Re: Low German and Dutch (was Re: Aesthetics)

Hallo!

On Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:54:01 +0200, Philip Newton wrote:

> On 10/21/07, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
> > BTW: The word _Dutch_ once meant 'German' (as it still does in
> > _Pennsylvania Dutch_) and is a cognate of _Deutsch_ (which is
> > ultimately from Germanic *theudiskaz 'of the people').
>
> That reminds me of reading a bit about "Notker theodiscus(?)" -- IIRC,
> an abbot who lived in St. Gall in what's now Switzerland; his name is
> sometimes interpreted as meaning "Notker the German" but apparently
> it's more likely that back then it merely referred to someone who
> wrote in "the language of the people", not necessarily that people
> called their own language specifically "deutsch" back then. (Again
> IIRC, he wrote not in standard German -- inasmuch as such a beast even
> existed as a notion back then -- but in Old Alemannic.)
In Notker's time, the concept of "Germany" already existed, but the
concept of "Switzerland" didn't - the Swiss Confederacy was founded
in 1271, and before that (and even after that, actually until 1648
when Switzerland ceased to be part of the Holy Roman Empire) the
area we now call Switzerland was considered a part of Germany
(as were, BTW, the Netherlands, which also were part of the HRE
until 1648).

A "standard German", however, did not exist in Notker's days.

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf

Reply