"Die ergiebigkeit des feldes ist noch von solcher art, daß es nie versagt". Überlegungen zur Erforschung des Mittelhochdeutschen

The relationship of Modern German to Proto-Germanie and ultimately to Indo-European appears most clearly in Old High German. In comparison, Middle High German might be flatly regarded as of secondary importance to our understanding of it. Starting from this premise, the present article attempts to ascertain the linguistically relevant essential features of the Middle High German period. -From the start, the period of historical time encompassed by the term 'Middle High German' seems to be open to question. In any case, the German of the High Middle Ages did not form a unity from the points of view of linguistic geography, stylistics and linguistic sociology. Again, it also does not form a systemic unit remaining unaltered for roughly 300 years or more of historical development. -Three great changes affecting the fundamentals of political, social and cultural development during this period must be mentioned. The first of these is the growth of population. Resulting from this is, secondly, an impetus towards the settlement of new areas and with it the expansion of the German linguistic area eastwards and south-eastwards. Thirdly, in connection with this, we see another innovation in settlement geography, namely, the foundation of towns to a hitherto unprecedented degree. -Starting from the concept ' Middle High German', we can speak of German of the High Middle Ages, through which the language is tied to a genuine historical period. Low German likewise belongs to this German of the High Middle Ages. Its exclusion in the epoch under consideration would be even less justified than it is in the other periods in the history of the language. -In comparison with the early Middle Ages, documentation in this period is much more extensive, at a rough estimate, a hundred times larger. The linguist is primarily interested in the existing texts themselves, and not immediately in the reconstruction of the archetypes of literary texts, which he nevertheless also needs. The linguistic investigation of Middle High German is to that extent only possible on the basis of the sources themselves. Admittedly, their number increases rapidly from the middle of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth century, so that here, practically speaking, the assembling of corpora is necessary. -Despite recourse to the manuscripts themselves, the discrepancy between written tradition and spoken Middle High German seems to be established once and for all. On the other hand, since