunct and that the position of the subject gap has shifted from the middle field to the prefield. However, Middle High German and Early New High German Subject Gap Coordination-structures still differ from their Modern Standard German counterparts in that the subject gap and its antecedent do not yet have to share the same phi-features.