Old Saxon

Old Saxon was an ancient Germanic language spoken by the Saxons. The Saxons were a group of people who lived in what is now northwestern Germany and the eastern Netherlands. Old Saxon was the first form of Low German. Low German is still spoken today in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas, and parts of Eastern Europe. Old Saxon was used from the 8th century until the 12th century. After that, it changed into Middle Low German.

Old Saxon was closely related to other West Germanic languages. These included Anglo-Frisian, which has Old Frisian and Old English. One special feature of Old Saxon was the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law. This made Old Saxon different from languages like Dutch, Luxembourgish, and German.

Old Saxon had a complex grammar system. It used five grammatical cases — nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and instrumental. These cases helped show relationships between words in a sentence. The language also had three grammatical numbers: singular, plural, and dual. The dual form was used only for the first and second persons. Additionally, Old Saxon had three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

Characteristics

Old Saxon was a West Germanic language. It was closely related to Old English and Old Dutch. During the early Middle Ages, there was a dialect continuum between Old Dutch and Old Saxon.

One difference among these languages was in how they made plural nouns. For example, Old Dutch used the ending -a for some plural nouns. Old Saxon and Old English used -as or -os.

Over time, Old Saxon changed into Middle Low German during the 11th and 12th centuries. Around the year 1150, people started using Low German more often in writing instead of Latin. One big change from Old Saxon to Middle Low German was in how vowels sounded in parts of words that were not stressed. This change, called vowel reduction, happened in many West Germanic languages and some Scandinavian dialects like Danish.

Phonology

Old Saxon had unique sounds compared to other old German languages. It kept certain consonant sounds like p, t, and k that changed in other languages. For example, the word for "saviour" kept a sound that became different in related languages.

The language also had special vowel combinations and rules for how sounds changed between words. These patterns helped shape the way Old Saxon evolved into later forms of German.

Grammar

Old Saxon was an inflected language. This means its words changed endings to show their role in a sentence. It used five cases to show relationships between words. It had three numbers: singular (one), dual (two), and plural (many). Nouns changed endings based on their gender and role.

Verbs in Old Saxon changed form to show when something happened and who was doing it. The language had strong and weak verb classes, with some special patterns. Sentences were different from modern English, often putting the verb in the second place and using multiple negatives for emphasis.

Orthography

Old Saxon has survived in different manuscripts, and their spelling can vary. This section looks at the letters used in standard versions of the Heliand, and the sounds scholars connect to these letters. In general, Old Saxon spelling is similar to other ancient Germanic languages, like Old High German or Gothic.

Some important facts about Old Saxon spelling are:

• ⟨c⟩ and ⟨k⟩ both made the sound [k]. When followed by ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩, they made the sound /ts/ or /kʲsʲ/.
• ⟨g⟩ stood for the sounds [ɣ] or [ɡ], as in brengian meaning 'to bring'.
• ⟨h⟩ represented the sounds [h] and [x], like in naht meaning 'night'.
• ⟨i⟩ was used for the vowels [ɪ] and [iː], and also the consonant [j], as in ik meaning 'I'.
• ⟨qu⟩ and ⟨kw⟩ always made the sound [kw], as in quāmun meaning 'they came'.
• ⟨th⟩ indicated the sound [θ], while ⟨ð⟩ was used for [ð].
• ⟨u⟩ stood for the vowels [ʊ] and [uː], or the consonant [β] ~ [v].
• ⟨uu⟩ was normally used for the sound [w], before the letter ⟨w⟩ was commonly used.
• ⟨z⟩ appeared only in a few texts, mainly because of Old High German influence.

Literature

Only a few texts from Old Saxon remain today. Most of them are promises Saxons made during baptism because of Charlemagne. The main texts we have are called Heliand and parts of the Old Saxon Genesis. Other texts that survive include:

• Beda homily (Homilie Bedas)
• Credo (Abrenunciatio diaboli et credo) – an Old Saxon promise made during baptism
• Essener Heberegister
• Old Saxon Baptismal Vow (German: Sächsisches Taufgelöbnis)
• Penitentiary (altsächsische Beichte, altwestfälische Beichte)
• Trierer Blutsegen
• Spurihalz (Wiener Pferdsegen)
• Wurmsegen (Wiener Wurmsegen)
• Psalms commentary (Gernroder Psalmenkommentar)

Text sample

A poetic version of the Lord's Prayer is shown in Old Saxon. It uses a special style of Germanic poetry called alliterative verse, like in the book Heliand.