№ 7.The morphological structure of the word in CG.

To understand the grammatical and lexical features of the Germanic

group it is necessary to consider the morphological structure of the word

in CG. In all periods of history, words in Germanic languages could be

devided into 3 types according to the number and character of their

components: simple, derived and compound words. The root-morpheme

together with the word-building affixes and some form-building affixes

is termed the stem. The stem may be equal to the root, as in simple

words (a), may contain word-building affixes as in derived words or

may have a more complicated structure: it can contain more than one

root-morpheme and word-building affixes in addition (c). When we

analyse the words from the diachronical point of view (historical point

of view), it is not easy to distinguish between the three main structures,

because derived words could change into simple by losing the affixes

(OE fiscian and NE fish) while compound words could develop into

derived ones, if their second root-morpheme was transformed into a

suffix or fused with the root. Consider the simplification in OE scēap-

hyrde „herdsman of sheep‟, NE-shepherd.

It has been discovered that the Early Germanic morphological structure

of words was more complicated that of written periods. In Common

Germanic the stem consisted of 2 basic components: the root-morpheme

and the stem-forming suffix; and to these 2 elements a third morpheme,

the grammatical ending was added. Thus the CG „fykaz‟ (theprototype

of theGothicword „fısks‟,OE „fısc‟, NE „fish‟) consisted of

thefollowingmorphemes.

Morpheme-grammaticalaffixorauxiliarywordhaving.

Stem Grammatical ending

Root Stemsuffix

Fisk -a- -2-

Stem-forming suffixes originally performed a word-building (sometimes

a form-building) function. In such a way the Gothic noun fiskja, was

formed from the root fisk with the help of the CG suffix –jan which

showed that the noun denoted a personadoer (a fisherman). The same

root with the Germanic stem suffix –a- (dropped in Gothic and Old

English) meant fish.

Stems could be formed by separate vowels or consonants or by their

combinations. Stems ending in vowels are called vocalic stems e.g. a-

stems, I-stems, and others. Stems whose suffixes were made up of

consonants are termed consonantal stems, e.g. n-stems, nd-stems.

In later CG and in OG dialects the morphological structure of the word

was considerably simplified: the stem-suffix disappeared as a separate

morpheme in the word structure. It fused with the root-morpheme or

with the original grammatical ending and the 3 basic components were

thus reduced to 2. Compare the CG fisk-a-z and the Gothic fisk-s.

№ 25 Sound alteration in the root-morpheme with special reference

to Ablaut.

A characteristic feature of the Germanic group is the variability of the

root-morpheme which is rather changeable as far as vowels are

morpheme at one and the same historical period. The differences

between the variants of the root-morpheme must be attributied to vowel

alterations, which differentiate between grammatical forms of the word.

Compare the word-forms with the CG root ‘ber’

OldGermanic Modern Germanic

Forms

of

theverb

„to

bear‟

GT OISL OE Swedish German English

bairam bera beran bära gebären Bear

bar bar bær bar gebar Bore

bērum bárum bæron buro --------- ---------

baúrans borinn boren buren geboren Born

birst ber birp bär --------- Bears

The earliest and the most vividly and systematically employed

interchange preserved in the Germanic group from ancient I-E was a

vowel interchange called „ablaut‟ or „vowelgradation‟. It was a Common

Indo-European not a specific Germanic feature, it was found in other I-E

languages tor. The examples in the Russian language prove this.

e -o (e alternates with o)нести – ноша, носит

беру – сбор

This kind of gradation is called qualitative, because only the quality of

the vowel is changed, the other kind of ablaut, known as quantitative is a

difference based on quantity – long vowel alternate with short ones and

with the reduced or zero grade, meaning that the vowel is neutral or lost.

Prolonged grade

(long vowel)

Normal or full grade

(short vowel)

Reduced grade, Zero

grade (neutral vowel or

loss vowel)

Ē e -----

Latin lēgi ”elected” lego “elect” -----

Russian ō o “сбор” ----

Брал

№ 8.Form – building means.

All the O I-E languages were synthetic, that is they showed the

relations between words in a sentence by adding, inflections and

changing the stem rather than by word order or auxiliary words (which

are employed in languages with a more analytical structure).

Varions means of form-building were employed, all of them being

synthetic means such as:

1) Sound alteration. At the beginning it was applied to verbs, later is

spread to other parts of speech. It stood second among other form-

building means in OG.

2) Grammatical endings or suffixes were the most widely used means

of form-building in all parts of speech both alone and in

combination with other means. The formation of a grammatical

ending was a very complicated process, the old ending fused with

the stem-suffix and both elements together were reduced.

Correspondence of Case-Endings

singular GT O.Icel. OHG O. Saxon OE

Nominative

and

Accusative

walfs ulfr, ulf wolf wulf wulf

NE-wolf

Genetive wulfis ulfs wolfes wulfes Wulfes

Dative wulfa ulfe wolfe wulfe Wulfe

3) In contrast to endings, grammatical prefixes were hardly ever

employed. They were confined to the verb system used to mark

Participle 2 or to express a perfective meaning associated with the

category of aspect.

4) Another means of form-building, supplitive forms, was inherited by

Germanic forms IE. In Germanic it was restricted to some personal

pronouns, a few verbs and adjectives.

Supplitivism means the formation of a form of one and the same word

from different roots or stems, the differences are seen far beyond

alternations.

Я – my, mine, me

Хороший– лучший

Иду– шел

Later a new kind of forms, analytical, developed in addition to synthetic

ones.

The tendency to analytical form-building was very strong. It functioned

in all the subgroup of Germanic and is an important distinguishing mark

in the group. Nowadays the proportion of synthetic and analytical forms

in the languages of the group varies.

Parts of speech and their grammatical categories.

The Germanic languages a group of the IE family, have

approximately the same division of words into parts of speech as other

groups.

The following parts of speech could be found throughout the history :

the noun, the adjective, the pronoun, the numeral (declinable parts of

speech, or nomina ), the verb, the adverb, the conjunction and the

preposition. All the inflected parts of speech were characterized by

grammatical categories.

A) The noun and the adjective.

In CG the noun, pronoun, and adjective had the grammatical

categories of gender, number and case.

The Germanic languages had 3 genders: masculine, feminine and

neuter, which sometimes, though not always corresponded to the natural

gender or sex. The Old Germanic dialects of the early written records

preserved that distinction, some of them, e.g. English, have lost or

transformed them to a considerable degree.

As to the category of number it should be said that some Old Germanic

dialects had 3 numbers ( singular, plural, and dual), others 2. Thus

Gothic, OE, O. Icelandic had some dual forms of personal pronouns, the

Gothic language had dual verb forms that agreed with these pronouns.

Perhaps the dual number existed in CG but it was not preserved for a

long time. Germanic had lost a number of cases which as it is assumed

was equal to 7 or 8 in ancient IE. CG must have kept the original

number of 4 cases other dialects increased the number to 5 ( adding

Vocative or instrumental case, Dative and Accusative).

The peculiar characteristic of the adjective in Germanic differed from

the IE language by having twofold declension: they were inflected for

case, number and gender and could be declined according to the weak

and strong declension. In the first case they had the same endings as n-

stems ( noun ), the second had a great variety of endings.

B)The grammatical categories of the Verb.

The finite forms (forms that could fulfill the function of

a predicate ) agreed with the subject through the

categories of number and person, could show the

relation of the action to reality through the contrast of

Indicative, Imperative and Conjunctive ( Subjunctive)

forms, making in such a way the category of mood.

Reference of the action to time within the Indicative and

Subjunctive moods by present and past forms made up

the category of tense ( there were no future forms in the

Old Germanic dialects), aspect distinctions ( such as

continuous, perfect, perfect continuous etc.) were shown

very irregularly, more by lexical than grammatical

means, that is why aspect could not be considered as a

grammatical category at that period of time.

Referring to voice, it did not exist in CG as in the meaning and

form as it is today, i.e. opposition active/passive. In Old

Germanic dialects voice distinctions proceeded in different

directions: Gothic developed forms of “medio-passive”, shoving

that the subject was not the active doer of the action (e.g. Cf(

compare) – “I dress – I dressed” . The North Germanic subgroup

developed reflexive forms. In most dialects of Western

subgroup regular distinctions developed much later with the

help of analytical forms.

In the way of non-finite forms the difference between

Participle1 and 2 can be determined and interpreted as that of

voice Participle1 expressed active meaning, Participle2 was

active only for the forms built from intransitive verbs, for

transitive verbs it was passive. There existed only 2 forms of the

non-finite:the Infinitive – kind of verbal noun and Participles1

and 2, were verbal adjectives, agreed with the noun they

modified in case, number and gender. Later the number of

grammatical categories of the verb grew, number of forms f

each category increased and became more complicated.

One of the most distinctive features of Germanic languages was

the division of the verbs according to the means of form-

building. All the forms of the verb were built from principal

forms or stems: the Present tense, the Past tense stems and

Participle2.

Strong verbs had their principle forms built by means of vowel

gradation, i.e. vowel alteration, sometimes of consonant in the

root-morpheme as well. There were 7 classes of strong verbs in

CG and in Old Germanic dialects, in each of them a series of

certain gradation was applied e – o and a-ā. Weak verbs formed

the Past tense stem and Participle2 adding the suffix-ð – to the

stem of the Present stem tense almost, without any modification

of the root-morpheme.

Let‟s follow strong and weak verbs.

Present tense (infinitive) Past tense Participle2

Strong helpan (help) healp, hulpon (Ʒ e) holpen

Weak macian(to

make)

macode (Ʒ e) macod

Lecture 5.General characteristic of Germanic languages, the

comparative historical method.

1. History of Germanic Philology.

2. The appearance of the comparative-historical method.

3. Concept on related languages and on the parent language.

4. Further development of the comparative-historicalmethod.

5. Comparative-historical analysis.

1.In the 16-17th centuries during the epoch of nations and

national languages formation, great interest arose to national

languages in European countries. The first descriptive grammars

of native languages, including Germanic ones – English, Dutch,

German, Danish, Swedish, were made up. The grammarians

discussed the problems of orthography, pronunciation, grammar,

vocabulary, the demands on purifying the native language from

foreign borrowings were advanced.

In England dictionaries of “difficult” words appeared, the

etymological dictionary of the Dutch language was published. In

Germany the explanatory dictionary of the German language

was issued.

The growth of national self-conscionsness accompanied by the

development of capitalist relations awoke the interest to national

values, to written monuments in native languages, so the most

precious manuscripts in Old and Middle. German languages

were published at that period.

The theoretical linguistic conception of that period was

influenced by the philosophical trends of that period-rationalism

and empiricism. The supporter of the first trend was R. Decarte

who made attempts to elaborate rational, logical grammars. A

bright representative of this trend was the famous German

mathematician and philosopher G. W. Leibniz, F. Bekon, G.

Gobbs and D. Lock paid much attention to empirical

investigations and aimed at the live use of the language, at the

natural live speech.

Among the 18th century scientists who advanced the idea of

genetical connections of languages and their historical changes

were G. Leibniz and the great Russian scientist M. V.

Lomonosov.

2.The appearance of the comparative-historical method.

The elaboration of the comparative-historical method in the 19th

century gave the possibility of explaining many similiarities of

IE languages and follow the process of their development. The

foundersof this method were the German linguist Franz Bopp

and Rasmus Rask, a Danish scientist F. Bopp was the first to

describe the system of conjugation of Sanskrit Old Indian

language in comparison with Greek, Latin, Persian, and

Germanic languages. He convinangly showed that the systemic

similiarity in the conjugation of the verb in these languages

could be explained only by one reason-their common origin. R.

Rask proved the community of Germanic languages. The book

“German grammar” by Jacob Grimm had great importance in

working out the comparative-historical method. In his book for

describing the German language grammar he used the method of

comparison with other Germanic languages. The founders of

the comparative-historical method not only grounded basis of

the concept on the relationships of languages but laid the basic

of scientific approaches of the comparative-historical analysis of

facts of related languages.

3. Concept on related languages and on the parent language.

The prerequisite of applying the comparative historical

method is the possibility of dividing the languages and

determining their origin. The common language from which

related languages developed got the name of parent-language. In

separate cases the parent language is known, as for example

Latin for the Romance group, but more often the parent-

language is a restored language model obtained with the help of

the comparative-historical method. On the basis of the

comparative-historical method the following Indo-European

languges and language groups are distinguished:

1) Hettylanguage,

2) Tokharian,

3) Indian group,

4) Iranian group,

5) Greek group,

6) Celtic group,

7) Italic (the main member representative is Latin),

8) Romance group,

9) Germanic group,

10) Baltic group,

11) Slavonic group,

12) Albanian language,

13) Armenian language.

The classification of Indo-European languages is genetical as it

is based on the principle of the origin from a common Indo-

European parent-language.

4. Further development of the comparative-historical method.

In the second half of the 19th century the philologists-

comparativists concentrated their attention on the investigation

of concrete phonetical, grammatical and lexical phenomena and

considerably improved the method of comparative-historical

analysis.

The grammatical advanced the idea that each phonetical change

took place according to laws without any exceptions, but if there

still occurred deviations, then they were caused by the action

(function) of some other law. In search of explanations to

exceptions in phonetics laws, the grammarians turned their

attention to the influence of analogy in the development of

languages, as well as to the borrowings from other languages.

These principles were stated in G. Paulus book “ Prinzipien der

Sprachgesichte”. In the last third (period) of the 19th century the

scientists started paying special attention to the questions of

syntaxis and lexical semantics, mainly from the historical point

oof view.

One can‟t but mention the contribution of such great

researches as B. Delbruck with his collection of materials

“SyntaxtisheForschungen”; Breal who published “Essai de

semantique”. In 1879 the work of the famous Swiss linguist F.

de Saussure “Memoirs on the very first system of vowels in

Indo-European languages” was published.

In 1916 the work of A. Meillet “The main particularities

(characteristics) of the Germanic group of

languages”(Caractersgeneraus des languesgermaniques” was

issumed). He tried to restore the real dynamics of language

development and show what the specificity of German

languages consisted in.

After applying the comparative-historical method in practive

some weak points were pointed out:

1) The method is good for investigating the similiarities but

it is little effective for studying differences between

languages.

2) Comparing facts of related languages very often facts of

different periods project on one period of the parent

language.

3) Some peculiarities (features), traced in several related

languages and which ae probably innovations, can

wrongly be taken for characteristics (features) inherited

from one common origin.

4) Not all the levels of the language system can be

analysed, with the comparative-historical method, to the

same exsent.

In the 20th century the comparative-historical method was

closely connected with other trends, first of all linquistic

geography and historical typological investigations. Both these

directions (trew are based on the facts found by using the

comparative-historical method, which opens great possibilities

for undertaking typological investigations of Germanic

languages at different stages of their development.

5. Comparative-historical analysis.

Let‟s analyse several ways of the comparative-historical

method.

1) Proof material relationship of language facts.

A decesive importance for proving this has the regularity and

systemic correspondences. The above said can be illustrated

through an example in comparative phonology, that is the law of

consonant shift in Germanic languages, which states the

following correspondence: “bh” was determined in one Indo-

European language – Sanskrit – in other Indo-European

languages other consonants corresponded it. Inspite of this these

correspondences are regularly repeated in the same order, that is

in a systemic way. The more the number of exact

correspondences is the more convincing is the proof.

E.g.

Sanskrit Greek Latin Russian Gothic

bhrātār phrātor frāter брат brōƥ ar

2) External, or comparative, reconstruction and internal

(inner) reconstruction prototip, archetype .

The comparison of the first source, archetype is done by

comparing language units of related languages (external

reconstruction) or of different facts of one language (internal

reconstruction).

E.g.

Sanscrit Greek Latin Old German

hamsa khēn (h)ancer Gans

This permits us to suppose that the archetype of the initial

consonant in the Common Indo-European was phoneme “gh”.

A precondition of using the method of inner reconstruction is

the irregularly of the development of the system of a language.

As a result a lot of archaisms are kept in a language.

As an example one can see the forms of the singular and plural

of the root change in Old English: man(sing.) and men(plural).

Knowing the conditions of transfer of “a – e” under the

influence of “i” in Germanic languages, one can suppose, that

there was once “a” in the root of the plural, and “i” as an ending.

That‟s why for this form the archetype was “manni”.

3) Determination of chronology, that is the succession

(sequence) or simultaneity of language facts according

to each other (one another). For example, the voiceless

consonants “p, t, k” in Germanic languages passed to

voiced “ð, ƀ , ǥ ” depending n the stressed syllables,

as at that time the rule of free stress acted.

4) Determination of the area of language phenomena.

Each language phenomena has its boundaries of

spreading and the determination of area of the

language spreading features is one of the requirements

of the comparative-historical method.

Let‟s compare the following words in Germanic languages.

Gothi

c

Old

Germani

c

Dutc

h

Old

Englis

h

Old

Frisia

n

Old

Scandinavia

n

uns uns ons ūs ūs ūs

Here we can follow the area of dropping out “n” before “s” and

the prolongation of the preceeding vowel.

History of Germanic writing.

One of the proofs on the existend of Germanic languages in the

prewritten period may serve the Common Germanic , giving the

possibility to Germanic tribes to communicate and understand

each other, that is use the oral speech.

Writing (orthography) is the most trustworthy (authentic)

evidence of the language the most reliable and first-hand source

of information about it. To have a clear imagination about the

wordstock and grammatical system of a language in the

prewritten period, the scientists-philologists apply different facts

about the character of the investigated language or reconstruct

the language material using the comparative-historical analysis.

It was so, that the comparativists dealt with the reconstruction of

the Germanic parent-language in the first half of the 19th

century.

The runic alphabet.

The earliest Germanic written records were runic writing or

runic alphabet. The first monuments are inscriptions on hard

material made in a special alphabet known as “the runes”.

The word “rune” originalty meant “secret”, “mistery” and was

used to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. The runes were

imployed by many Germanic tribes on the continent, especially

in Scandinavia. They were used as letters in an alphabet, each to

denote a separate sound. Besides, a rune could also denote a

word beginning with that sound and was called by that word,

e.g., the rune “Þ” denoting the sound [Ɵ]and[ð] is known as OE

ƿ orn, NE thorn [Ɵɔ :n]. The rune “ƿ ” denoting [w]is called by

the OE word wynn “joy”. In some inscriptions the runes were

found arranged in a fixed order which made up a sort of

alphabetical order. After the first six letters this alphabet is now

commonly known as “futhark” or “futhorc” (alphabet runic).

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet , not to

be found in other languages. The letters are angular, straight,

lines are preferred, curved lines avoided. This is due to the fact

that runic inscriptions were cut in stone, bone, or wood. The

shapes of some letters resemble those of the ancient Greek or

Latin alphabets, others have not been traced (found) to any

known alphabet.

The number of runes varied in different Germanic dialects. As

compared to most continental runes the number of runes in

England was greater (larger), it increased as new sounds

appeared 28 in OE runic alphabet against 15 or 24 on the

continent, but in the 9th century it reached a maximum of 33.

Neither on the continent nor in Britain were the runes ever

used for everyday writing or for putting down poetry or prose

works. Their only function at the all times was to make

inscriptions on objects, tombstones, rings, coins, amulets

(talisman). The oldest texts are an inscription on a box made of

whale – balena chit bone called “Franks casket” – and a short

text on a stone cross known as “Ruthwell Cross” near the village

of Ruthwell. The Franks Casket was discovered in the early

years of the 19th century in France and was presented to the

British Museum by a British archeologist, Franks (hence the

name). The Casket is a small box made of whale bone; there are

pictures on its 4 sides with runic inscriptions. The alliterate

verse tells the story of the whale bone of which the casket is

made. Translated into English it is as follows:

“The flood lifted up the fish on the cliffbank, The whale became

sad, where he swam on the shingle whale‟s bone”

The Ruthwell Cross is a 15-feet(1 feet=30,479cm) tall stone

cross inscribed and ornamented on all sides. The runes went

completely out of use by the end of the OE period.

Runology, as an independent scientific discipline appeared in

the 70th=19th century. Its founder was the Danish scientist

LudvigVimmer. Sufus and Magnus Wesen: Norwegian

scientists made a great contribution too.

Carl Marstrander said that “to decipher inscriptions, it is

necessary to use several sciences such as: linguistics,

archeology, mythology, paileography - a branch of geology”.

The origin of the Runic alphabet is not quite clear. Some runes

have similiarity with the letters of the Latin alphabet, others with

the Greek. That‟s why some scientists tried to show the origin of

the Runic alphabet as coming from Latin others from Greek. It

was in the 19th century when the idea was advanced that the

“Runes” came from one of the North Italic alphabets. According

to this hypothesis, the runes appeared in the north of Italy in the

second-third centuries, then it were taken by the southern

Germanic tribes and gradually they spread to the north passing

from one tribe to the other.

The Latin alphabet

The wide spreading of the of the alphabet in the German

languages refers to the Early Middle Ages (the 6th-11th

centuries) and is connected with the process of Christianity of

the Germans. Latin was the language of the church and also the

language of writing and teaching in monastic schools. The

monks were practically the only people who could read and

write, soon they began to use Latin letters to write English

words. But the large masses of people and even the

representatives of the leading class of the early feudal society

did not know the language and met difficulties.

The Latin alphabet began to be employed in many countries of

Western Europe to record texts, in their own dialects.

Everywhere the scribes modified it to some degree; they

changed the shape of some letters; added new symbols to

indicate sounds for which Latin had no ecvivalents, used some

letters with differentat present, the alphabets of Germanic

languages which have the Latin alphabet at their base differ both

by the number and the composition to some degree, from the

Latin. The same letters can render different sounds in various

languages and the same sound can be rendered by various

letters.

The traditional orthographies of the German languages formed

during many centuries, they have differ, there are a lot of

unpronounced letters and there is no clear rule by what letters

some sounds are rendered.

The British scribes used a kind of script called “insular

minuscule”. In this script the shape of some letters is altered.

1. Several Latin scripts replaced one another during the

Middle Ages: during the whole Roman period and in the

early Middle Ages capital uncial were used reaching almost

an inch(2,54cm), in height; in the 5th-7th centuries the

uncial became smaller and the cursive script began to

replace it in everyday-life while in book-making a still

smaller script, minuscules, was employed. The minuscule

used in Britain is known as the Irish or insular variation. In

this script the scape of some letters is altered; d, f, g, and

others; of these only the altered shape of “g” is often

preserved in modern editions of OE manuscripts – “Ʒ ”.

Out of 23 Latin letters British scribes distinguished; nor were

“v” and “u”; “k”, “q” and “x” were not used until many years

later, “w” was formed later out of 2 letters “u”(hence its name

“double “u” ”); “a” was combined with “e” in a separate letter

“æ”; some letters had altered their values. A most interesting

characteristic of the OE alphabet is the addition of some letters

from the runic alphabet: the rune “Þ”(thorn) to indicate [Ɵ]or[ð]

and “Ƿ ”(wynn) used until “w” was introduced. Occasionally

other runes occur in OE manuscripts not as letters but to indicate

words which were their names: “ ” for “day”, “ ” for “man”,

for “ homeland”. The minuscule alphabet differed from the

previous by its clarity and good order of writing and it was used

up to 12th century when it was displaced by the Gothic alphabet.

At the end of the 15th century, in the period of Renaissance, a

script for printing was created in Italy. It was called “antiqua”. It

was a variant of the Latin script the letters were rounded, and it

was a return to “minuscules”, considered at that time a model of

classical Latin letters.

From the 16th century “antiqua” was widely spread in the

countries of West Europe and in the course of time differed

variants of “antiqua” appeared.

Even at present the Latin script, which spread with Germanic

and Romanic languages far beyond West Europe is represented

as different variants of antiqua. It was used preferentially for

printing foreign texts (in Germany) and foreign words in the

German texts. The first English words written down with the

help of Latin letters were names or place-names inserted in

Latin texts.

The Gothic alphabet

Around the 11th century on the basis of the Latin alphabet there

appeared in Italy a new type of writing –pointed writing, which

began its spreading to other countries of Europe. In the 13th-

14th centuries a new style of architecture replacing the Roman

one appeared in West Europe. It appeared as a style of cult-

buildings catholic churches and cathedrals. Its aim was to

express by means of architecture the Christian idea of

renouncing everything earthly thus addressing the ideas and

hopes up, to the Heavens to God. This style gave to world

culture such masterpieces like Notre-Dame in Paris, St. Stephen

in Vienna, Westminster Abby in London, Cathedrals in Koln,

MelanPraque.

In the Middle Ages the epoch of Renaissance came into being

and as its representatives-the humanists , considered the

Germanic tribes (the Goth, Vandals, and others), as a symbol of

barbarism, they began calling the church style of architecture

contemptuously “Gothic”. Neither the Gothic style in

architecture nor the Gothic alphabet, has anything to do with the

Goths. The further development of the Gothic alphabet in the

15th century was the so-called “fracture”. It appeared first in the

manuscripts of the imperial office in Prague. As a printed script

“fracture” was introduced early in the 16th century with the help

of the famous painter of German Renaissance A. Dropep-Durer.

In the Middle Ages it was more or less used in Germany,

England, France, and with time was displaced by the Latin

alphabet. Only in Germany it rooted firmly and for long to a

great extent displacing Latin. It was taught at school, books

periodicals were printed using it, it was used in correspondence,

more often personal.

Up to 1945 it remained the principal alphabet in Germany. In

the period of fascist dictatorship the Gothic alphabet was

announced “indigenous German”-primordial. After the Second

World War the Gothic alphabet gradually yielded (gave way to)

to the Latin alphabet almost all its positions. The main reasons-

to make all printed German literature more accessible to the

foreign reader. The Gothic alphabet is nowadays used in

different countries – partly by tradition, thanks to its

decorativity,- in writing the headlines, announcements, posters

etc. The Gothic alphabet consists of 27 letters.