Old Saxon phonology explained
pronounced as /notice/The phonology of Old Saxon mirrors that of the other ancient Germanic languages, and also, to a lesser extent, that of modern West Germanic languages such as English, Dutch, Frisian, German, and Low German.
Old Saxon is an Ingvaeonic language, which means that it belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages and that it is particularly closely related to Old English and Old Frisian. Thus, anyone looking at Old Saxon phonology will recognize some typical West-Germanic phonological features also found in Old English, such as gemination and the different pronunciations of the letter g.
Distinctive features
Old Saxon was in a direct continuum with Old Dutch, with which it shares the distribution of the reflexes of Proto-Germanic *ai and *au, which monophthongize to pronounced as //ɛː// and pronounced as //ɔː// unless followed by a semivowel or, in the case of *ai, under the influence of an umlaut. This contrasts with Old High German, which monophthongizes *ai and *au only in front of certain consonants and word-finally, thus creating no distinction between older *ai and its umlaut. In a similar vein, Old English merges both Proto-Germanic *au and *auw into pronounced as //æːɑ//, whereas Old Frisian partially merges older *ai and *au into /ā/.
Old Saxon, unlike the other West Germanic languages, consistently preserves Germanic -j- after a consonant, e.g. hēliand ('savior'), cf. German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: heilant, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: hǣlend, Gothic: háiljands.
Consonants
The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Old Saxon.
Labial!colspan=2Dental/
Alveolar | Palatal/
Velar | Glottal |
|---|
| Nasal | style=border-right:0 | | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-right:0 | | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | | |
|---|
| Plosive | style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | | |
|---|
Fricative
| style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | (pronounced as /link/) | style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | (pronounced as /link/) | style=border-right:0 | (pronounced as /link/) | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | |
|---|
| style=border-right:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-left:0 | (pronounced as /link/) | | |
| Approximant | style=border-right:0 | | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-right:0 | | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | style=border-right:0 | | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|
| Rhotic | | style=border-right:0 | | style=border-left:0 | pronounced as /link/ | | | |
|---|
- Notes
- The voiceless spirants pronounced as //f//, pronounced as //θ//, and pronounced as //s// gain voiced allophones (pronounced as /[v]/, pronounced as /[ð]/, and pronounced as /[z]/) when between vowels. This change is only faithfully reflected in writing for pronounced as /[v]/ (represented with letters such as (ƀ) and (u)). The other two allophones continued to be written as before.
- Fricatives were devoiced again word finally and before voiceless consonants. Beginning in the later Old Saxon period, stops became devoiced word-finally as well.
- pronounced as /link/ is an allophone of both pronounced as //h// and pronounced as //ɣ// in these positions. In some regions, it might have been realized as palatal pronounced as /link/ when in contact with front vowels. For pronounced as //h//, the allophone does not result from devoicing, it is rather a retention of the original sound from Proto-Germanic, where pronounced as //h// was realised as pronounced as /link/ in all positions.
- The fricatives pronounced as //f, v// might have been labiodental or bilabial, as in Proto-Germanic. Low German dialects, the modern descendants of Old Saxon, have both variants, realizing Old Saxon pronounced as //v// variably as pronounced as /[v, ʋ, β, w]/; pronounced as //f// on the other hand is invariably pronounced as /[f]/.
- pronounced as //n, t, d, θ, l// could have been either dental pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|n̪}}, {{IPAplink|t̪}}, {{IPAplink|d̪}}, {{IPAplink|θ}}, {{IPAplink|l̪}}]/ or alveolar pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|n|n͇}}, {{IPAplink|t|t͇}}, {{IPAplink|d|d͇}}, {{IPAplink|s|θ͇}}, {{IPAplink|l|l͇}}]/.
- pronounced as //s̺// was almost certainly apico-alveolar, and possibly retracted, as in Old and Middle High German, modern Icelandic and most notably Westphalian Low German, the most conservative modern descendant of Old Saxon.
- pronounced as //n// had a velar allophone pronounced as /link/ when it occurred before the velars pronounced as //k, ɡ//.
- pronounced as //ɣ// was stopped in gemination and after pronounced as /[ŋ]/. This process occurs in all West Germanic languages.
- Before front vowels, it was palatalized to some extent, probably resulting in post-palatal pronounced as /link/ or palatal pronounced as /link/.
- pronounced as //r// was most likely alveolar, either a trill pronounced as /link/ or a tap pronounced as /link/.
- Most consonants could be geminated. Notably, gemination of pronounced as //v// gave pronounced as /[bː]/, and gemination of pronounced as //ɣ// gave pronounced as /[ɡː]/. In the gemination of pronounced as //h//, the older pronunciation pronounced as /[xː]/ was retained.
- pronounced as /[v]/ was not devoiced before pronounced as //d//.
- pronounced as //k// was strongly palatalized before front vowels and affricated in the late stages of the language. The spellings of the affricate are (x), (z), (c) etc. This process was fully reverted in Middle Low German, with the exception of very few relic words, where the consonant merges into pronounced as //s̺//.
Vowels
! colspan="4" | Front | Back |
|---|
| unrounded | rounded |
|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long |
|---|
| Close | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| Close-mid | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | | (pronounced as /ink/) | | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| Open-mid | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | (pronounced as /ink/) | (pronounced as /ink/) | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ |
|---|
| Near-open | (pronounced as /ink/) | (pronounced as /ink/) | | | | |
|---|
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | | | | | |
|---|
Notes:
- Although not indicated in spelling, it is likely that all vowels also occurred in a nasalized form where Proto-Germanic had a nasal consonant before a fricative. This can be inferred from the fact that Middle Low German restores the consonant in almost all instances, which would not have been possible from oral vowels.
- Long vowels were rare in unstressed syllables and mostly occurred due to suffixation or compounding.
- The pronunciations of most vowels are only given as indicators of their pronunciation relative to each other and do not represent absolute values, which might be higher or lower. For example, some modern dialects pronounce the Old Saxon pair of pronounced as //e// and pronounced as //ɛ// as such (i.e. pronounced as /[e]/ and pronounced as /[ɛ]/) while others pronounce them lower, i.e. pronounced as /[ɛ]/ and pronounced as /[æ]/.
- All front rounded vowels are non-phonemic allophones of the back rounded vowels of the same height, occurring if the following syllable contained an pronounced as //i// or pronounced as //j//. Similarly, pronounced as //e// is an allophone of pronounced as //ɛ// and pronounced as //ɑ// in the same position. The process was blocked by certain consonant clusters beginning with pronounced as /[x]/. These allophones became phonemicized when unstressed vowels were elided in later stages of Old Saxon. This process of fronting and phonemization is called 'primary umlaut' by scholars of Old Saxon and Old High German. In later stages of the language, the process repeated once more, but this time was blocked solely by pronounced as /[xː]/. This second wave is called 'secondary umlaut'. Only the primary umlaut of pronounced as //ɑ// is indicated in Old Saxon spelling, so it cannot be said for certain whether the other front rounded vowels are a result of the primary or secondary umlaut wave.
- The backness of pronounced as //ɑ// and pronounced as //ɑː// is unknown. They may have been front pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|a}}, {{IPAplink|aː}}]/, central pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|ä}}, {{IPAplink|äː}}]/, back pronounced as /[{{IPAplink|ɑ}}, {{IPAplink|ɑː}}]/ or mixed (e.g. pronounced as //a// was front pronounced as /link/, whereas pronounced as //aː// was back pronounced as /link/). However, the merger of pronounced as //ɑ// and pronounced as //ɔ// into pronounced as //ɔ// in front of pronounced as //ld//, as well as the tendency of Westphalian Old Saxon of spelling pronounced as //ɔr// as (ar) indicates that it was not as strongly fronted as it is in some modern Low German variants.
- Long pronounced as //ɑː// offers no hint as to its pronunciation. It descends from Proto-Germanic /æː/ (*ē) hinting at a frontal pronunciation in old West Germanic times. On the other hand, it became a rounded back vowel in all descendants of Old Saxon.
- The more open pronounced as //ɛ// represents Proto-Germanic *e. It was spelled (e).
- The closed phoneme pronounced as //e// represents the umlaut of Proto-Germanic *a and *e. It was also spelled (e) and probably was identical with pronounced as //ɛ// in its earlier stages. The two phonemes are only distinguished in southern dialects in modern times, merging into pronounced as //ɛ// in most regions. This might have already been the case in Old Saxon, i.e. the distinction between pronounced as //e// and pronounced as //ɛ// might not have developed in all areas.
- The frontal phone pronounced as //æ// is the secondary umlaut of pronounced as //ɑ//. It was spelled (a) well into the Renaissance, before (e) became the dominant spelling. Its pronunciation was either pronounced as /[æ]/ or pronounced as /[a]/.
- pronounced as //ɛː// and pronounced as //ɔː// stem from Proto-Germanic *ai and *au.
- Closed pronounced as //eː// and pronounced as //oː// continue Proto-Germanic *ē and *ō.
- pronounced as //æː// is the primary umlaut of pronounced as //ɑː//. It was spelled (a), just like its short equivalent of later times.
Diphthongs
Old Saxon diphthongs!! Front! Back| Opening | pronounced as /io/pronounced as //ia//pronounced as /ie/ | (pronounced as /uo/) |
|---|
| Height-harmonic | pronounced as /iu/ | |
|---|
| Closing | pronounced as /aːi/ pronounced as /ɛi/ pronounced as /ɛu/ | pronounced as /ɑu/ pronounced as /ɔːi/ pronounced as /oːi/ | |
|---|
Notes:
- The diphthong spelled (io) in the Heliand, the most extensive piece of Old Saxon writing, is spelled (ia) in most texts and (ie) in some. It might have been opening pronounced as //io// or pronounced as //iə//, or harmonic pronounced as //eo//, as in Old English. It is likely that it gradually opened from pronounced as //io// to pronounced as //iɒ//, accounting for different spellings. In later times, it merged with pronounced as //eː// in all dialects except southeastern Eastphalian.
- The opening diphthong pronounced as //uo// is a regional variant for pronounced as //oː//. There is a similar situation for pronounced as //eː// and pronounced as //ie//, although it is less spread.
- A closing diphthong pronounced as //ɛi// or pronounced as //ei// (possibly long pronounced as //ɛːi// or pronounced as //eːi//) is the umlaut of pronounced as //ɛː//, as well as the result of a Proto-Germanic *ajj-. It was not usually indicated in writing, as seen in e.g. the spelling heliand for pronounced as //hɛɪljand//, but is thoroughly distinguished from Old Saxon pronounced as //ɛː// in the majority of the Low German area until the current day.
- Similarly, pronounced as //au// and pronounced as //ɛu// are descendants of Proto-Germanic *aww- and *eww-. Unlike pronounced as //ɛi//, they are always followed by a corresponding semivowel, as in hauwan and breuwan. Thus they could just as well be analyzed as a short vowel followed by a geminated consonant.
- The closing diphthongs (ei) and (ou) sometimes occur in texts (especially in Genesis), probably under the influence of Franconian or Old High German dialects, where they replace Old Saxon developments pronounced as //ɛː// and pronounced as //ɔː// in all positions.
- pronounced as //ɔːi// is the known umlaut of pronounced as //au//. The situation in Middle Low German hints that there could have been unrecorded reflexes for this umlaut in other dialects, e.g. pronounced as //œːi// or pronounced as //ɛu//, but Middle Low German forms sometimes are analogous or secondary, rather than directly reflecting Old Saxon structures, and often hard to interpret due to warring orthographic traditions.
- pronounced as //oːi// as well as pronounced as //aːi// are created in class 7 strong verbs whose stem ended in a vowel, partially by the insertion of epenthetic pronounced as //j//. For example, Proto-Germanic *blōaną/*wēaną gave Old Saxon blōian and wāian, whose 3rd person singulars were blōid/wāid. (Cf. a class 7 verb with medial consonant: hētan, 3rd Person hētid.)
- (iu) is the umlaut of the diphthong spelled (io) and (ia). It was probably realized as pronounced as /[iy]/.
- There were also "long" diphthongs pronounced as //oːu//, pronounced as //aːu// and pronounced as //eːu//. These were however treated as two-syllable sequences of a long vowel followed by a short one, not proper diphthongs.
See also
References
- Book: Galleé, Johan Hendrik. 1910. Altsächsische Grammatik. Halle. Max Niemeyer.
- Book: Robinson, Orrin W.. Orrin W. Robinson (philologist). 1947. Old English and its closest relatives. Stanford. Stanford University Press.
- Book: Helfenstein, Jacob. 1901. Comparative Grammar of the Teutonic languages. Oxford. Forgotten Books.
- Book: Rauch, Irmengard . 1992. The Old Saxon Language. Peter Lang Publishing.
