A. DIPHTHONGISATION 1. The three main diphthongs of ... - uSpace

B. MONOPHTHONGISATION
1. Once a gap had been created in the phonology of German by the loss of the long vowels,
certain other ancient medieval diphthongs began to lose their diphthongality and simplify as new
long vowels (“monophthongs”), settling in the places left by old , and .
2. The old diphthongs in question were medieval , , . The sounds these
represented in medieval phonology were as follows:
: as in English ear; IPA []
: as in English who of; IPA []
: NHG + ; IPA [].
These pronunciations can still be heard with only slight variation in modern Swiss and Austrian
German.
3. As a result of monophthongisation,
• medieval became pronounced /i:/, although the spelling in NHG remains the same as the
medieval (the added in NHG is taken as lengthening the , not turning it into a
diphthong):
• NHG fliegen, Lied, wie: MHG fliegen, liet, wie;
• medieval became /u:/, written medially (in the middle of a word) as or finally (at
the end of a word) as :
• NHG Bruder, Huhn, Kuh: MHG bruoder, huon, kuo;
• medieval became /y:/, written medially as , finally as :
NHG Füße, kühl, kühn: MHG füeze, küele, küene.
4. Following on from new diphthongisation, monophthongisation first arose in the central part of
Germany, taking in northern Alsace and Rhineland Franconia, from where it spread to East
Franconia, Thuringia, Upper Saxony, Silesia and the northern part of Central Franconia
(Cologne).
Give modern equivalents of the following MHG words and define the process of change
involved; also give the modern Dutch equivalent:
1. biutel
2. bîzen
3. blüete
4. bluome
5. bluot
6. brief
7. bû
8. fleisch
9. frî
10. grîfen
11. grüene
12. guot
13. heiz
14. hiulen
15. hiute
16. hût
17. kleit
18. koufen
19. loufen
20. meinen
21. meist
22. müede
23. mûs
24. niun
25. ouge
26. pfîfe
27. rîch
28. Rîn
29. rouchen
30. schiezen
31. schînen
32. stein
33. sû
34. süeze
35. sûfen
36. suochen
37. tief
38. tiufel
39. trîben
40. troum
41. trüebe
42. weinen
43. wîn
44. zît