Wiktionary:About Middle Low German
Middle Low German is a West Germanic language which developed from Old Saxon and evolved into the modern dialects of Low German. It is generally considered to have been used from about 1100 to about 1600, though some legal texts were printed in Middle Low German as late as the 19th century. (The last actual application of a Low German legal text occurred in the year 2000 in Germany.) It was the language of communication within the Hanseatic League and the language of both legal scripture and the common people of Northern Germany.
Making entries
editGeneral overview
editThe term Middle Low German on Wiktionary should primarily denote a West Germanic dialect descending from Old Saxon, which has merged all unstressed vowels into a phoneme /ə/, which is not apocopated. The period is roughly taken to have lasted from around 1100 to 1600.
Order of headers
editSince there are no cases of MLG where lemmas have the same etymology but a different pronunciation, but homophones can have different etymologies, Middle Low German entries list the etymology section after the Pronunciation header. Note that this contrasts with most other languages on Wiktionary.
Also, due to their potentially huge number, the Alternative Forms header is an L4 between 'Declension' and 'Synonyms', rather than the first thing in the entry. This too is the less usual placing.
Grammatical normalisation – The Lübeck standard
editThe so-called Lübeck standard describes the written language of offices between the Elbe river and western Baltic, which is often thought of as standard Middle Low German. Authors have a visible desire to normalise their language so that it does not differ grossly from this form. Grammatical forms and spellings diverging from this standard should be tagged accordingly, or be put into brackets, when in a table.
Named after Lübeck, the headquarter of the entire Hanse, the Lübeck standard was not a fully standardised orthography as we know it today, nor did it reflect the actual dialect spoken in Lübeck, which diverged in a few prominent features. Authors did not slavishly copy the language of Lübeck, but, as written communication became more common, they increasingly avoided archaisms and certain forms from their own dialect, in order to ease international and interdialectal communication.
Regions with visibly unique writing traditions, and thus prime candidates for labeling, are Brandenburg and Anhalt (centered around Berlin and Zerbst), Eastphalia (notably Magdeburg), Westphalia (most notably Dortmund) and East Frisia (around Groningen).
Normalisation
editEntries for Middle Low German words should be their most basic form, i.e. a form without superfluous letters or scholarly diacritics such as the trema. Of course, diacritics actually used in the original texts, rather than modern editions, can receive an entry of their own but should be marked as an alternative spelling linking to the lemma form.
Vowels
editWhen creating a Middle Low German entry, the {{head}} (but not the actual page title) should follow the tradition of Middle Low German research to mark originally short vowels with a macron and original long vowels and diphthongs with a circumflex. Further, rounded front vowels are to be identified with a trema. This discrepancy between head and page title is a Wiktionary practice to inform the user that diacritical marks are an editorial addition, not part of the original spelling.
Links should always contain the diacritics if possible. There is a module in place which will automatically refer the link to the form without the diacritic so that {{m|gml|rügge}} will link to the page rugge.
Deviations from this practice should receive a tag identifying the region or context of usage. Normalisations use ⟨ê, ô⟩ for ê⁴ and ô¹ (see below). For original /ʊɒ/, the spellings ⟨ō⟩ and ⟨ā⟩ are treated as alternative forms, as ⟨ā⟩ appears roughly in the middle of the period and is never common in Eastphalia.
| Character | Corresponding Old Saxon sounds | Additional usage notes |
|---|---|---|
| ē | [i, e, ɛ] | only in open syllables |
| ê | [eː, ɛː, iɑ̯, æː, æ] | corresponds to Old Saxon /æ/ only in open syllables |
| ei | [ɛː, ɛi̯] | distinguish from ê, use only for ê³ (i.e. êne reise not êne rêse or eine reise) |
| î | [iː, iɛ̯] | |
| ie | [eː, iɑ̯] | should only occur in alternative forms |
| ī | [i, e] | only in open syllables, should only occur in alternative forms |
| ā | [ɑ, ɔ] | only in open syllables |
| â | [ɑː] | |
| ä | [æ] | should only occur in alternative forms |
| ä̂ | [æː] | should only occur in alternative forms |
| ō | [u, ɔ] | only in open syllables |
| ô | [oː, ɔː] | |
| û | [uː, uɔ̯] | |
| ū | [u] | only in open syllables, should only occur in alternative forms |
| ȫ | [y, œ] | written as u, o in treatments of Old Saxon, open syllables only |
| ö̂ | [øː, œː] | written as ô in treatments of Old Saxon |
| ǖ | [y] | written as u in treatments of Old Saxon, only in open syllables, should only occur in alternative forms |
| ü̂ | [yː] | written as û in treatments of Old Saxon |
Stem vowels
editMiddle Low German vowel spellings were highly defective, even umlaut was frequently not reflected. The normalised spelling allievates this by distinguishing short, lengthened, and long vowels as well as umlauts. Even this system, however, does not reflect all original vowel qualities. Therefore, at some point in the 20th century, a system of numbering Low German long vowels according to their origin developed, which is adhered to by the majority of authors. Wiktionary uses a slightly extended form to include lengthened vowels. Editors are encouraged to leave a note saying which of these vowels the stem of a word carries in the Pronunciation section.
During the Middle Low German period, several dialects developed by merging these vowels in various ways. While Westphalian has widely preserved the distinctions to this day, some other dialects ultimately merged all the vowels written with the same letter. As such, the pronunciations provided are usually the most conservative state at maximum distinction. If a divergent pronunciation is added, it must be tagged appropriately.
| Vowel name | Original pronunciation | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| ê¹ | /æː/ | umlaut of Old Saxon /a(ː)/ |
| ê² | /ɛː/ | Old Saxon /ɛː/, Proto-Germanic *ai, without umlaut |
| ê³ | /ɛɪ/ | umlaut of ê² (normally spelt ‹ei›) |
| ê⁴ | /eː/ | Old Saxon /iɑ̯/ and /eː/, PGm. *eu and *ē² |
| ê⁵ | probably /eː/ | past tense of reduplicating (Class VII) verbs |
| ô¹ / ö̂¹ | /oː, øː/ | Old Saxon /oː/, PGm. *ō |
| ô² / ö̂² | /ɔː, œː/ | Old Saxon /ɔː/, PGm. *au |
| ē¹ | /ɪə/ | Old Saxon /i/ and /e/ in open syllables, /e/ is the primary umlaut of Old Saxon /a, ɛ/ |
| ē² | /ɪɛ/ | Old Saxon /ɛ/ in open syllables |
| ō¹ / ȫ¹ | /ʊə, ʏə/ | Old Saxon /u/ in open syllables |
| ō² / ȫ² | /ʊɒ, ʏœ/ | Old Saxon /ɔ/ in open syllables; /ʏœ/ created by analogy |
Consonants
editConsonants should be normalised according to their most common form, minus any mute H.
Entries deviating from this standard of normalisation should be tagged as alternative forms. The distinction between U and V should be made in accordance with pronunciation.
An exception is pre-vocalic sch, wherein the H may be mute in most regions for most of the time, but there is also a significant number of instances where it represents either s + ch or /ʃ/. Note that this does not apply to orthographic sch before consonants, which is pronounced as /s/ everywhere.
| Normalisation | Alternative forms | word examples |
|---|---|---|
| sch | sc, ssch, sg, sk, sh | twischen, schriven vs. twisschen, scriven |
| g | gh, ggh | gesegget vs. ghesegghet |
| ch | gh, g | recht vs. reght |
| v | f, w, u | visch, lēven vs. fisch, lēwen |
| w | v, u, uu | water vs. uuater |
| s | z, sz, cz, sch | sik vs. zik |
| cz | z, sz, cz, scz, tcz, sch etc. | czēge vs. schēge |
| ks | x | sünderlinks vs. sünderlinx |
| s before consonants | sch before consonants | sniden vs. schniden |
| phonetic spelling | morphophonetic spelling | got, dach vs. god, dag |
Grammar
editThe normalised forms include the ge- prefix where applicable and use the plural ending -en over -et. Old long forms ending in -eCe are treated as alternative forms to the short ones ending in -eC.