Timeline for Why is "bleiben" conjugated as "bleibet" in the Bach choral "Jesus bleibet meine Freude"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 14, 2022 at 21:46 | comment | added | Sebastian Koppehel | Such forms are still pretty common with Heinrich Heine, and at least occasionally found e.g. in Hofmannsthal („in dem Wort, dem abgegriffnen, liegt, was mancher sinnend suchet …“). | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 15:25 | comment | added | rici | Similar histories must exist in German, and I should have made it clearer that I was seeking that sort of information. I apologise if my question sounded like a complaint about inconstancy of language; rather, I was curious about whether bleibet is an older morpheme, or a conjugation which no longer exists, or a metrical device which is no longer written (but might still be sung) or something else. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 15:19 | comment | added | rici | Sure, I understand that languages change over time. The evolution of English is visible through a comparison between Shakespeare's early and late writing, although the written evidence is ambiguous; by Shakespeare's time, the -th conjugation had almost disappeared from the spoken language, but was still common in written English. It could still be pronounced for metrical reasons, and Shakespeare sometimes used both forms in the same line. At roughly the same time, the informal 2nd person was vanishing, leading to the loss of the -st conjugation. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 10:03 | comment | added | RDBury | Perhaps a more apt comparison is Handel's Messiah: "Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. The Kingdom of this World is become the Kingdom of our Lord ..." Definitely not the way people talk these days. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 8:07 | history | answered | Hubert Schölnast | CC BY-SA 4.0 |