A Brief History of the German Language (6th C – present)
The earliest appearance of the German language came somewhere around the 6th century AD, known as Old High German, and is found from scattered ancient inscriptions know as Elder Futhark – which is essentially the oldest known form of the runic alphabet. This alphabet was used to write inscriptions on basic items such as jewelry, tools, and rune stones.
This runic language eventually developed into a more cohesive writing system, and somewhere around 765-775 AD, what is now considered the oldest book in the German language was written. The book itself is a dictionary of synonyms – similar to that of a glossary or word list – between Latin and Old High German. Only one copy of the book has survived to present day, and this is known as the Codex Abrogans.
The oldest coherent texts in Old High German date from the 9th century, and are generally works of epic poetry: the Hildebrandslied and the Muspilli, for example. Around this same period, there was also another form of German documented on the northwest coast of Germany and in parts of Denmark, spoken by the Saxons – it was called Old Saxon, or alternately, Old Low German. Only a few written texts survive from this language, mostly in the form of baptismal vows.
Middle High German made its appearance between 1050 and 1350 AD, and a good deal of texts survive from this period. It was essentially a development and transitional period for the language, while around the same period (about 1100 – 1500 AD), Middle Low German appeared around the North and Baltic Seas. In fact, although Middle Low German was quite widely spread around that area, it was not codified since a standard written language never fully developed.
Early New High German is the period of German language between 1350 and 1650, and it was this version of German that finally moved toward a standardized form of the written language – and not just written reflections of the local German dialect. When Martin Luther eventually translated the Bible in the 1520s and 30s, he based his German translation on this form of the language, which was the most widely understood version of German at the time.
Upon distribution of this Bible, supplementary lists had to be provided for each region that copies went to, in order to translate certain unknown words into the local dialect! However, the Catholic church’s opposition to Luther’s translation caused Early New High German to eventually fade, as it took until the mid-18th century before a standard of German finally became widely accepted!
As a result, standard German was almost exclusively a written language until about 1800. People living in other parts of Germany learned standard German as a foreign language, even making use of small pronunciation guides to help them speak it correctly, though this only resulted in the pronunciation varying between regions. Between 1852 and 1860, the Brothers Grimm tried to help correct the variations in German dialects by publishing a dictionary in 16 parts, which even today remains the most comprehensive guide to the German language’s wide lexicon.
In 1880, grammar and compositional rules appeared in the “Duden Handbook”, which was declared the official standard definition of the German language in 1901. Finally, the language had come into its own!
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