Middle High German: Languages of the World: Introductory Ove

[wetekind1]

Was würde der Duden dazu sagen?

[1890matteo]

@ProfASAr

Dear Professor Arguelles,

I have a question: How should I pronounce this " î "? I've always pronounced it as the modern German diphthong "ei", which makes it easier to understand words such as sîn (sein), or lîp (Leib), or wîp (Weib).

Thank you very much

[nublered]

nice video, just a question:

from my intuition: doesn't ward translate into "has/had been" rather than became?

[HesseJamez]

@strophe4

Vollpfosten schreibt man aber mit "PF", du Feife....

[Spieldamelenium]

Schöne sprache.

[beegir2002]

I studied for a year in Austria and I found I can understand a bit of this!

[CelticSister]

I love speaking and hearing different languages!

I am German and speak English, Swedish and Norwegian and little French and very little Italian and Spanish.

And I love the old languages, too.

Thank you so much for your introductories!

[kleinerchecker12345]

could you please tell me waht the most difficult language is that you ever learned or you ever had to deal with?

thank you

[ramade100]

it´s so funny as a german to read or listen to this and understand

almost everything if you also know a little bit english and latin

:D

[11Kralle]

Dat wier gaud läsen west! Ik glöw de Prosodie was nich exakt naug inne Forlage.

[ferladdie]

Dear Professor Arguelles,

are you still interested in a video-reading of this text? I am German and studied this stage of german and could send you one.

Regards,

Nicholas Gudrich, M.A.

[ProfASAr]

@ferladdie Yes, please do this. I am sorry for the delayed response, but I did not see your comment until just now.

[ferladdie]

@ProfASAr I have made the recording. You can find it on my channel (ferladdie) under "Nibelungenlied"

[ferladdie]

@ProfASAr sorry, it's under "nibelungen". I tried to put the link here but it didn't work.

[ProfASAr]

@ferladdie Have you tried to link it here as a "video response"?

[JamaikanerGER]

wow very interesting how german developed...even for me as a native german i just can understand maybe 40% of that text

[Saiaton]

I wish he would explain the difference between F and V because there is none now. There is a modern spelling difference with English words corresponding with F for either, usually V as initial, F otherwise. Was initial F sometimes emphasized as V at one time maybe? Vor~ - For~ as prefix, but Für For on its own.

[CorellST]

Great work.

[DemonFoxDeity]

If your main Language is German you can actually understand and read this.

But Old High German is a whole different story....

[TheObscurio]

Ich verstehe das meiste aber nicht alles^^

[Lintflas]

Wow, very interesting! As a German who has never seen this before, I still can understand about 40% of these words. The rest comes out of context.

Thank you, professor! I just found a new hobby - learning Mittelhochdeutsch

[Diabolous3x]

haha owned

[GotischOberst]

Hopefully you've not answered this already, but shouldn't the W's be pronounced as they are in English? Just wondering. Sometimes in Neumittelalterlicher music I have, they seem to switch back and forth, but usually stick with the (forgive my term here) Old Germanic W, just like in Modern English and Gothic, and UU in Old German.

[Saiaton]

@GotischOberst I think the W is more like the in-between that some Dutch and Indian speakers of English make.

[shirleystemple]

Sehr gut!

Vielen Dank!

[123pelerin]

truly a joy to watch!

[Jotamrocksdashit]

Dear ProfASAr,

unfortunately you made a couple of mistakes when you read the text for us.

Two vowls always mean a diphthong in MHG, so it would be "muosen", not "musen". Also you got the "ei" confused with the "ei" of today's German. At this time it was spoken like you would pronounce an "ey".

Every single vowl is a short vowl, long vowls are marked by an circumflex. "klagen" has to be short, if it was today's German, you would spell it "saggen".

Anyways, I appreciate the effort. Thank you.

[ProfASAr]

@Jotamrocksdashit Much more helpful than a written comment like this would be if you would record yourself reading the text and post it as a video response.

[MinoDerBarde]

@ProfASAr

In addition to Jotamrocksdashit's points, the "iu" has to be pronounced like the modern german "ü" / "ue".

I thought about starting a channel for reading old- and middle-high-german Literature, too. So I guess I'll start with parts of the Nibelungenlied and post it as a Videoresponse.

Thank you very much for this Video!

Best regards,

Malte Lange

[ProfASAr]

@MinoDerBarde Please do this! Those who sing medieval music have a better feel for it than anyone else. I myself am a great lover of medieval music, and apart from my philological studies, it is precisely in listening to it that I gain notions of what these languages must have sounded like. Unfortunately, song and spoken language are not quite the same, and thus for speech rhythms one has to rely upon the brief narrative sections, so a channel just for reading Literature would be wonderful.

[APC0812]

@Jotamrocksdashit

this was absolutely right and very well explained, even if the author of this video seemed to be a little offended.... greetings from bonn university =)

[Dagonetification]

@Jotamrocksdashit: Well, i just want to give a short comment on the 'ei'. Nowadays research does no longer think, that it sounded like an "ey", but as the today's german "ei". That depends primarily on where the text has been written, so Walther von der Vogelweide for instance pronounced the 'ei' for sure like we'd today.

[Dagonetification]

@ProfASAr: In addition to Jotamrocksdashit's comments, i have to add, that the 'ie' is spoken "ia", as a diphtong. like the today's german 'Bier'. - in contrast to 'lieb', where ie is a long i.

[Dagonetification]

and one thing left: :-) ... "arebeit" doesn't mean "work" or "deeds", but "suffering" or "effort".

[solt3x]

OMG! That was beautiful!!!!!!!!

[TheObscurio]

sehr interessant wie die Deutschen damals sprachen :)

[SarcasticWino]

This guy is awesome... language is so interesting to me

[CoronaGirl95]

ihr seid alle geistesgrank.

[silentG88]

Thank you for posting this; it's useful to hear someone read it.

[vornam]

Ja,

Recken (Fighter, Warrior, Knight)and Degen ("Sword", Warrior, Knight) are unsed synonymously in the Nibelungenlied

[TheObscurio]

sehr interessant hört sich fast so an wie deutsch

[s28111985]

Your voice became very high when you speak german, ahd or mhd ;). But your german is very well. Thanks for that!

[winxy07]

Hehe, unser Lehrer sagt, dass für Badener solche Texte am besten verständlich ist, weil der Dialekt am ähnlichsten ist.

[alexoteles]

impressive! I m german and I couldn´t even read this :)

[Tolanity]

Die kurzen Vokale müssen wesentlich kürzer betont gelesen werden

[Aisoke]

"ei" hat man im Mittelhochdeutschen nicht "ai" gesprochen, sondern so wie's dasteht und "swester" hat man auch gesagt, wie man's schreibt.

Ansonsten sehr schön :)

[DanielSahne]

im sorry to say that but... the creator of these videos should learn how to breath. it sounds like youre unable to breath correctly while talking. its extremely annoying.

otherwise, great vids.

[razzebah]

wie schön das nibelungenlied

aber er sollte sich angewöhnen die vokale ohne dach schnell auszusprechen klagen=klaggen

[DoDue]

btw. his first big mistake is translating küener recken as "brave men", brave is so far true, but recken means warrior/fighter (usually refers to knights...)

[DerBadischeGryphen]

a "Recke" is a tall, strong, proud man, so he can say "man"... it's not 100% correct, but okay... A "Recke" can be a warrior...

[ramiromichaelis]

...the meaning of "Recken" is Ritter (Knights).

[Menzimuckeli]

@ramiromichaelis RECKE, m. held, kämpfer, mit dem beisinne des ungeschlachten, riesenhaften. das ahd. reccho, älter wreccho, alts. wrekkeo, ags. wrecca, aus seiner heimat vertriebener held (dat dû noh bi desemo rîche reccheo ni wurti. Hildebrandsl. 48), herumziehender krieger, flüchtling, abenteurer, am nächsten zu goth. vraka διωγμος als bildung der zugehörigkeit oder abhängigkeit stehend, weiter zu goth. vrikan (vergl. rächen sp. 21) gehörend, bleibt im mhd. als recke......

[hpmferry]

ganz kann er seine englische seite nicht ausschalten, aber schon sau gut, also ich weiss nicht ob ich so einen text selber hätte lesen können.

mein respekt!

[MessoriusAtri]

Mit welcher Begeisterung du das liest. Wunderbar :)

Eine Wohltat für die Ohren, würde gerne Gedichte aus dieser Zeit von dir vorgetragen hören.

[Fr1392]

der spricht des ja total lächerlich aus xD

eeeeedel magediiiiiiiiiin...

[Lacoste2911]

Sometimes it is still taught in german classes. Very interesting how he pronounces all those phrases. I have to say that I "now" understood it much better than when my german teacher once "spoke" middle high german. And of course it is not true that dutch is much easier to understand - maybe only if you read several phrases but as tetromeda already said if they begin to speak you almost understand nothing - but here you understand everything - spoken and of course when you read it solely.

[zehnal]

In Middle High German, they used the word "greinen" for "crying" too. Could it be, that the words are... uhm... miteinander verwandt? ^^

[Fr1392]

jo sind sie xD

Gründonnerstag kommt daher z.B.

[tetromeda]

this is not true what  you say hessejamez. im german too and i understand almost everything. when dutch people begin to speak i understand almost nothing.

[Fr1392]

geht mir genau so^^

[HesseJamez]

It's very far from modern German or any dialect - I'am German and understand only a few words., but no context.

Even Dutch comes easier to me!

[MoneyshitterNew]

yes it is...but if you have a little bit fantasy...you understand many words...so do i ;)

[thalamay]

I guess it depends where you're from. I'm Swabian, and I have a good idea of what's going on.

The girlfriend of a friend of mine once took a course on MHG (they're both from Westphalia) and me and my friend once looked at a bunch of these texts just for fun. He had much more problems understanding than I did.

[Schensue]

I'm German as well and I can read and understand the whole text without any linguistic knowledge.

As a history student I have courses at the university where we might be given texts in Middle High German with just two or three notes. We students are, rightfully I might add, expected to be able to read it.

[theosib]

I noticed that he's speaking with a uvular R, but IIRC, it appeared first in French in the 1700's and then spread to German in the 1800's. The R should be dental/alveolar here.

[althganur]

hey guys what does lobebæren mean and does it have any equivalant in modern german

[Steve3587]

The only thing i can imgaine is that it similar to "lorbeeren" which means "laurels"

[winxy07]

yes, in modern german it's Lohrbeeren

[friiky1s]

No it's not. You're making up a folk etymology here. In modern German "lobebaeren" would be "lobbaren". This word doesn't exist anymore, we would now say "ruhmreich".

[DerBadischeGryphen]

"ehrerbietungswürdig" fits better...

"ruhmreich" is "glorious"

[WiiIPTV]

Outstanding Video!

5 Stars | Straight To My Favs...

I Just Wish You Would Not Sound As Nervous When Speaking In English But I Love It.

I'm Learning German 'N' The Accent/Pronunciation U've Is "Perfect Plus" For Me.

In DW-TV Everybody Sound Like A Mixture Btw Russian 'N' French. WTF? I Love French 2 But Why German Sounds Like A French Russian Smoothie?

This Is Authentic German To Me.

[friiky1s]

This is authentic modern High German (kind of), but not Middle High German.

[MaBu888]

Nein.

[Wh0sThisGuY]

It's not. You have no idea of the german language do you?

[DoDue]

I am speaking modern high german, and I´ll hold a lecture on middle high german tomorrow, sorry you are wrong this is actually middle high german (at least the written stuff, one could argue about his spelling..)

[Ouzomeister]

Aussprache ist ja katastrophal!

Das mittelhochdeutsche "iu" wird als "ü" ausgesprochen (zum Beispiel).

[AndreR241]

Jop, langes ü. Aber es ist schon mutig genug, solch einen Text zu lesen. Und als Amerikaner darf er sich solche Schnitzer erlauben, oder? Ich habe schon Amis deutsch sprechen hören, da klingt das wie Gold.

[fredmachine]

Aye, bei den meisten Amerikanern klingt ja Englisch schon schmerzhaft ;)

[LoveMyRadio86]

Da kriegt man ja Angst :S

[vivi181296]

Die Aussprache ist nicht so toll.

Und ich hab kein Wort davon verstanden(na gut ein bisschen vielleicht).

Wie sollen Ausländer das dann bitte lernen?

[AndreR241]

MHD hat eigentlich nur ein paar verschobene Laute und ein ein kleinwenig verändertes Vokabular. Der Rest ist nahezu identisch. Selbst als ungeübter sollte man 90% verstehen, wenn man SEHR genau zuhört.

[vivi181296]

Na ja,die Aussprache ist nicht so toll.

Aber ich könnte es glaub ich, auch nicht richtig aussprechen.

[AndreR241]

Interessante These. Du kannst es selbst nicht richtig aussprechen, bemängelst aber seine Aussprache... Super!

[XmisterIS]

Ich verstand nichts der Althochdeutschen Sprache, aber verstehe ich ein wenig von dieser Sprache! Gerrade lerne ich modern Hochdeutsch :o)

[Gott324]

I think is wip is weib(wife)

[markthreemillion]

ive read this in english but it feels like im missing something haha ...

[one1armedscissor]

Quick questing:

Why does the object come before the subject in a lot of sentences?

"Uns ist in alten maeren"

"ir muoten küene recken," etc. etc...

Is it strictly for rhyming purposes?

Great videos. I just wish you went into detail more about the grammar in your videos, but good stuff.

[Haakon78]

Hi.

I'm not an expert in German grammar but as a nativ german speaker I can tell you that this is a quite "old fashioned" way of speaking and writing German.

Today you would write the same sentence like: "In alten Maeren ist uns..." That's much more readable and common today. You might actually find it in poems and other kinds of written art.

In fact it might help you with rhyming but don't try to talk like this. People will understand you but with a quite funny look on their face.

[3Drives]

@Haakon78 i'm not german but i think is reading an ancient poem so it's normal it sounds old fashioned, i suppose he know even german of nowadays ;)

[APC0812]

it is kind of an inversion, it really is old fashioned though, in this text its a stylistical device

[francomug]

@one1armedscissor In modern English the subject has to be before the verb and the objects because otherwise you would change the meaning of the sentence. That is so because English lost its inflections during the middle ages. But German is still an inflecting language. You can distinguish the subject and object functions by the articles and/or the endings of the nouns, consequently they can change their place. By the way, the first sentence of the poem is a passive construction.

[BennyTheGun]

Könnt ihr mir ein deutschsprachiges Lehrbuch für Mittelhochdeutsch empfehlen ???

Seyed gegrüßt ^^

[ProfASAr]

Dr. Albert Bachmann: Mittelhochdeutsches Lesebuch mit Grammatik und Wörterbuch

[BennyTheGun]

1000 thx ........again ^^

[argentum81]

If this is more the ancestor of Bavarian, why do you pronounce the "r" in the velar position, as in modern Hochdeutsch? Wouldn't it be more like an alveolar trill, like modern Bavarian?

[sjheiss]

It sounds like a trill to me. :/

[xxretrocandyxx]

This is absolutely fasinating! I've been learning German for three years, and I can understand some words that are here. I'm also a native English speaker and knew about there beign a link between Old English and German, but this was a lot more than I expected. Thankyou for posting these, it's really interesting!

[Kynos1]

Very well done, you got the vowel qualities right.

[mamypokopants]

its a poem lol

[Beuterich]

I understand that almost 100%... But it sounds very funny out from this speakers mouth! ;-)

[LOGREGLA]

wow I´m icelandic and I can understand some words ( I think) som of the old middle high german just to look at it

[weyvind]

Of course you can, its a germanic language :), I am a norwegian and can read frettabladid and understand 50% of it ^^

[dornroslein]

This is so helpful to me. I am an English-speaker, with some skills in German, but I am working on writing music to and singing classic songs of the Minnesanger and want to be sure my pronunciation is a good as possible. I am having such fun translating those gorgeous works and I've enjoyed hearing the language spoken. Thanks for the further reading suggestions.

[ProfASAr]

Have you heard the magnificent CD of "Neidhart von Reuental" (Ensemble für frühe Musik Augsburg; Christophorus CD 77108)?

"Minnesang und Spruchdichtung ca. 1200-1320" (Studio der frühen Musik; Teldeck 8.44015) is also wonderful.

Only 3 or 4 of the 20 or so tracks on "Bestiarum: Animals in the Music of the Middle Ages" (La Reverdie; Nuova Era 6970) are in MHG, but the entire album is stunningly beautiful.

[Assuranipal]

As far as I know you do not pronounce the "ei" like an "I" (in english), its like its written... first an "e", than an "i"...

[24leeza]

nope, i'm afraid to say you're wrong there. i won't call myself an expert of middle high german, but i'm a native speaker of northern high german ;) and i can tell you, that "ei" is in fact an english "i", i don't suppose it has changed much.

this video is quite interesting, actually. well done, love the reading!

[AndreR241]

The pronounciation of this diphtong has changed. The modern "ei" is pronounced "ai". For example "Arbeit" is pronounced "Arbait". It's different in MHD: You have to pronounce it as "ey" and "arebeit" is pronounced like "arebeyt" (but not the ü kind of y but the i kind of y like in "Ey mann!".

[JazzB1987]

are you sure u have to say the W in frouwen ? in dutch u dont say the W in vrouwen.

[mushubiak]

Yes the W has to be pronounced in frouwen.

As a native german speaker I have to say, that the introduction is quite good, also the reading of the text lacks most of the MHG-characteristics of pronounciation. (He puts "umlaute" where none of them are and he pronounces nearly every MHG Diphthong as a Monophthong (like in Modern German). Here at Uni Würzburg they would have sent us to the torture rag for doing this - okay: just kidding ;)

[ProfASAr]

This is a general response to comments like this: if you believe that you have a better idea of what a historic language sounded like to the degree that you can improve upon my pronunciation, then why don't you make a video response, reading the exact same text in a more correct fashion? The link to my video would be helpful to all interested in the subject, and it would be wonderful to stimulate the production of various interpretations.

[mehdan2]

basically i don't really like poetry to start off learning a new Germanic language.

Why don't they ever start off with Berthold v Regensburg?

[Bashkuga]

Berthold v Regensburg? you thig "Das Nibelungenlied" was written by Berthold v Regensburg? I can't belive it. The autor is unkown. NOOB

[mehdan2]

hey Berthold v. Regensburg is easier for learning MHG!

I definitely would've preferred a linguistic course focusing on MHG vernacular than the literary one but it was the only course offered!

[Daswarder]

Very well done! But, what I have to mark, is that ei was not yet pronounced like "ai" but like "ey".

[baluba0]

klagen sagen, pflegen should not be prounouced like in present German, since long vowels were marked with an accent. I think r should be rather trilled and never omitted at the end of words

[Walshyman]

I get a rush when I see "overlap" from the German that I know. Without ever having seen Middle High German before, I could make out a bit of that text. The same goes for modern Dutch.

[javoZ32markII]

Just wonderfull!!!  thanks for posting!