And now I'm reading in Braune that the pronunciation of OHG could have very well been [ɛi]. Still, there were some dialects that preserved [ai] like in Bavarian [maistron]; we would expect [mei-]. Middle High German Bairisch has Bain (modern German Bein 'bone') and zwai (modern German zwei 'two'). So, essentially, I guess it all depends on which dialect we're talking about. Anyway, these nuances are beyond the scope of a video on general sound shifts. Hopefully this helps clear some things up regarding OHG! Essentially, if you want to sound more northern, go with [ɛi]; if you want to sound more southern, go with [ai].
This goes right along with what you said about not being able to tell to much from Modern German since German branched and consolidated a bunch in the intervening centuries. It also occurred to me that since Protogermanic and of course PIE were not written, I shouldn't have said that OHG "changed" the spelling while keeping the pronunciation.
In Dutch ei sounds a lot like ai still. Although, e.g. in Dutch sometimes ai becomes ee instead, I don't know why. There is heide, weide, weinig, geit. But there is also heem, been, twee. And then there's the ei's that actually come from somewhere else like in 'meid' and 'aardbei'. Pronounced similarly to English 'light', although more 'flat' (not a linguist), although there are absolutely dialects in which it absolutely still sounds like ai, I think in North-Holland.
In OHG, the was a falling diphthong, so 'kiosan' is not to be pronounced as [kjosan], but with syllabic i, followed by an unsyllabic o. It changed to [ie] in MHG, which later became a long [i:], but survived as a diphthong in some southern dialects.
Wonder if the Old Norse "Gjóta" (to pour) is related to the Swedish "Gjuta" which is what you do when you cast/concrete something (don't know the exact English word for it)? Also used in phrases like "Gjuta olja på elden" = "Pour petrol into the fire". So it seems be related to "pour" in that instance! (And you pour concrete into whatever is becoming the foundation of something you build).
Absolutely. Like I replied to Karen above, Martin Luther's dialect created chaos for all German speakers with their own dialects later. But, still some traces remain. Even when I say "Guten Tag!" it's more like "Guten Tach" because of the Lower Saxony pronunciation (I studied here for quite a bit). Still, their initial g- is still like the typical German g- and not like the Dutch g-, which is supposedly what the g- in the Heliand was.
@@scottt.shellcontinentalger2464 yeah those middle German dialects with their weird Mix of stuff that did and didnt shift (plus Kanzleisprache...) where in Niedersachsen did you study? My mothers side of the family is from Niedersachsen and I am quite fortunate to have learned a good chunk of their variety of Plattdeutsch. That helped alot in Uni with introduction to german linguistics...
The Westphalian Low Saxon reflexes of PGmc /au/ and /ai/ are still /au/ and /ai/. I would like to know if they stayed like that the whole time or if they flip flopped during the Middle Low Saxon periode. 🤔
Lass is good, but if you want to get into a crazy amount of detail, check out both volumes of "The Development of Old English" by Taylor and Ringe (2014).
Honestly teaching languages from English is the hardest thing because you guys are hipsters when it comes to vowel pronunciation. So especially with videos like these, talking about vowels can become confusing. Especially if also your native tongue isn't actually English like me. e.g. 'i' almost everywhere is [i] or [ɪ] because it was that way in Roman. But you guys say it as if you're saying 'eye'.
Lol I say “eye” when talking about the grapheme…yes, like every speaker of any dialect of English. I say [i] when talking about the phonetic articulation. My apologies if my native language offends you 😆 Soll ich mit euch auf Deutsch reden? Vielleicht würde das ein bisschen besser? ;)
And now I'm reading in Braune that the pronunciation of OHG could have very well been [ɛi]. Still, there were some dialects that preserved [ai] like in Bavarian [maistron]; we would expect [mei-]. Middle High German Bairisch has Bain (modern German Bein 'bone') and zwai (modern German zwei 'two'). So, essentially, I guess it all depends on which dialect we're talking about. Anyway, these nuances are beyond the scope of a video on general sound shifts. Hopefully this helps clear some things up regarding OHG!
Essentially, if you want to sound more northern, go with [ɛi]; if you want to sound more southern, go with [ai].
This goes right along with what you said about not being able to tell to much from Modern German since German branched and consolidated a bunch in the intervening centuries. It also occurred to me that since Protogermanic and of course PIE were not written, I shouldn't have said that OHG "changed" the spelling while keeping the pronunciation.
In Dutch ei sounds a lot like ai still. Although, e.g. in Dutch sometimes ai becomes ee instead, I don't know why. There is heide, weide, weinig, geit. But there is also heem, been, twee. And then there's the ei's that actually come from somewhere else like in 'meid' and 'aardbei'.
Pronounced similarly to English 'light', although more 'flat' (not a linguist), although there are absolutely dialects in which it absolutely still sounds like ai, I think in North-Holland.
In OHG, the was a falling diphthong, so 'kiosan' is not to be pronounced as [kjosan], but with syllabic i, followed by an unsyllabic o. It changed to [ie] in MHG, which later became a long [i:], but survived as a diphthong in some southern dialects.
Wonder if the Old Norse "Gjóta" (to pour) is related to the Swedish "Gjuta" which is what you do when you cast/concrete something (don't know the exact English word for it)?
Also used in phrases like "Gjuta olja på elden" = "Pour petrol into the fire". So it seems be related to "pour" in that instance! (And you pour concrete into whatever is becoming the foundation of something you build).
It is related!
I find it interesting that for some german dialects "Heim" is also pronounced with that long e [he:m]`
Absolutely. Like I replied to Karen above, Martin Luther's dialect created chaos for all German speakers with their own dialects later. But, still some traces remain. Even when I say "Guten Tag!" it's more like "Guten Tach" because of the Lower Saxony pronunciation (I studied here for quite a bit). Still, their initial g- is still like the typical German g- and not like the Dutch g-, which is supposedly what the g- in the Heliand was.
@@scottt.shellcontinentalger2464 yeah those middle German dialects with their weird Mix of stuff that did and didnt shift (plus Kanzleisprache...)
where in Niedersachsen did you study? My mothers side of the family is from Niedersachsen and I am quite fortunate to have learned a good chunk of their variety of Plattdeutsch. That helped alot in Uni with introduction to german linguistics...
@@Sayu277 Hannover
@@scottt.shellcontinentalger2464 nice. My grandparents on my fatphers side met in Hannover ... It's a small world...
The Westphalian Low Saxon reflexes of PGmc /au/ and /ai/ are still /au/ and /ai/. I would like to know if they stayed like that the whole time or if they flip flopped during the Middle Low Saxon periode. 🤔
0:50 monophthongs for an English speaker
Dr. Shell, would you recommend Lass (1994) as a resource for the phonological history of English up to the Old English period?
Lass is good, but if you want to get into a crazy amount of detail, check out both volumes of "The Development of Old English" by Taylor and Ringe (2014).
@@scottt.shellcontinentalger2464 Thank you for the recommendation, will look into it.
EDIT: Part I is from PIE to PGmc, right?
Honestly teaching languages from English is the hardest thing because you guys are hipsters when it comes to vowel pronunciation.
So especially with videos like these, talking about vowels can become confusing. Especially if also your native tongue isn't actually English like me.
e.g. 'i' almost everywhere is [i] or [ɪ] because it was that way in Roman. But you guys say it as if you're saying 'eye'.
Lol I say “eye” when talking about the grapheme…yes, like every speaker of any dialect of English. I say [i] when talking about the phonetic articulation.
My apologies if my native language offends you 😆
Soll ich mit euch auf Deutsch reden? Vielleicht würde das ein bisschen besser? ;)