Chapter I: Front Matter

[Transcriber's Note:

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making changes, be sure to include the period after "Sec." and the
brackets surrounding all letters or letter groups.

Sec. section symbol, or use pilcrow (paragraph symbol)
Secs. two section symbols

[ae] ae ligature
[oe] oe ligature

[a] a with macron (overline, "long" mark)
If macron is unavailable, use a-circumflex instead
[e] [i] [o] [u] (same for e, i, o, u)
[a:] [e:] [o:] [u:] a, e, o, u with umlaut
['a] ['e] a, e with acute accent
[e.] e with dot under, used in reading selections
If you have nothing suitable, replace with plain e
[i.] same as above; rare

[z] z with hook at end of bottom line
[zz] two of these z's (often used in pairs)
If this character is unavailable, try z with cedilla.
As a last resort, replace with plain "z" after reading Sec. 19
carefully.

[A] [E] [I] [O] [U] [U:] (capital letters as above; rare)

A few additional characters are used mainly in the historical
introduction, along with two or three Greek words, here transliterated
and shown between +marks+. They can be disregarded.

[)a] [)e] [)i] [)o]
a, e, i, o with both macron and breve ("long" and "short" mark)
[-u:] u-umlaut with macron
[-ae] ae ligature with macron
[th] thorn
[dh] edh
[bh] b with line through stem
[zh] ezh
[ch] Greek letter chi
[ng] eng ("n" with curve below line)

Italics are marked with _lines_. Boldface type is shown with {braces}.
Boldface markings have generally been omitted from tables to aid
readability.

Punctuation in the Glossary has been silently regularized. Other
typographical errors are listed at the end of the text.]

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A

MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN
PRIMER

with
Grammar, Notes, And Glossary

by
JOSEPH WRIGHT
M.A., Ph.D., D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D.

Fellow of the British Academy
Corpus Christi Professor of Comparative Philology
in the University of Oxford

THIRD EDITION
Re-Written And Enlarged

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1917

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

London Edinburgh Glasgow New York
Toronto Melbourne Bombay

HUMPHREY MILFORD
Publisher to the University

EXTRACTS FROM THE PREFACES
TO THE FIRST AND SECOND EDITIONS

The present book has been written in the hope that it will serve as an elementary introduction to the larger German works on the subject from which I have appropriated whatever seemed necessary for the purpose. In the grammar much aid has been derived from Paul's _Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik_, second edition, Halle, 1884, and Weinhold's _Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik_, second edition, Paderborn, 1883. The former work, besides containing by far the most complete syntax, is also the only Middle High German Grammar which is based on the present state of German Philology.... I believe that the day is not far distant when English students will take a much more lively interest in the study of their own and the other Germanic languages (especially German and Old Norse) than has hitherto been the case. And if this little book should contribute anything towards furthering the cause, it will have amply fulfilled its purpose.

LONDON: _January, 1888._

When I wrote the preface to the first edition of this primer in 1888, I ventured to predict that the interest of English students in the subject would grow and develop as time went on, but I hardly expected that it would grow so much that a second edition of the book would be required within so short a period. It has been revised throughout, and several changes have been made in the phonology, but I have not thought it advisable to alter the general plan and scope of the former edition. After many years of personal experience as a teacher and examiner in the older periods of the German language, I have become firmly convinced that the larger books on the subject contain too many details for beginners. I feel sure that the easiest and best way to acquire a thorough knowledge of Middle High German is to start with an elementary book like the present, and then to learn the details of the grammar, especially the phonology of the various dialects, from a more advanced work.

OXFORD: _December, 1898._