Old Saxon
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Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a
Germanic language The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the
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and parts of
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whic ...
). It is a
West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
language, closely related to the
Anglo-Frisian The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages. The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
languages. It is documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it gradually evolved into
Middle Low German Middle Low German or Middle Saxon (autonym: ''Sassisch'', i.e. " Saxon", Standard High German: ', Modern Dutch: ') is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented i ...
. It was spoken throughout modern northwestern Germany, primarily in the coastal regions and in the eastern
Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
by
Saxons The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
, a Germanic tribe that inhabited the region of
Saxony Saxony (german: Sachsen ; Upper Saxon: ''Saggsn''; hsb, Sakska), officially the Free State of Saxony (german: Freistaat Sachsen, links=no ; Upper Saxon: ''Freischdaad Saggsn''; hsb, Swobodny stat Sakska, links=no), is a landlocked state of ...
. It partially shares
Anglo-Frisian The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages. The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
's (
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Fri ...
,
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
)
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law In historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (also called the Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic nasal spirant law) is a description of a phonological development that occurred in the Ingvaeonic dialects of the West Germanic langu ...
which sets it apart from
Low Franconian Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
and
Irminonic Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancestra ...
languages, such as
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
,
Luxembourgish Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. As a standard form of th ...
and
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
. The grammar of Old Saxon was fully
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
with five
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
s ( nominative,
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
, genitive, dative, and
instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
), three
grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages pres ...
s (
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
,
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
, and dual), and three
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
s (
masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
,
feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered fe ...
, and neuter). The dual forms occurred in the first and second persons only and referred to groups of two.


Characteristics


Relation with other West Germanic languages

In the early
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, a
dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...
existed between
Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...
and Old Saxon, a continuum which has since been interrupted by the simultaneous dissemination of standard languages within each nation and the dissolution of folk dialects. Although they share some features, a number of differences separate Old Saxon,
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
, and Old Dutch. One such difference is the Old Dutch utilization of ''-a'' as its plural a-stem noun ending, while Old Saxon and Old English employ ''-as'' or ''-os''. However, it seems that
Middle Dutch Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarch ...
took the Old Saxon a-stem ending from some
Middle Low German Middle Low German or Middle Saxon (autonym: ''Sassisch'', i.e. " Saxon", Standard High German: ', Modern Dutch: ') is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented i ...
dialects, as modern Dutch includes the plural ending ''-s'' added to certain words. Another difference is the so-called "unified plural": Old Saxon, like Old Frisian and Old English, has one verb form for all three persons in the plural, whereas Old Dutch retained three distinct forms (reduced to two in Middle Dutch). Old Saxon (or Old Low German) probably evolved primarily from
Ingvaeonic North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic , is a postulated grouping of the northern West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. Ingvaeonic is named after the Ingaevones, a West Ge ...
dialects in the
West Germanic The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...
branch of
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
in the 5th century. However, Old Saxon, even considered as an Ingvaeonic language, is not a pure Ingvaeonic dialect like
Old Frisian Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Fri ...
and Old English, the latter two sharing some other Ingvaeonic characteristics, which Old Saxon lacked.


Relation to Middle Low German

Old Saxon naturally evolved into Middle Low German over the course of the 11th and 12th centuries, with a great shift from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
to Low German writing happening around 1150, so that the development of the language can be traced from that period. The most striking difference between Middle Low German and Old Saxon is in a feature of speech known as
vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Creek language The Muscogee lang ...
, which took place in most other
West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic languages, Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic languages, North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic ...
and some Scandinavian dialects such as
Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
, reducing all unstressed vowels to
schwa In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
. Thus, such Old Saxon words like ''gisprekan'' (spoken) or ''dagō'' (days' – gen. pl.) became ''gesprēken ''and ''dāge''.


Phonology


Early developments

Old Saxon did not participate in the High German consonant shift, and thus preserves stop consonants ''p'', ''t'', ''k'' that have been shifted in
Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
to various
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s and
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
s. The Germanic diphthongs ''ai'', ''au'' consistently develop into long vowels ''ē'', ''ō'', whereas in Old High German they appear either as ''ei'', ''ou'' or ''ē'', ''ō'' depending on the following consonant. Old Saxon, alone of the West Germanic languages except for Frisian, consistently preserves Germanic /j/ after a consonant, e.g. "savior" ( goh, heilant, ang, hǣlend, but got, háiljands).
Germanic umlaut The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel ( fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to (raising) when the following syllable conta ...
, when it occurs with short ''a'', is inconsistent, e.g. or "to have" ( ang, habban). This feature was carried over into the descendant-language of Old Saxon, Middle Low German, where e.g. the adjective ''krank'' (sick, ill) had the comparative forms ''krenker'' and ''kranker''. Apart from the ''e'', however, the umlaut is not marked in writing.


Consonants

The table below lists the consonants of Old Saxon. Phonemes written in parentheses represent
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s and are not independent phonemes. Notes: * The voiceless spirants , , and gain voiced allophones (, , and ) when between vowels. This change is only faithfully reflected in writing for (represented with letters such as and ). The other two allophones continued to be written as before. *Fricatives were devoiced again word-finally. Beginning in the later Old Saxon period,
stops Stop may refer to: Places *Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States * Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina Facilities * Bus stop * Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...
became devoiced word-finally as well. * Most consonants could be
geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
. Notably, geminated gave , and geminated probably gave ; Geminated resulted in . * Germanic ''*h'' is retained as in these positions and thus merges with devoiced .


Vowels

Notes: * Long vowels were rare in unstressed syllables and mostly occurred due to suffixation or compounding.


Diphthongs

Notes: * The closing diphthongs and sometimes occur in texts (especially in
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
), probably under the influence of Franconian or
High German dialect The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
s, where they replace Old Saxon developments and (which evolved from
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
and ). * The situation for the front opening diphthongs is somewhat unclear in some texts. Words written with ''io'' in the
Heliand The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the ...
, the most extensive record of Old Saxon writing, are often found written variably with ''ia'' or even ''ie'' in most other texts, notably the later ones. The diphthong eventually merges into in almost every Middle Low German dialect. * There also existed 'long' diphthongs , and . These were, however, treated as two-syllable sequences of a long vowel followed by a short one, not proper diphthongs.


Grammar


Morphology

Unlike modern English, Old Saxon was an
inflected language Fusional languages or inflected languages are a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by their tendency to use a single inflectional morpheme to denote multiple grammatical, syntactic, or semantic features. For e ...
rich in morphological diversity. It kept five out of the six distinct cases of
Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
: the
nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
,
accusative The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
,
genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
, dative and (Vestigially in the oldest texts)
instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
. Old Saxon also had three
grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages pres ...
s (
singular Singular may refer to: * Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms * Singular homology * SINGULAR, an open source Computer Algebra System (CAS) * Singular or sounder, a group of boar, ...
, and dual, and
plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
) and three
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
s (
masculine Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
,
feminine Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered fe ...
, and neuter). The dual forms occurred in the first and second persons only and referred to groups of exactly two.


Nouns

Old Saxon nouns were inflected in very different ways following their classes. Here are the endings for ''dag'', "day" an a-stem masculine noun: At the end of the Old Saxon period, distinctions between noun classes began to disappear, and endings from one were often transferred to the other declension, and vice versa. This happened to be a large process, and the most common noun classes started to cause the least represented to disappear. As a result, in Middle Low German, only the former weak n-stem and strong a-stem classes remained. These two noun inflection classes started being added to words not only following the historical belonging of this word, but also following the root of the word.


Verbs

The Old Saxon verb inflection system reflects an intermediate stage between Old English and Old Dutch, and further Old High German. Unlike Old High German and Old Dutch, but similarly to Old English, it did not preserve the three different verb endings in the plural, all featured as ''-ad'' (also ''-iad'' or ''-iod'' following the different verb inflection classes). Like Old Dutch, it had only two classes of weak verb, with only a few relic verbs of the third weak class (namely four verbs: libbian, seggian, huggian and
hebbian Hebbian theory is a neuroscientific theory claiming that an increase in synaptic efficacy arises from a presynaptic cell's repeated and persistent stimulation of a postsynaptic cell. It is an attempt to explain synaptic plasticity, the adaptation ...
). This table sums up all seven Old Saxon strong verb classes and the three weak verb classes: It should be noticed that the third weak verb class includes only four verbs (namely libbian, seggian, huggian and
hebbian Hebbian theory is a neuroscientific theory claiming that an increase in synaptic efficacy arises from a presynaptic cell's repeated and persistent stimulation of a postsynaptic cell. It is an attempt to explain synaptic plasticity, the adaptation ...
); it is a remnant of an older and larger class that was kept in Old High German.


Syntax

Old Saxon syntax is mostly different from that of modern English. Some were simply consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection – e.g., word order was generally freer. In addition: *The default
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
was
verb-second In syntax, verb-second (V2) word order is a sentence structure in which the finite verb of a sentence or a clause is placed in the clause's second position, so that the verb is preceded by a single word or group of words (a single constituen ...
, very close to that of modern Dutch or
modern German New High German (NHG; german: Neuhochdeutsch (Nhd.)) is the term used for the most recent period in the history of the German language, starting in the 17th century. It is a loan translation of the German (). The most important characteristic o ...
. *There was no ''do''-support in questions and negatives. *Multiple negatives could stack up in a sentence and intensify each other (
negative concord A double negative is a construction occurring when two forms of grammatical negation are used in the same sentence. Multiple negation is the more general term referring to the occurrence of more than one negative in a clause. In some languages, ...
), which is not always the case in modern English, modern
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
, or modern
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
. *Sentences with subordinate clauses of the type "when X, Y" (e.g. "When I got home, I ate dinner.") did not use a ''wh-''type conjunction, but rather used a ''th-''type
correlative conjunction In grammar, a conjunction (abbreviated or ) is a part of speech that connects words, phrases, or clauses that are called the conjuncts of the conjunctions. That definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech and so what constitutes a ...
(e.g. ''thô X, thô Y'' in place of "when X, Y"). The ''wh-''type conjunctions were used only as
interrogative pronoun An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', ''who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most o ...
s and
indefinite pronouns An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun which does not have a specific familiar referent. Indefinite pronouns are in contrast to definite pronouns. Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns. They often have related forms ...
. *Similarly, ''wh-'' forms were not used as
relative pronoun A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause. It serves the purpose of conjoining modifying information about an antecedent referent. An example is the word ''which'' in the sentence "This is the house which Jack built." Here the ...
s (as in "the man who saw me" or "the car which I bought"). Instead, an indeclinable word ''the'' was used, often in conjunction with the
definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...
(which was declined for case, number and gender).


Orthography

Old Saxon comes down in a number of different manuscripts whose spelling systems sometimes differ markedly. In this section, only the letters used in normalized versions of the
Heliand The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the ...
will be kept, and the sounds modern scholars have traditionally assigned to these letters. Where spelling deviations in other texts may point to significant pronunciation variants, this will be indicated. In general, the spelling of Old Saxon corresponds quite well to that of the other ancient
Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, Engli ...
, such as Old High German or
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
. * ''c'' and ''k'' were both used for . However, it seems that, as in other West-Germanic dialects, when was followed by ''i'' or ''e'', it had the pronunciation or . The letters ''c'' and ''x'' were preferred for the palatalisations, ''k'' and even sometimes ''ch'' being rather used before ''u'', ''o'' or ''a'' for (''kuning'' for 'king', modern ''köning'' ; crûci for ; forsachistu for ). * ''g'' represented or its allophone : ''brengian'' 'to bring', ''seggian'' 'to say', ''wege'' 'way' (dative). * ''g'' seems, at least in a few dialects, to have had the pronunciation or at the beginning of a word, only when followed by ''i'' or ''e''. Thus we find ''giār'' 'year' and even ''gēr'' 'year', the latter betraying a strong Old Frisian influence. * ''h'' represents and its allophone : ''holt'' 'wood', ''naht'' 'night' (mod. ''nacht''). * ''i'' is used for both the vowels and and the consonant : ''ik'' 'I' (mod. ''ick, ik''), ''iār'' 'year'. * ''qu'' and ''kw'' always represent : ''quāmun'' 'they came'. * ''s'' represented , and between two vowels also . * ''th'' is used to indicate : ''thōhtun'' 'they thought'. ''ð'' is used for , occasionally also written ''dh''. * ''u'' represented the vowels and , or the consonant ~ , which was denoted sporadically across manuscripts by either ⟨ƀ⟩, ⟨b⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨v⟩, or ⟨f⟩'. * ''uu'' was normally used to represent , predating the letter ''w''. * ''z'' only appeared in a few texts due to
Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
influence.


Literature

Only a few texts survive, predominantly baptismal vows the Saxons were required to perform at the behest of
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...
. The only literary texts preserved are ''
Heliand The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the ...
'' and fragments of the
Old Saxon Genesis ''Genesis'' is an Old Saxon Biblical poem recounting the story of the Book of Genesis, dating to the first half of the 9th century, three fragments of which are preserved in a manuscript in the Vatican Library, ''Palatinus Latinus'' 1447. It and t ...
. There is also: * Beda homily (''Homilie Bedas'') * ''Credo'' (''Abrenunciatio diaboli et credo'') → Old Saxon baptismal vow. * ''Essener Heberegister'' *
Old Saxon Baptismal Vow The ''Old Saxon Baptismal Vow'', also called the ''Old Saxon Catechism'', ''Utrecht Baptismal Vow'' and ''Abrenuntiatio Diaboli'', is a baptismal vow that was found in a ninth-century manuscript in a monastery library in Mainz, Germany. The 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 The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...
in the form of the traditional Germanic
alliterative verse In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal ornamental device to help indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of ...
is given in Old Saxon below as it appears in the ''Heliand''.


See also

*
Old Saxon Genesis ''Genesis'' is an Old Saxon Biblical poem recounting the story of the Book of Genesis, dating to the first half of the 9th century, three fragments of which are preserved in a manuscript in the Vatican Library, ''Palatinus Latinus'' 1447. It and t ...
*
Old Saxon Baptismal Vow The ''Old Saxon Baptismal Vow'', also called the ''Old Saxon Catechism'', ''Utrecht Baptismal Vow'' and ''Abrenuntiatio Diaboli'', is a baptismal vow that was found in a ninth-century manuscript in a monastery library in Mainz, Germany. The vow ...
*
Heliand The ''Heliand'' () is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means ''saviour'' in Old Saxon (cf. German and Dutch ''Heiland'' meaning "saviour"), and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the ...
*
Middle Low German Middle Low German or Middle Saxon (autonym: ''Sassisch'', i.e. " Saxon", Standard High German: ', Modern Dutch: ') is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented i ...
* Low German *
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law In historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (also called the Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic nasal spirant law) is a description of a phonological development that occurred in the Ingvaeonic dialects of the West Germanic langu ...


Notes


Bibliography


Sources

* *


General

* Euler, Wolfram (2013). ''Das Westgermanische - von der Herausbildung im 3. bis zur Aufgliederung im 7. Jahrhundert - Analyse und Rekonstruktion'' (West Germanic - from its Emergence in the 3rd up until its Dissolution in the 7th Century CE - Analyses and Reconstruction). 244 p., in German with English summary, London/Berlin 2013, . * * Ringe, Donald R. and Taylor, Ann (2014). ''The Development of Old English - A Linguistic History of English, vol. II'', 632p. . Oxford. *


Lexicons

*
Gerhard Köbler: Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, (5. Auflage) 2014. ("An Old Saxon Dictionary")


External history

* * * * *


External links


Einführung in das Altsächsische
(An Introduction to Old Saxon) by Roland Schuhmann (in German)
copy
at the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
*
at the Internet Archive
{{Authority control Low German Germanic languages German dialects Dutch dialects Saxon, Old Languages of the Netherlands Languages of Germany North Sea Germanic