The following are the chief changes in sounds and forms which mark the
development of the language in the Middle High German period. The
orthography of the MSS. reveals a much more extensive employment of
mutation (_Umlaut_) than was the case in the first period; we find,
for instance, as the mutation of _o_, _o_, of _o_, _oe_, _of u_, _iu_
(_u_), of _uo_, _ue_, of _ou_, _ou_, and _eu_ (cf. _holer_, _boese_,
_hiuser_, _guete_, _boume_), although many scribes, and more
especially those of Middle and Low German districts, have no special
signs for the mutation of _u_, _u_, and _o_. Of special interest is
the so-called "later (or weaker) mutation" (_jungerer oder
schwacherer Umlaut_) of _a_ to a very open _e_ sound, which is often
written _a_. Cf. _mahte_ (O.H.G. _mahti_), _magede_ (O.H.G. _magadi_).
The earlier mutation of this sound produced an _e_(_e_), a closed
sound (i.e. nearer _i_). Cf. _geste_ (O.H.G. _gesti_).
The various Old High German vowels in unstressed syllables were either
weakened to an indifferent _e_ sound (_geben_, O.H.G. _geban_; _bote_,
O.H.G. _boto_; _sige_, O.H.G. _sigu_) or disappeared altogether. The
latter phenomenon is to be observed after _l_ and _r_, and partly
after _n_ and _m_ (cf. _ar(e)_, O.H.G. _aro_; _zal_, O.H.G. _zala_;
_wundern_, O.H.G. _wuntaron_, &c.); but it by no means took place
everywhere in the same degree and at the same time. It has been
already noted that the Alemannic dialect (as well as the archaic poets
of the German national epic) retained at least the long unstressed
vowels until as late as the 14th century (_gemarterot_, _gekriuzegot_,
&c., and Low and Middle German preserved the weakened _e_ sound in
many cases where Upper German dropped it. In this period the
beginnings are also to be seen in Low and Middle German (Heinrich von
Veldeke shows the first traces of it) of a process which became of
great importance for the formation of the Modern German literary
language. This is the lengthening of originally short vowels in open
syllables,[17] for example, in Modern High German _Tages_, _Weges_,
_lobe_ (Middle High German _tages_, _weges_, _lobe_). In Austria, on
the other hand, there began as far back as the first half of the 12th
century another movement of equal importance for Modern High German,
namely, the conversion of the long vowels, _i_, _u_, _u_, into _ei_
(_ou_), _au_, _eu_ (_au_).[18] It is, therefore, in MSS. written in
the south-east that we find forms like _zeit_, _lauter_ (_loter_),
_heute_, &c., for the first time. With the exception of Low German and
Alemannic--Swabian, however, follows in this respect the majority--all
the German dialects participated in this change between the 14th and
16th centuries, although not all to the same degree. The change was
perhaps assisted by the influence of the literary language which had
recognized the new sounds. In England the same process has led to the
modern pronunciation of _time_, _house_, &c., and in Holland to that
of _tijd_, _huis_, &c. F. Wrede (_Zeitschrift fur deutsches Altertum_
xxxix. 257 ff.) has suggested that the explanation of the change is to
be sought in the apocope and syncope of the final _e_, and the greater
stress which was in consequence put on the stem-syllable. The tendency
to a change in the opposite direction, namely, the narrowing of
diphthongs to monophthongs, is to be noticed in Middle German
dialects, i.e. in dialects which resisted the apocope of the final
_e_, where _ie_, _uo_, _ue_ become _i_, _u_, _u_; thus we have for
_Brief_, _brif_, for _huon_, _hun_, for _brueder_, _bruder_, and this
too was taken over into the Modern High German literary language.[19]
No consonantal change was so widespread during this period as that of
initial _s_ to _sch_ before _l_, _n_, _m_, _w_, _p_ and _t_. Cf.
_slingen_, _schlingen_; _swer_ (_e_) _n_, _schworen_, &c. The forms
_scht_- and _schp_- are often to be met with in Alemannic MSS., but
they were discarded again, although modern German recognizes the
pronunciation _schp_, _scht_.[20] With regard to changes affecting the
inflections of verbs and nouns, it must suffice here to point out that
the weakening or disappearance of vowels in unstressed syllables
necessarily affected the characteristic endings of the older language;
groups of verbs and substantives which in Old High German were
distinct now become confused. This is best seen in the case of the
weak verbs, where the three Old High German classes (cf. _nerien_,
_salbon_, _dagen_) were fused into one. Similarly in the declensions
we find an increasing tendency of certain forms to influence
substantives belonging to other classes; there is, for instance, an
increase in the number of neuter nouns taking _-er_ (_-ir_) in the
plural, and of those which show mutation in the plural on the model of
the _i-_ stems (O.H.G. _gast_, pl. _gesti_; cf. forms like _ban_,
_benne_; _hals_, _helse_; _wald_, _welde_). Of changes in syntax the
gradual decay in the use of the genitive case dependent on a noun or
governed by a verb (cf. constructions like _eine brunne rotes goldes_,
or _des todes wunschen_) towards the end of the period, and also the
disappearance of the Old High German sequence of tenses ought at least
to be mentioned.
In the Middle High German period, the first classical period of German
poetry, the German language made great advances as a vehicle of
literary expression; its power of expression was increased and it
acquired a beauty of style hitherto unknown. This was the period of
the _Minnesang_ and the great popular and court epics, of Walther von
der Vogelweide, Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried
von Strassburg; it was a period when literature enjoyed the fostering
care of the courts and the nobility. At the same time German prose
celebrated its first triumphs in the sermons of Berthold von
Regensburg, and in the mystic writings and sermons of Meister Eckhart,
Tauler and others. History (Eike von Repkow's _Weltchronik_) and law
(_Sachsenspiegel_, _Schwabenspiegel_) no longer despised the
vernacular, and from about the middle of the 13th century German
becomes, in an ever-increasing percentage, the language of deeds and
charters.
It has been a much debated question how far Germany in Middle High
German times possessed or aspired to possess a _Schriftsprache_ or
literary language.[21] About the year 1200 there was undoubtedly a
marked tendency towards a unification of the literary language on the
part of the more careful poets like Walther von der Vogelweide,
Hartmann von Aue and Gottfried von Strassburg; they avoid, more
particularly in their rhymes, dialectic peculiarities, such as the
Bavarian dual forms _es_ and _enk_, or the long vowels in unstressed
syllables, retained in Alemannic, and they do not make use of archaic
words or forms. We have thus a right to speak, if not of a Middle High
German literary language in the widest sense of the word, at least of
a Middle High German _Dichtersprache_ or poetic language, on an
Alemannic-Franconian basis. Whether, or in how far, this may have
affected the ordinary speech of the nobility or courts, is a matter of
conjecture; but it had an undeniable influence on Middle and Low
German poets, who endeavoured at least to use High German forms in
their rhymes. Attempts were also made in Low German districts, though
at a later stage of this period, to unify the dialects and raise them
to the level of an accepted literary language. It will be shown later
why these attempts were unsuccessful. Unfortunately, however, the
efforts of the High German poets to form a uniform language were also
shortlived; by the end of the 13th century the _Dichtersprache_ had
disappeared, and the dialects again reigned supreme.