Semantic difference between regular and irregular 'backen'

Question

Is there a difference in meaning between the preterite buk, from backen, and backte?

If so what is it?

Thanks

Answer 1

The text Backte oder buk, haute oder hieb? - Schwache oder starke Flexion by Jacqueline Kubczak (published in Sprachreport, Jg. 32 (2016), H. 4, S. 24-31) goes into great detail about backte vs. buk. Quoting its gist:

Die Formen buk/buken sind im heutigen geschriebenen Deutsch noch lebendig. Man findet sie nicht nur in literarischen, sondern auch in eher umgangssprachlich geschriebenen Texten. In der alltäglichen gesprochenen Sprache muten die starken Formen von backen aber doch altmodisch oder gestelzt an.

So, apart from the fact that buk is considered archaic in some contexts there is no difference in meaning.

Answer 2

For those verbs which have both a strong and a weak Präteritum form, there is generally no difference in meaning. That's true for backen et al.

Be careful however, as there are a lot of verbs which have very similar cousins:

liegen, es lag, gelegen

legen, es legte, gelegt

lügen, es log, gelogen

lugen, es lugte, gelugt

laugen, es laugte, gelaugt (auslaugen and entlaugen are meaningful)

For such verbs, you may misidentify the weak form as a modern replacement of the strong form, when it's actually two different verbs. The legen←→liegen misinterpretation is especially common as those verbs mean a very similar thing.

Answer 3

"buk" is just an archaic form of "backte", both are past tense of "backen"

Source: I am German