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| German | Germanic Language | Grimm's Law | Indo-European Languages | Runes | Verner's Law |

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German Language

I.  Introduction

German Language, language of the German people and other peoples akin to or at one time politically united with the Germans. German belongs to the Netherlandic-German group within the western branch of the Germanic Languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European languages. It comprises two main groups of dialects, High German (including standard literary German) and Low German. Together, they form a continuum from Switzerland north to the sea; a local dialect can be understood by speakers of nearby dialects but not necessarily by speakers of far-away dialects.

II.  Chief Characteristics

The development of German was affected by several systematic shifts of certain consonants.  The so-called Germanic consonant shift distinguished the ancient Proto-Germanic tongue from other Indo-European speech. In this shift, which is described by Grimm's law, an Indo-European p, t, k changed to a Germanic f, th, h, respectively; Indo-European b, d, g to Germanic p, t, k; and similarly Indo-European bh, dh, gh, to Germanic b, d, g. After the western Germanic dialects had developed their own distinctive traits, the High German sound shift occurred. Datable to ad500-700, it set the High German dialects off from other West Germanic speech. During that period the Germanic p, when used initially, or after consonants, or when doubled, became pf (High German Pflanze, Low German Plante,”plant”); when used medially or finally after vowels it became ff or f (High German hoffen, Low German hopen,”to hope”). Under the same conditions the Germanic t became z (pronounced ts, as in Pflanze) or ss (High German essen, Low German eten,”to eat”). After vowels, k became ch (High German machen, Low German maken,”to make”); in all other cases k remained unchanged except in the extreme south of Germany, where it first became kch, and later ch. A later change, found also in Low German, is that of the Germanic th to d (High German das, Low German dat,”that”). 

Another characteristic of German, as well as of all the Germanic languages, is that the principal accent falls regularly upon the first syllable of a word; in verbal combinations, however, the root syllable, not the prefix, is stressed.

The phonological characteristics of the German language include the use of the glottal stop before every initial stressed vowel in simple words or independent parts of a word; the pronunciation of u, o, ü, and ö with full lip-rounding; the tenseness of long vowels and the laxness of short vowels; the articulation of r lingually and gutturally; the voicing of the single s before and between vowels, and the devoicing of the final b, d, g to p, t, k, respectively; the use of the affricates pf and ts; and the pronunciation of w as v and of v as f. Vowels are nasalized only in words borrowed from French.

German is an inflected language, with three genders, four cases, and a strong and weak declension of qualifying adjectives. Because of the declensional and conjugational endings, some parts of speech are more precisely identified than in languages that show less inflection. Word order is strictly regulated; for example, subject and predicate are inverted when preceded by an adverb, prepositional phrase, or dependent clause; the verb is placed in the final position in a subordinate clause introduced by a relative pronoun or conjunction. In the formation of new words, German makes extensive use of compounds of two or more independent words and of prefixes and suffixes (Oberbaumeister; Handelsluftfahrt; Geteilheit; teilbar). The poetic and philosophical vocabulary and scientific and technical terminology of German are particularly rich.

III.  High German

The usually cited dividing line, south of which High German is spoken, runs eastward from Aachen, south of Düsseldorf, Kassel, Magdeburg, and Berlin, to Frankfurt. High German is in turn divided into two categories: Upper German, in Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, and southern Germany, and Middle German, across Luxembourg and the middle of Germany.

Upper German consists of (1) Alamannic (designated as Swabian in its northeastern sector), spoken in the southern regions of Baden-Württemberg and of Alsace, the southwestern corner of Bavaria, and the German-language areas of Switzerland, including the major cities of Basel, Zürich, and Bern; (2) Bavarian-Austrian, used in the southeastern section of Germany east of the Lech River and south of Nürnberg, including Munich, and in Austria, including the cities of Innsbruck, Vienna, and Graz; (3) the branches of the Franconian dialect, classified as South Franconian, found between Karlsruhe and Heilbronn, and East Franconian, used in the vicinity of Nürnberg, Würzburg, Bamberg, and Fulda; and (4) Langobardic, spoken at one time in the parts of Lombardy (Lombardia) (Italy) occupied by the Germanic tribe of the Langobards, and surviving today only in certain geographical names of that area. The Langobardic dialect is of great historical interest because it is the earliest (mid-7th century ad) recorded German dialect, whereas the majority of German dialects can be traced back only to the 8th, 9th, or 10th centuries.

Middle German consists of (1) Rhine Franconian, spoken in most of the Palatinate and Hessen, which contain the cities of Mainz, Heidelberg, Frankfurt am Main, and Marburg an der Lahn; (2) Mosel-Franconian, used on both sides of the Mosel River and centering in the city of Trier; (3) Ripuarian, used between Aachen and Cologne; (4) Thuringian, heard in the environs of Weimar, Jena, and Erfurt; (5) Upper Saxon, spoken in Saxony (Sachsen), including the cities of Dresden and Leipzig; and (6) Silesian, used in Lower and Upper Silesia, northwest and southeast of Wrocław (formerly called Breslau, now in Poland).

IV.  Low German

The second principal division of German, Plattdeutsch or Low German, includes Low Franconian, which is very closely related to Netherlandic (Dutch-Flemish) and is spoken only in the west, in a narrow fringe along the border between the Netherlands and Germany; and Low Saxon, which is used in the northern lowlands as far east and northeast as the Elbe River, including the cities of Münster, Kassal, Bremen, Hannover, Hamburg, and Magdeburg. As a result of the colonization of the Baltic regions by the Teutonic Knights, Low German spread throughout the lands east of the Elbe to Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, as well as parts of Prussia.

V.  History

Until the middle of the 14th century Latin was the official written language of the Holy Roman Empire, which comprised most of the German-speaking regions of present-day Europe. During the reign (1314-47) of Louis IV, Holy Roman emperor, German was adopted as the language of official court documents. Between 1480 and 1500 it was introduced for official use in many municipalities and courts of Saxony and Meissen and was adopted also by the universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg. By 1500 German had become generally accepted as the official language of all parts of Saxony and Thüringen and was the written language of the educated classes. In addition the publication of books in German increased in the East Middle German towns of Wittenberg, Erfurt, and Leipzig, as well as in such western and southwestern cities as Mainz, Strassburg, Basel, Nürnberg, and Augsburg. These developments helped reduce regional differences and standardize the literary language.

Standard written German emerged during the first quarter of the 16th century in the eastern midland area of Erfurt, Meissen, Dresden, and Leipzig, where the inhabitants, originally from regions farther west and southwest, spoke a dialect based on the Middle and Upper German dialects of High German. Largely by means of Luther's translation of the Bible into German and his German pamphlets, hymns, and catechisms, the High German standard spread from the eastern midland throughout the rest of Germany. Thus, the term High German came to mean, on the one hand, all German dialects except those belonging to the Low German branch of the language, and, on the other hand, the literary language of Germany. By 1600 this literary language was firmly established, although its present form did not become recognizable until about the middle of the 18th century.

The various sections of Germany and of other European nations where German was spoken adhered to different standards of spelling until the 20th century. In 1901 a conference, in which representatives of northern and southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland took part, devised a uniform system of orthography that later came into acceptance. This system is outlined in Rechtschreibung der Deutschen Sprache (Orthography of the German Language, published in many editions), by the German philologist Konrad Duden.

No generally accepted standard of German pronunciation exists. As the result of the work of a commission established in 1898, composed of university professors and representatives of the German theater, certain norms of pronunciation were, however, accepted. These rules have been codified in Deutsche Buhnenaussprache (German Stage Pronunciation), first published in 1898 and again in 1957 as Deutsche Hochsprache (Standard German). The speech even of highly educated Germans is affected by the pronunciation peculiar to their native dialects. Various German-speaking groups, such as the Swabians, Saxons, Austrians, and Swiss, can be distinguished readily by their characteristic types of pronunciation.

VI.  Usage

German is spoken by many millions of people throughout the world. Approximately 71 million German-speaking persons live in Germany, and several million under foreign administration. In addition, German is spoken by almost 7 million people in Austria, about 300,000 in Luxembourg, 3,400,000 in the northern section of Switzerland, and about 1,500,000 in Alsace-Lorraine. Reliable statistics are not available concerning the number of German-speaking persons who inhabit those regions of eastern Europe from which Germans were expelled at the end of World War II.

Outside Europe, the largest number of people using German as their mother tongue live in the United States. An important group of German-speaking people in the U.S. are the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch, who left the Palatinate region of Germany during the late 17th and the 18th centuries and settled in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania. They speak the Rhine-Franconian dialect with relatively few admixtures of English. Other countries with a fairly large number of German-speaking citizens are Canada (approximately 330,000), Brazil (550,000), and Argentina (250,000).

Source:  "German Language," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com  Retrieved June 20, 2003 from
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761567950

Germanic Languages

Germanic Languages, subfamily of the Indo-European languages. Germanic languages are spoken by more than 480 million people in northern and western Europe, North America, South Africa, and Australia. In their structure and evolution they fall into three branches:

In terms of unwritten regional dialects, the Scandinavian languages form a single speech area of high mutual intelligibility (except for Icelandic, which was long isolated and retains many archaisms), within which Danish has diverged the most. The Netherlandic-German dialects form another speech area. In both areas, speech varies gradually from one village to the next, although over wide distances greater differences accumulate. Also, in both areas more than one literary norm arose, corresponding to political and historical divisions. These norms are what are usually meant by terms such as Swedish language. See Grimm's Law; Runes; Verner's Law.

Source:  "Germanic Languages," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com  Retrieved June 20, 2003 from
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761564464

Grimm's Law

Grimm’s Law, phonetic principle formulated by the German philologist Jacob Grimm in 1822. It describes the pattern of two stages of sound changes, known as the German consonant shift and the High German consonant shift. The first stage occurred between 2000 bc and ad 200, when certain consonants of the Germanic languages (to which English belongs) evolved from corresponding consonants in the Indo-European parent language. The second stage, between ad500 and 700, occurred in the High German dialects of southern Germany from which modern (standard German) developed. According to Grimm's law, the ancient unvoiced p,t, and k became the English unvoiced f, th, and h, and the Old High German f, d, and h. Thus, taking Latin as an example of an earlier member of the Indo-European language group, the Latin pater became the English father and the Old High German Fater (modern German Vater). In addition, the ancient unvoiced b, d, and g changed to p, t, and k in English (for example, Latin dens, to English tooth) and kh in Old High German.

Grimm's law is important in that it demonstrates the development from the old Germanic languages of more recent languages such as English, Dutch, and Low German. It also shows that changes in a language and in groups of languages come about gradually and not as a result of random word changes. Grimm based his research on the 1818 treatise of the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask, a discussion of the origin of Old Norse. Grimm's work was augmented by the explanations of stress shifts formulated by the Danish philologist Karl Adolf Verner. See Verner's Law.

Source:  "Grimm's Law," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com  Retrieved June 20, 2003 from
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761573056

Indo-European Languages

I.  Introduction

Indo-European Languages, the most widely spoken family of languages in the world, containing the following subfamilies: Albanian, Armenian, Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Indo-Iranian, Italic (including the Romance languages), Slavic, and two extinct subfamilies, Anatolian (including Hittite) and Tocharian. About 1.6 billion people speak Indo-European languages today.

II.  Establishment of the Family

Proof that these highly diverse languages are members of a single family was largely accumulated during a 50-year period around the turn of the 19th century. The extensive Sanskrit and ancient Greek literatures (older than those of any other Indo-European language except the then-undeciphered Hittite) preserved characteristics of the basic Indo-European forms and pointed to the existence of a common parent language. By 1800 the close relationship between Sanskrit, ancient Greek, and Latin had been demonstrated. Hindu grammarians had systematically classified the formative elements of their ancient language. To their studies were added extensive grammatical and phonetic comparisons of European languages. Further studies led to specific conclusions about the sounds and grammar of the assumed parent language (called Proto-Indo-European), the reconstruction of that hypothetical language, and estimates about when it began to break up into separate languages. (By 2000 bc, for example, Greek, Hittite, and Sanskrit were distinct languages, but the differences among them are such that the original tongue must have been fairly unified about a millennium earlier, or about 3000 bc.) The decipherment of Hittite texts (identified as Indo-European in 1915) and the discovery of Tocharian in the 1890s (spoken in medieval Eastern Turkistan, and identified as Indo-European in 1908) added new insights into the development of the family and the probable character of Proto-Indo-European.

The early Indo-European studies established many principles basic to comparative linguistics. One of the most important of these was that the sounds of related languages correspond to one another in predictable ways under specified conditions (see Grimm's Law and Verner's Law for examples). According to one such pattern, in some Indo-European subfamilies—Albanian, Armenian, Indo-Iranian, Slavic, and (partially) Baltic—certain presumed q sounds of Proto-Indo-European became sibilants such as s and ś (an sh sound). The common example of this pattern is the Avestan (ancient Iranian) word satem (“100”), as opposed to the Latin word centum (“100,” pronounced “kentum”). Formerly, the Indo-European languages were routinely characterized as belonging either to a Western (centum) or an Eastern (satem) division. Most linguists, however, no longer automatically divide the family in two in this way, partly because they wish to avoid implying that the family underwent an early split into two major branches, and partly because this trait, although prominent, is only one of several significant patterns that cut across different subfamilies.

III.  Evolution

In general the evolution of the Indo-European languages displays a progressive decay of inflection. Thus, Proto-Indo-European seems to have been highly inflected, as are ancient languages such as Sanskrit, Avestan, and classical Greek; in contrast, comparatively modern languages, such as English, French, and Persian, have moved toward an analytic system (using prepositional phrases and auxiliary verbs). In large part the decay of inflection was a result of the loss of the final syllables of many words over time, so that modern Indo-European words are often much shorter than the ancestral Proto-Indo-European words. Many languages also developed new forms and grammatical distinctions. Changes in the meanings of individual words have been extensive.

IV.  Ancient Culture

The original meanings of only a limited number of hypothetical Proto-Indo-European words can be stated with much certainty; derivatives of these words occur with consistent meanings in most Indo-European languages. This small vocabulary suggests a New Stone Age or perhaps an early metal-using culture with farmers and domestic animals. The identity and location of this culture have been the object of much speculation. Archaeological discoveries in the 1960s, however, suggest the prehistoric Kurgan culture. Located in the steppes west of the Ural Mountains between 5000 and 3000 bc, this culture had diffused as far as eastern Europe and northern Iran by about 2000 bc.

Source:  "Indo-European Languages," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com  Retrieved June 20, 2003 from
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArtTextOnly.aspx?refid=761563984&print=0

Indoeuropäische Sprachen

Die Indoeuropäische Sprachfamilie (im Deutschen auch oft indogermanisch genannt) ist eine der großen Sprachfamilien der Welt. Ungefähr 2 Milliarden Menschen haben eine indoeuropäische Muttersprache.

Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts erkannte der englische Orientalist William Jones aus Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Sanskrit und einigen europäischen Sprachen, dass es für diese Sprachen eine gemeinsame Wurzel geben muss. Der Deutsche Franz Bopp brachte 1816 in seinem Buch Über das Konjugationssystem der Sanskritsprache in Vergleichung mit jenem der griechischen, lateinischen, persischen und germanischen Sprache den methodischen Beweis für die Verwandtschaft dieser Sprachen und gilt daher - zumindest im deutschen Sprachraum - als Entdecker des Indogermanischen.

Diese indogermanische Ursprache ließ sich sprachwissenschaftlich rekonstruieren, obwohl aus dieser Zeit keine Schriftdokumente vorliegen. Die Träger der indogermanischen Ursprache waren die Indogermanen. Für die Sprachen, die auf das indogermanische zurückgehen, lässt sich ein "Stammbaum" darstellen, der die Verwandtschaftsstruktur zwischen diesen Sprachen wiedergibt. In diesem "Stammbaum" gibt es sowohl gesicherte als auch spekulative Verzweigungen; letztere betreffen insbesondere ausgestorbene Sprachen, die keine Nachfolgesprachen hinterlassen haben.

Ausgehend von Wortstämmen, die allen indoeuropäischen Sprachen gemeinsam sind, wurde weiterhin in Zusammenarbeit mit der Archäologie versucht, das Ursprungsgebiet der Indogermanen zu bestimmen. Dabei wurden sowohl Ostanatolien, Gebiete nördlich des Schwarzen Meeres oder Südosteuropa vorgeschlagen.

Einige Wissenschaftler haben Vermutungen angestellt, wonach die indoeuropäischen Sprachen mit anderen Sprachenfamilien entfernt verwandt sein könnten (wie z.B. den uralischen Sprachen, siehe hierzu auch Nostratisch), doch sind die Indizien hierfür nur sehr schwach.

Zu den indogermanischen Sprachen gehören die folgenden Gruppen:

• Baltische Sprachen

• Germanische Sprachen

  • Nordgermanische Sprachen

  • Ostgermanische Sprachen

  • Westgermanische Sprachen

• Indische Sprachen

• Iranische Sprachen

• Keltische Sprachen

  • p-keltische Sprachen

  • q-keltische Sprachen

• Italische Sprachen

  • Romanische Sprachen

• Slawische Sprachen

Folgende Sprachen gehören zu den indoeuropäischen, stellen aber jeweils eigene Gruppen dar:

• Albanisch

• Armenisch

• Griechisch

Folgende Sprachen bzw. Gruppen sind ausgestorben:

• Hethitisch

• Tocharisch

Schließlich gibt es noch eine Reihe schlecht überlieferter ausgestorbener Sprachen:

• Illyrisch (es wird eine Verwandtschaft mit dem Albanischen vermutet)

• Luwisch

• Lykisch

• Palaisch

• Pelasgisch

Der Hinweis:  Indoeuropäische Sprachen, Wikipedia, die freie Enzyklopädie.  Retrieved July 28, 2003 from  http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoeurop%E4ische_Sprachen

Runes

Runes, characters in the ancient alphabet used by Germanic peoples. Runic inscriptions have been found all over western Europe, on stone monuments and on such objects as metal spearpoints and amulets; the greatest concentrations are in England and Scandinavia. The runic alphabet, called futhark after the sounds of the initial letters, originally had 24 characters. In English versions the number was eventually increased to 33, whereas in Scandinavia it was reduced to 16 and later expanded to 26.

It is believed that runes are derived from a northern Etruscan alphabet used among Italic tribes in the Eastern Alps, and that they were developed in the 2nd or 3rd century ad by a Germanic people living in the region of modern Bohemia. The earliest surviving inscription is from the mid-3rd century. Runes were in wide use from the 4th to the 12th century. A form of runes was used in Scandinavia throughout the Middle Ages as an alternative to the Latin alphabet used by the clergy, and runes survived in occasional use in rural Sweden at least until the 17th century. Runes were also used to augment the Latin alphabet for certain sounds, notably the thorn (þ, th) used in Anglo-Saxon England and modern Iceland

Source:  "Runes," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com  Retrieved June 20, 2003 from
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761561204

Die Runen

Runen sind die ältesten Schriftzeichen der Germanen.

(Sie sind nicht, wie man früher annahm, einheimischen Ursprungs, sondern um die Zeit von Christi Geburt aus dem lateinischen Alphabet (der Kapitalschrift) hervorgegangen, dessen Buchstaben man unter prinzipieller Vermeidung der wagerechten und krummen Linien (diese waren zum Einritzen in Holz ungeeignet) umformte und mit bedeutsamen Namen versah.) Diese obige Deutung ist fragwürdig, da bei einem wohl auf die Kimbernwanderung zurückzuführender Helmfund (also definitiv vor 110 v. Chr) einer der Helme eine Runeninschrift trug, der so genannte Helm B von Negau. Wahrscheinlicher ist da eine Entwicklung aus der griechischen Schrift oder ihren Vorläufern, linear a oder linear b. Bemerkenswert ist, dass in alter Zeit die Kimbern mit einem ähnlich klingenden Volksstamm wahrscheilich skytischer Herkunft gleichgesetzt wurden.

1.  Ursprüngliches Runenalphabet ("futhark")

2.  Angelsächsisches Runenalphabet

3. Nordisches Runenalphabet

4. Punktiertes Runenalphabet

Bilder: Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4. Auflage 1888/89

Runenalphabete

Das älteste Runenalphabet (nach den ersten sechs Buchstaben futhark genannt) bestand aus 24 Zeichen: f u th a r k g w h n i j eu (?) p z (= weich s) s t b e m l ng o d. Es lässt sich mit geringen Abweichungen in der gleichen Anordnung bei den Nordgermanen (Brakteat von Vadstena), Angelsachsen (in der Themse gefundenes Messer) und Südgermanen (Charnayspange) nachweisen, war also allen germanischen Stämmen gemeinsam, was für die Goten durch die Beibehaltung einzelner Runenzeichen in dem Alphabet des Ulfilas und durch die in einer Wiener Handschrift erhaltenen Namen der gotischen Buchstaben, die mit den Namen der Angeln und nordischen Runen übereinstimmen, für die Franken durch das ausdrückliche Zeugnis des Venantius Fortunatus noch besonders erhärtet wird.

Dieses gemeingermanische Alphabet ist bei den Angelsachsen durch Hinzufügung neuer Zeichen (welche durch die reichere Entwicklung des Vokalismus notwendig wurde) erweitert, bei den Skandinaviern vereinfacht worden, da in den jüngeren Inschriften nur 16 Zeichen (f u th o r k h n i a s t b l m y) verwendet werden, denen man erst ganz spät noch 7 neue Sprossformen (die so genannten punktierten Runen) hinzufügte.

Runen als magische Zeichen

Eine eigentümliche Abart des kürzeren Alphabets sind die so genannten Zweigrunen, eine Art nordischer Geheimschrift. Zuerst sind die Runen, denen man einen geheimnisvollen Einfluss auf die Personen oder Dinge, die ihre Namen bezeichneten, zuschrieb, nur zur Weissagung (beim Losorakel) und zum Zauber gebraucht worden. Hieraus erklärt sich auch der Name der Runen (runa, altnordisch run, Plural runir, bedeutet Geheimnis).

Über das Losorakel ist uns im 10. Kapitel der "Germania" des Tacitus ein Zeugnis erhalten. Man streute mit Runen (notis quibusdam) bezeichnete hölzerne Stäbchen auf ein weißes Tuch. Darauf wurden auf gut Glück drei dieser Stäbchen aufgehoben und gedeutet. Höchst wahrscheinlich geschah diese Deutung in metrischer Form (in alliterierendem Spruch).

Die Verwendung der Runen zum Zauber ist besonders im Norden bezeugt. Es gab Zauberrunen für bestimmte Zwecke, so Siegrunen, Bierrunen, Bergerunen (zur Geburtshilfe), Seerunen (zum Schutz der Schiffe), Rederunen (um klug zu sprechen), Löserunen (bei Gefangenschaft), Runen zum Besprechen (Stumpfmachen) der Schwerter und dergleichen.

Runen als Schrift

Zu zusammenhängender Schrift sind die Runen von den Deutschen des Kontinents nur in geringem Umfang gebraucht worden (die einzigen erhaltenen Runendenkmäler sind Schmuckgegenstände, die durch die Runen den Wert von Amuletten erhielten, und Waffen), und auch in England war ihre Verwendung zu diesem Zweck nicht häufig (das umfangreichste Denkmal, die Inschrift auf dem Kreuz von Ruthwell, stammt bereits aus christlicher Zeit).

Im skandinavischen Norden, wo die lateinische Schrift erst verhältnismäßig spät bekannt wurde, haben die Runen dagegen sehr ausgedehnte Verwendung gefunden, besonders zu Grabinschriften auf Steinen. Die Schrift geht entweder von links nach rechts oder umgekehrt, zuweilen auch in beiden Richtungen abwechselnd. Die ältesten Denkmäler (die Zwinge von Thorsbjärg, das Diadem von Straarup u. a.) gehören wahrscheinlich dem 5. Jahrhundert an; das berühmte "goldene Horn" von Gallehus bei Tondern, die Steine von Tune, Strand, Varnum, Tanum u. a. stammen aus dem 6. Jahrhundert.

Die Inschriften im kürzeren Alphabet beginnen etwa um 800 (z. B. die Steine von Helnäs und Flemlöse auf Fünen). Ganz sicher datierbar sind jedoch erst die zweifellos jüngeren Iällingesteine aus dem 10. Jahrhundert. Sie sind besonders zahlreich in Schweden und reichen bis in späte Zeit hinab, auf Gotland bis ins 16. Jahrhundert; einige (z. B. der Karlevistein auf Öland und der Rökstein in Ostgotland) enthalten stabreimende Verse. Der Gebrauch der Runen zu literarischen Zwecken (in Handschriften) ist selten und nur als eine gelehrte Spielerei zu bezeichnen (das umfangreichste Denkmal war der so genannte "Codex runicus" mit dem schonischen Recht aus dem 14. Jahrhundert). Besonders lange wurden Runen auf Kalenderstäben gebraucht.

Aus: Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4. Auflage 1888/89 Anmerkung für verantwortlichen Autor: Anfang (Runenherkunft) in Frage gestellt.

Externe Links

Informationen zu den einzelnen Runen und insbesondere zu deren Bedeutung in der neuzeitlichen Esoterik sind auf http://www.asatru-online.de und/oder http://www.runenkunde.de zu finden.

Der Hinweis:  Runen, Wikipedia, die freie Enzyklopädie.  Retrieved July 28, 2003 from  http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runen

Verner's Law

Verner’s Law, phonetic principle formulated by the Danish philologist Karl Adolf Verner (1846-96) in 1875, which modifies certain points in the earlier work of the German philologist Jacob Grimm (see Grimm's Law). Verner's law describes a regular shift in stress that took place in words in the Germanic languages after the consonant shift postulated by Grimm. According to Grimm, the ancient Indo-European parent language sounds of p, t, and k changed into f, th, and h in the Germanic languages, while b, d, and g in the ancient tongue changed to the Germanic p, t, and k. Verner observed that this was true when the accent fell on the root syllable, but when the accent fell on another syllable, ancient Indo-European p, t, and k became Germanic b, d, and g. Verner then applied these rules to the consonants s and r. Verner's law states that with respect to the Germanic languages, the medial and final fricatives were voiced if they came after an unaccented syllable in the Indo-European parent language. His work is important in the study of linguistics because it proves both that language changes are evolutionary and that no exceptions or gaps exist in linguistic development.

Source:  "Verner's Law," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003
http://encarta.msn.com  Retrieved June 20, 2003 from
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761554130

Related Web Sites

Deutsch: Grundfakten über die Sprache.  Retrieved August 10, 2003 from
http://www.sochorek.cz/archiv/sprachen/deutsch/fakten.htm
Good map of "Sprachgebieten":