My reply might also have gone amiss, so I am resending it to the whole list.
Klaus
Dear Richard,
I did get your mail but it is not my area at all. I had a look in
Peter von Polenz: Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis
zur Gegenwart, de Gruyter, vol. 1.
He mentions Eckhart in ch. 4.6 on the extension of the lexicon. The
chapter claims that 'early bourgeois writing' had strengthened
patterns of word formation so that German developed as a 'word
formation language' (contrary to the Romance and Slavic languages)
with a tendency to an exaggerated degree of precision (e.g.
'Taktgefühl' vs. engl./fr. 'tact'). Word formation affixes were more
clearly separated from inflexional affixes and 'more clearly
structured' derivations were preferred, often replacimng less clearly
structured existing options.
There are two strands to this development: translations from Latin
(requiring the creation of abstract German nouns, often coordinated
with the Latin noun in translation) and the mystics, who had their own
need for abstract nouns but often were not bilingual (Eckhart, though,
was). The text quotes a passage from Eckhart (p. 195) where a
proposition using the verb 'sagen' is picked up again using the
nominalisation 'daz sagen'. The comment says that this allows leaving
out the complements of 'sagen'. [I may add here that this aspect of
nominalisation counteracts the precision of word formation to an
extent: modern German nominal constructions are often far less
semantically transparent than their verbal English counterparts.]
Polenz then states that as the language of mysticism and that of late
medieval preaching, mendicant orders and pious movements had great
significance for the linguistic preparation of the reformation, there
was a danger that the contribution of late scholastic translation for
strengthening German derivational patterns for the formation of nouns
and adjectives was ignored. He claims that it was likely that
scholastics and mystics were drawing on the same source, i.e. on the
practice of loan formation since old high German time. But a direct
dependency of the language of mysticism from late medieval scholastic
translation cannot be shown as most texts of the mystics were earlier
than German scholasticism and because the latter did not have a
unified terminology. Both functional varieties had to be seen 'in
parallel' in their contribution to consolidating German word
formation.
Eckhart is mentioned in other places, also Polenz contains references,
so might be a good starting point. Unfortunately it's all in German.
I hope this helps.
Best,
Klaus
On 12 November 2011 21:35, Yeandle, David <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am not sure that Mr Durkan received my reply, which may have been bounced
> back, so am sending it to the whole list, following Martin's example.
>
> There is an excellent bibliography here
> http://german.berkeley.edu/people/files/nlargier/meb/mebmai05.html , which a
> Google search turned up. A section on Sprache contains works in English and
> other languages.
>
> Regards,
>
> David
>
>
> On 12/11/2011 20:22, Martin Durrell wrote:
>
> Dear Mr Durkan
>
> I suspect that the reason you may not have received a response is that none
> of us know of anything precisely like what you are looking for. A quick look
> at GoogleScholar only turned up a 1986 book by Frank Tobin 'Meister Eckhart,
> thought and language', but I have not seen it cited anywhere and don't know
> whether it has anything relevant. Otherwise, in English, there are brief
> general mentions of the language of the German mystics (a standard topic in
> teaching the history of German) in the histories by R.E. Keller and C.J.
> Wells. Otherwise you are looking at work in German (or possibly French).
> There, apart from the usual bibliographical search engines, I would start at
> the bibliographies in vol. 1 of Peter von Polenz 'Deutsche
> Sprachgeschichte', but there may be more recent material.
>
> Sorry I can't be more help,
>
> Regards, Martin Durrell
>
> Professor Martin Durrell
> School of Languages, Linguistics & Cultures
> University of Manchester
> Manchester
> M13 9PL
> ________________________________
> From: Forum for Germanic Language Studies [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of
> Richard Durkan [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 10 November 2011 22:47
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Meister Eckhart
>
> Did you receive my email below, please?
>
> Richard Durkan
>
> ________________________________
> Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2011 16:22:53 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Meister Eckhart
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> Can anyone suggest any studies (especially in English) of Meister Eckhart's
> influence on the German language, please?
>
> Richard Durkan
>
> --
> Professor David N. Yeandle, M.A., Ph.D. (Cantab.)
> Email [log in to unmask]
> Telephone 01480 301737
>
--
Professor Klaus Fischer
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
London Metropolitan University
Companies Act 2006 : http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/companyinfo
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