To the characteristics of the language situation of the Old High German period

Doklady Bashkirskogo Universiteta. 2019. Volume 4. No. 5. pp. 558-562.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33184/dokbsu-2019.5.17

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The emergence of German writing falls on the era of the early Middle Ages, when nationalities began to take shape, from which later large Western European nations emerged. The formation of the written tradition took place, on the one hand, against the background of the dominance of the Latin language in all areas of written communication, and on the other, against the background of the coexistence and interaction of numerous closely related territorial dialects. Owing to this state of affairs, the description of the linguistic situation of the Old High German era seems to be in many ways a difficult task, which the researchers of the history of the German language did not always solve the same, as the brief review undertaken in this article shows.