26
The sentence is:
Diese beyden letzten Dinge wollen wir indeß bey Seite setzen, um den Fall nicht zu sehr zu verwickeln. Aendert...
Some of the words had a different spelling in that time.
What you considered an "n" is a "y", there are several words that were spelled with "ey" where nowadays it is "ei". This is the case in your word 1) beyden - modern ...
24
In addition to the other answers I'd like to add that in the Duden Grammatik (the real, fat one) they say that new prepositions develop mainly from adverbs or other prepositional phrases. When a new preposition evolves the case it rules is often Genitive which then later changes to Dative or maybe even Accusative. Also, the prepositions tend to get shortened....
22
I interpret the question as: How did the functional difference between a "narrative" and a "conversational" past come about? I assume the development of the forms is not relevant (i.e. the fact that German, like English, combined an auxiliary with a past participle to form a new tense).
I'll try to answer with a few (hopefully uncontroversial) remarks. ...
21
Das heutige Deutsch hat im Großen und Ganzen eine Stammform weniger als das Urgermanische und Althochdeutsche und auch z. B. als das moderne Isländische, das in dieser Hinsicht das ursprüngliche germanische Muster bewahrt (ich verwende es hier anstelle des Standardaltnordischen, das es genauso gut getan hätte).
Im Isländischen sehen wir beispielsweise immer ...
21
To attack the premise of the question: What are the arguments for substituting ß with sz?
A lot of things happened to German spelling (and pronunciaton) since the appearance of the letter eszett. In particular, what once made sz the preferred choice of letters to represent what we now write as ß¹ is long gone. So, while the eszett bears the letters s and z ...
20
... wäre Fliegzeug dann nicht logischer?
Definitiv nein:
Ich bin gerade einige Verben durchgegangen, bei denen sich das Substantiv, das die Tätigkeit beschreibt, und das Verb im Vokal unterscheiden:
springen - der Sprung
singen - der Gesang (*)
wählen - die Wahl
kämpfen - der Kampf
fliegen - der Flug
(*) zugegeben, passt nicht ganz
Danach habe ich mir ...
20
das Abenteuer
In 12th century the Old French word
aventure
was imported into the German language. In Middle High German it soon became
aventiure
and soon (still in Middle High German) v turned into b:
abentiure
And in New High German it turned into
Abenteuer
So this word has absolutely no connection to »der Abend« (the evening) or »teuer« (expensive)....
19
First, of all, it looks as if Google digitalised the long s (ſ) as s most of the time.
Then, one has to consider the following four variants of s-spelling. I distinguish between the case where a long s (ſ) is used (mostly blackletter fonts) and where it is not (mostly antiqua fonts):
Heyse’s rules – ſs (ss) after short vowels:
dass, müsst, ließ (antiqua);
...
19
The text is not in modern German, sure. But at first glance this short excerpt looks like it might be an older form of German like Middle High German, Early New High German, low German, or perhaps some early form of Dutch.
The word used in this text is in a different typeface than the majority of the text. That is a first indication that it is a word of ...
18
German is an indoeuropean language. The Proto-Indo-European language had 8 to 9 cases including the 4 cases still present in contemporary German. During the development of German out of Proto-Indo-European, the other 4 to 5 cases were dropped (cases merged, alternative constructions replaced case constructions, …)(Verweis). Old High German still had the "...
18
There are several groups or occasions for fraktur:
People who are enthusiastic about fraktur for its own sake.
Enthusiast for a fitting epoch, e.g. 1920s enthusiasts.
If you want something to look historically authentic, for example props for movies, theatre or roleplaying.
If you want to give something an old, traditional or sometimes festive touch. Many ...
15
You are correct in observing that German is probably the only language to still capitalise common nouns. (Note the emphasis)
First of all, this is because capitalisation can only happen in scripts such as Cyrillic, Greek or Latin which distinguish between capital and lower-case letters. Why they do that can probably be traced back to Charlemagne who ...
15
This is a temporary answer to give the community an opportunity to decipher the handwriting. Please feel free to edit this post whenever you feel you found out a missing word.
Of course this should be followed by another answer giving the translation, and a guess on the temporal origin if possible.
Vom Meiſter Huſſen dem Ketzer dz(?)
der zu ͦ Coſtentz ...
15
The word Paar doesn't only mean two items but rather two items that are related to one another. The prime example is
Mike und Jenny sind ein Paar.
This notion also shows in compounds like Paartherapie, Paartanz or paarweise.
The situation of using Paar as a qualifying noun is rather rare. The only example I can think of is this:
Ein Paar Schuhe.
...
15
Yes, the rules of capitalization are different.
In English, only the beginning of sentences as well as proper names (of people, of organisations, of "special things" such as specific celebrations, e.g. "Christmas") are generally capitalized.
In German (not only in older text, but also according to the contemporary spelling rules), all of these are ...
15
Der Duden sagt Folgendes:
mittelhochdeutsch bet(te), althochdeutsch betti, auch: Beet; ursprüngliche Bezeichnung für das mit Stroh und Fellen gepolsterte Lager entlang den Wänden des germanischen Hauses und vielleicht eigentlich = Polster
(Quelle: Duden.de)
Ebenso besagt er in einem anderen Artikel Folgendes:
mittelhochdeutsch bette, althochdeutsch ...
14
All images are hyperlinks to their sources.
As with all historical typographic and linguistic developments, it’s much more easy to say what happened than why it happened. The following is a brief overview over the history, which I try to back up where I can:
In medieval calligraphy and typsetting before movable type, it was quite common to use superscript ...
13
A quote from DUDEN Das Herkunftswörterbuch Etymologie der deutschen Sprache, 3. Auflage, 2001. ISBN 3-411-04073-4:
On Page 536:
Mohn: Der Name der alten Kulturpflanze (mhd. mān, māhen, ahd. māho, mago) hängt zusammen mit griechisch mḗkōn »Mohn« und mit der slaw. Sippe von russ. mak »Mohn«. Der den Germanen, Slawen und Griechen gemeinsame Pflanzenname ...
13
The answer to your question is actually simple:
The books you are currently reading are books from late 19th (or early 20th) century; moreover they seem to tend to be written by statesmen (politicians / bureaucrats; Remarque is an exception). Texts from that period and from that kind of people tend to use a very manneristic (complicated, convoluted, and noun-...
12
The grammar is unusual, but I believe it's valid.
Bach chose to leave out the dative object of helfen altogether, only to imply that it is Jesus himself the speakers were coming to aid.
Written in its long form using standard order, the sentence reads:
Wir eilen mit schwachen [...] Schritten, O Jesu [...], [um Dir] zu helfen zu Dir.
Zu Dir indicates ...
12
I have also found the following quote from Carnap (bold face by me):
Wie soll die Wissenschaft zu intersubjektiv gültigen Aussagen kommen, wenn alle ihre Gegenstände von einem individuellen Subjekt aus konstituiert werden, wenn also alle Aussagen der Wissenschaft im Grunde nur Beziehungen zwischen „meinen“ Erlebnissen zum Gegenstand haben? Da der ...
12
Es gibt mehrere Theorien über den möglichen Grund des Verbots:
Deutschland wollte zu einer Weltmacht aufsteigen, und seinen Einfluß (kulturell, politisch) in der Welt sichern. Mit Schrifttum, das im Ausland keiner lesen konnte, war das nach Ansicht der Regierung nicht zu erreichen.
(http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/unimut/themen/fraktur-verbot.html)
Englisch, ...
12
Since the etymology of Weib is unknown (1,2), there is also no way to explain its gender.
11
Die Kommentare sagen es schon: Es ist eine direkte Anrede an "mein Herz", das rein werden soll, um Jesus ganz aufnehmen zu können.
11
From a native speaker's perspective:
No, gebenedeit (as well as the infinitive benedeien) is not a word used outside a religious context.
Interestingly though, the opposite vermaledeit is a colloquial swear word, even if it is not too frequently used.
10
Well, apparently the authorship of Shakespeare's plays is debated. Or is it? Let's ignore it for the moment and assume that it can rightfully be discounted (which seems at least likely from the facts).
There is no single German writer's opus that comes close to Shakespeare's. So while the statement in your quote could be considered correct, as it is ...
10
Reduplikation- Definition
Unter einer Reduplikation wird das Wiederholen von Wörtern oder Wortteilen verstanden. Dies ist aber ein allgemeiner Begriff, der unterschiedliche Reduplikationsformen beinhaltet. Insofern können auch im nicht-mundartlichen Deutsch Reduplikationen auftreten, die aber nichts nicht mit der Reduplikation alemannischer Mundarten zu tun ...
10
Betrachten wir mal das Wort Schule. Das wurde aus dem lateinischen schola abgeleitet, was wiederum vom griechischen σχολή abstammt.
Das englische Wiktionary nennt Aussprachen aus unterschiedlichen Epochen:
(5th BC Attic): IPA: /skʰolɛ͜ɛ́/
(1st BC Egyptian): IPA: /skʰoléː/
(4th AD Koine): IPA: /sxolí/
(10th AD Byzantine): IPA: /skolí/
(15th AD ...
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