It is customary to divide the history of the German language In three periods. The first of these, from the beginnings to about 1150 (Old High German, Old Low German), was charac terized by full inflectional and derivative suf fixes, showing a great variety of vowels: saigan, singu, singit, sunguts, gasusgan, saibota, lebita, sunga, atotgas, guotRr, guotas, etc. From the beginning a tendency to weaken these end ings is noticeable and by the end of the period their vowels had, with slight exceptions, been reduced to the indifferent e: gingen, singe, singet, sungen, singen, gesungen, solbete, lebete, sunge, sungen, guoter, guotez, etc: Another im portant change affected the stern vowels, namely, vowel assimilation or ''Umlaut*, when the suf fix contained an i or j, a changed to e, e.g., gave, pl. gesti (later eerie, now written Giiste) • to changed to ii (written iu), e.g., hat (now Haut), pl. hati, hiute (now Haute) ; uo changed to e.g., vuos (now Fuss), pl. vuosi, vfieze (now Fiisse), etc. The change from a to e took place in the 8th century; the others do not appear in writing until the end of the period. The period was further characterized by crudity of vocabulary and of syntax, the latter due chiefly to the fact that the grammatical means of subordination, viz., relatives, conjunctions, and a characteristic word order, while already in existence, were not yet fully developed. Trans lations from Latin clearly show the inadequacy.' of the language to render easily sentences of complex period structure. During the period also a considerable number of words were adopted from the Latin. The oldest stratum of these was due to the first contact with the Romans, from whom the Germans learned some of the fundamental arts of civilization. Hence terms referring to commercial intercourse like Pfund Minim (Lat. moneta), Strasse (Lat. [vial strata), Zoll (I,at teloneum, Low Lat. toloneum), Meile (Lat. milia [pas suumI ), etc.; the names for the months, Januar, Februar, Miirs, etc., which supplanted the native Wintermonat, Hornung, Lenamonat, etc.; terms relating to building, Mauer (Lat. nsurus), Pfeiler (Late Lat. pilarius), Keller (Late Lat. cellarium), Kammer (Lat. camera), Zsegel (Lat. tegula), etc.; terms of agriculture, horticulture, and especially viniculture, Pflanze (Lat. planta , Sichel (Lat. secula), Pflaume (Lat. prunum , Wein (Lat. vinum), Winger (Lat. vinitor , Essig (Lat. acetum), etc.; terms relating to cookery and eating, Koch (Lat. coguu.$), Schiissel (Lat. scutella), Tisch (Lat. discus), Kessel (Lat. catinus), Lecken (Low Lat. bac cinus), Kohl (Lat. caulis),Pfeffer (Lat. piper), etc. 'the second stratum includes the terms re lating to the Christian Church, the oldest of them of Greek origin, e.g., Kirche (Gr. kyriake), Pfaff e (Gr.papas), the majority from the Latin, e.g., Messe (Lat. missa), Kreus (Lat crucem), predigen (Lat. praedicare), kasteien (Lat. cas tigare), etc.; also terms relating to school and the art of writing, e.g., Schule (Lat. schola), Tinte (Lat. tincto), etc. Sometimes Latin in fluence is seen in die make-up of a compound of native elements, e.g., in Gcvatter= Lat. com pater, Lat. conscientia. Most of the words of these oldest strata have been thor oughly assimilated in form and meaning, and few have ever beenven up again.
The second from about 1150 to about 1500 (Middle High German, Middle Low Ger man), was characterized by smoothness and melody of simplicity of grammatical forms, flexibility and variety of construction, and great richness of vocabulary. This was particularly true of the language of Middle High German poetry, during the 13th century, which was not inferior to any mediaeval lan guage as a means of poetic expression. It showed in all parts of the High German terri tory such ' a uniform poetic diction and tech nique, that scholars for some time assumed for this period the existence of a common language ranking above the dialects. This is now generally regarded as overstating the case; the poets traveling much from place to place probably learned to avoid words of distinctly local color and range, but in regard to pronun ciation greater variety must have prevailed than the unreliable spelling of later manuscripts and the uniformized spelling of modern text editions suggest. The language of the prose literature of the time, homilies, chronicles, philosophical works, shared in this improvement over that of the preceding period. If the impetus given to
literature by the Crusades, by the bloom of chiv alry, and by other contemporary events and con ditions had continued, it is likely that a common literary language ranking superior to the dialects would before long have developed; but the im petus was of short duration and in the middle of the 14th century we find, together with the decay of chivalry and literature, a rapid de terioration of the language and a great increase of dialect differences. For this reason the time from about 1350 to about 1500 is sometimes reckoned as a transition period. The contact with French knighthood during the Crusades and the predominating social and literary in fluence of the French during the whole period of chivalry led to the introduction of many French words. Some of them, being technical terms, were given up again with the things they represented; others are still in common use, e.g., Abenteuer (Fr. aventure), Lanze (Fr. lance), Palast (Fr. palais), priifen (Old Fr. preuf), preisen (Fr. priser) German thus gained even two important and prolific suffixes: the Old French verbs in -ier (Modern Fr. -er) were adopted with the infinitive form -ieren, e.g., parheren (Old Fr. earlier, Modern Fr. parler), and this suffix then spread to other verbs of foreign and later to such of native origin, e.g., komponieren (Lat. componere), hal bieren, irrlichtelseren; the French suffix -ie (Lat. -ia), Middle High German -ie gave by regular phonetic change Modern German -ei, e.g., Mel odei (but also, under a reassertion of French influence, Melodic), hence Biiberei, Druckerei, etc.
The third period from about 1500 to the present day (New High German, New Low German), is characterized by the creation of a common literary language and its superimposi tion upon the dialects. The latter continued to develop and diverge, and an inhabitant of the extreme south would now probably find it diffi cult, if not impossible, to communicate with one from the north if each could understand only his own dialect. The common language was composed of elements contributed by thedia lects, but its spread was not brought about by the assimilation of dialects, but by the substitu tion of the common language for the dialects for one purpose after another, by one class of the people after another, in one region after another. The beginnings of this common lan guage may be traced back to the middle of the 14th century, by which time German had gen erally taken the place of Latin in public docu ments. From 1347 for almost a hundred years the of the empire was located at Prae, in the borderland betwen Upper and Middle Germany. The documents issued from here were written in a language in which Bavarian-Austrian and Upper Saxon elements were blended which was comparatively readily understood in other parts of the and d which the chanceries of the various German states found therefore easy to imitate. The chancery of the Elector of Saxony was among the first to approximate to the language of the Imperial chancery; others followed and thus a larger and larger part of the country came to make use of a comparatively uniform language for the business of government. The extension of the use of this common language to general literature and finally to all the higher forms of intercourse was largely due to the enormous popularity and deep influence of Luther's writings. The great reformer deliberately and avowedly chose as his medium the language of the Saxon chancery, and he was therefore not, as he has been often called, the creator of the modern German literary language; but while his standard served him well enough in matters of linguistic form, the chancery language, owing to the limited range of subjects treated in public documents, could offer him little help as regards words and idioms. Luther had a remarkable natural command of language, but he also pro ceeded with the utmost care and spared no pains to learn from the mouths of the people and through his correspondence with men in all parts of the country the most widely understood and yet vigorous and effective forms of ex pression. Thus the form as well as the sub stance of Luther's numerous writings caused them to find a ready reception and enormous sale throughout the country, and his prominence in the most important affairs and the most stirring events of the period gave a peculiar authority to the form of his utterances.