OLD AND MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN. In the history of High German three main periods are distin guished—Old High German. from the eighth century to about 1100; Middle High German, from about 1100 to 1500; Modern German, from about 1500 to the present time. These periods apply both to dialects and to the literary language. It is, however, only in Modern Ger man that the literary language has become dis tinctly separated from the dialects. In Mid dle High German we have only the beginnings of a literary idiom, while in Old High German there is no trace of a common written lan guage in distinction from the dialects. The dates given are meant only to fix roughly the be ginning and the end of each period. There is, in fact, no distinct break in the development of the High German language, but rather a gradual transition from one period to the other.
Old High German is characterized especially by the preservation of full vowels in its inflec tional endings, e.g. nimu, neman, tagum, ha'no, hanin, zungiln.
In Middle High German these vowels are uni formly weakened to e, so that, e.g. the above words appear in the following form: nime, nemen, tagen, have, hanen. zungen. Traces of this weak ening appear first in the Franconian dialect, and become more general toward the end of the eleventh century. Many instances of full vowels, however, in inflectional endings are still found in the Middle High German literature of the early twelfth century, so that the period from about 1080 to 1150 may be regarded as a transition period from Old High German to Middle High German.
There is, as has been stated, in Middle High German no generally accepted literary language as one is found in the written language of Modern German. Thus, Heinrich von Veldeke's language points as clearly to the Low Franconian dialect as does Hartmann von Aue's to the Swabian. But, on the other hand, in the case of Wolfram von Eschenbach, who was born in the Franconian por tion of Bavaria, it is difficult to determine how far he used his own dialect and how far he gave the preference to the Swabian. Most of the leading poets of this period lived in that part of Germany where the 'Upper German' dialects were found, especially in Alsace, Swabia, Bava ria, and Austria. Hence it is only natural that there should have developed in Southern Ger many a tendency to a certain uniformity in the written language as to grammatical forms and literary expression. This does not mean that the
Middle High German poems belonging to this group entirely lost their local coloring; it means only that their language rose to a cer tain extent above the level of the dialects, in that certain dialectic peculiarities were avoided, while others were apparently regarded as unob jectionable. The fact, in any case, remains that in the works of Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg, Walther von der Vogelweide, and also in the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun, we find essentially the same language. If we were to identify this language with a single dialect we should probably call it Swabian, though it has been recently proved that it omits several of the salient features of the Swabian dialect of this period. It must, therefore, be regarded as the literary form of the Swabian dialect, risen to the rank of the literary language of Southern Germany generally, though it appears with slight variations in the different provinces.
The period of 'classical' Middle High German —in other words, the time of the hegemony of literary Swabian—comes to an end in the latter half of the thirteenth century. From about 1250 we have a transition period, during which the leadership is gradually passing to the Midland German dialects.
Convenient helps to the study of Old High German are Braune, Abriss der althochdeutschen Grammatik (3d ed., Halle, 1900), or Wright, Old High German Primer (Oxford, 1888), and Braun°, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch (5th ed., Halle, 1902). The most complete Old High Ger man dictionary is Graff, Althoehdetutscher Sprach sehatz (7 vols., Berlin, 1834-46). This excellent work is unfortunately arranged according to roots, but the seventh volume contains an alpha betical index by Massmann.
There are numerous Middle High German grammars and readers, e.g. Wright, Middle High German Primer (2d ed., Oxford, 1899) ; Paul, Mittelhoehdentsche Grammatik (5th ed.. Halle. 1900) ; Michels, Mittelhoehdeutsches Elementarbilek (Heidelberg, 1900) ; Weinhold, Mittelhoebdeutsche Grammatik (2d ed., Pader born, 1883) ; id., Mittelhoehdeutsches Lesebuch. The standard dictionaries of Middle High Ger man are Benecke. Mittelhoehdeutsehes Worter buck. edited by Mfilkr and Zarncke (3 vols., Leipzig, 1854-66) ; Lexer, Mittelhoehdeutsches Handworterbuch (3 vols., Leipzig, 1872-78) ; id., Mittelhochdeutsches Taechenwdrterbuch (6th ed., Leipzig, 1001).