Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

A-Z 463speakers), Liechtenstein, and elsewhere. It is also either the first or the second languageof approx. 40 million people in France (Alsace), Italy (South Tyrol), Belgium, Rumania,Poland and Russia, as well as in non-European countries with German-speaking emigrees(United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada). German differs from the other Germaniclanguages due in part to the results of the Old High German consonant shift (alsosecond sound shift) in which the voiceless stops [p, t, k] became either fricatives oraffricates, depending on their position, cf. Eng. ship, foot, book vs Ger. Schiff, ,Buch; also Eng. apple, sit, vs Ger. Apfel, sitzen. The dialect distinctions between LowGerman (ik ‘I,’ maken ‘make,’ dorp ‘village,’ dat ‘that,’ appel ‘apple’), Middle German(ich, machen, dorf, das, appel) and Upper German (ich, machen, dorf, das, apfel) arebased on the regional distribution of this sound shift.While the nature and duration of the historical stages of German are still debated, thefollowing main periods can be distinguished. (a) Old High German (OHG) (from thebeginning of written documentation until AD 1050): linguistically distinguished by thespread of the second sound shift and the beginning of vowel mutation ( umlaut);lexically marked by strong influence from Latin. Written documents in various dialectsste m mainly from monasteries in the form of Latin translations and poems in alliterativeverse. (b) Middle High German (MHG) (from 1050 to 1350, divided into Early MiddleHigh German (1050–1170/80), classical Middle High German (1170/80–1250), and lateMiddle High German (1250–1350): the transition from Old to Middle High German islinguistically marked by the weakening and loss of final syllables (OHG scôno>MHGschône>NHG schon ‘already’), while Middle and New High German (NHG) differthrough monophthongization (MHG lieber müeder bruoder>NHG lieber müder Bruder‘dear tired brother’), diphthongization (MHG mîn níuwes hûs>NHG mein neues Haus‘my new house’) and lengthening ( lengthening vs shortening) in open syllables(MHG wege [vεgə]>NHG Wege [ve:gə]). The vocabulary of the court epic is stronglyinfluenced by French. The literary tradition was largely maintained by knights. Duringthis period, the German-speaking territory was greatly enlarged due to colonization ofareas to the east. (c) Early New High German (1500–1650): this period is marked byLuther and the Reformation, the invention of the printing press, and the rise of the middleclass. Several dialectal variants, such as Middle Low German of the Hanseatic league, the‘Common German’ of the Hapsburg chancery in southern Germany, ‘Meissen German’in the territory of Wettin competed against one another for supremacy. (d) New HighGerman, arising in the course of the eighteenth century, based on East Middle German,and resulting from leveling processes between north and south. It occurs as a writtenstandard with numerous variants (dialects, sociolects) and levels (idiomatic, technical,etc.) which show primarily phonetic and lexical differences.Grammatical characteristics (compared to other Germanic languages): no voicedstops in the syllable coda (=word-final devoicing), relatively complex inflectional systemand productive case sy stem, set rules on the placement of the finite verb with otherwiserelatively free word order. Special characters: , ä, ö, ü. ( also braceconstruction, positional fields)