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December, 1896. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Vol. xi, No. 8.



464



of state toward the maelstrom of the Revol-
ution.

Thus aided by the spirit of the time, the lit-
erature of the pre-Revolutionary generation be-
comes more emotional and individualistic,
that is more lyric and more subjective. Rous-
seau becomes the prophet of the new era not
in France alone, but in all Europe. Indeed
the purely literary development of Rousseau-
ism is at first more noteworthy among the
German poets of the "Storm and Stress"
than in France, where its progress was checked
both by the jealous carping of Voltaire, in this
as in most things a thorough conservative,
and also by the recrudescence of an unreason-
ing admiration for the forms of Classical An-
tiquity. In Germany his portrait graced the
severe study of Kant, Lessing confessed for
him "a secret respect," while Herder pro-
claimed aloud his admiration for this " saint
and prophet. " At Strasbourg Goethe studied
and excerpted his writings ; to the young
Schiller he was a "martyred Socrates." In
England Tristram Shandy, and still more the
Sentimental Journey, with their rambling con-
fessions and astonishing "gift of tears," are a
tribute to the New Htlo'ise, and in Cowper,
Shelley and Byron the English from whom he
had drawn so great a part of his inspiration
delighted to do him honor. Even George
Eliot could say that Rousseau had vivified her
soul and aroused in her new faculties. And
in France the eclipse was but partial and
short. Robespierre had the New Hilo'ise con-
stantly on his table, and forms his polished
periods on the models of Rousseau. Ber-
Nardin de St. Pierre and Chateaubriand are
hardly less his avowed pupils in literary art.
With the latter's Genius of Christianity, with
de Stael's Literature and her Germany, Rous-
seau's star is again in the ascendant, and with
the Restoration, literary Rousseauism became
an irresistible tendency. It was not for nothing
that the flower of French culture had passed
more than two decades in the very literary
centres where the Huguenots had preceded
them a century before. They returned from
England and Germany bearing with them re-
inforcements to all the dormant elements of
Romanticism. From 1814 there has been in
Europe an unbroken cosmopolitan tradition.

Benjamin W. Wells.
Sewanee, Tenn.



THE DIALECT OF THE RIES. II.
THE DIALECT.

The dialect of the people of the Ries is
Swabian, although somewhat influenced by
the Frankish dialect or, as I should prefer to
say, by the Frankish-Bavarian dialect, because
the present Bavarian dialect includes besides
Altbayern (Oberbayern, Niederbayern, and
Regensburg) also some parts of the provinces
Ober-and Mittel-Franken."

Formerly Frankish elements seem to have
prevailed, at least in the speech of the educa-
ted. Not less than about sixteen per cent of
the names of the villages in the Ries and its
surroundings have the suffix -heim which orig-
inated with the Franks, who penetrated at the
close of the fifth century into the south-west-
ern parts of Germany. Another common
suffix is -haiisen found in nearly five per cent
of all the names of villages. This also is a
Frankish characteristic.

The suffixes -weiler (O.H.G. wildri, M.H.
G. wilcere, wiler) and -hof, on the other hand,
are Alemannian, the latter however less than
the former." Comparatively few names of
villages with these two last mentioned suffixes
are found in the Ries, a fact which does not
prove anything against the Alemannian origin
of the early ancestors of the Rieser. Even if
there were no other evidence, the modern
dialect of the Ries would prove that the
inhabitants are of Alemannian origin. Their
dialect is Swabian, though it differs from other
Swabian dialects.

On account of the frequency of the sibilants
(Zischlaute), Frickhinger classifies the dialect
of the Ries with those of Central Swabia,
admitting that it was somewhat influenced by
the Frankish-Bavarian dialect. x 3

Near the boundaries of Wiirttemberg the
doublets, which are so characteristic of the
dialect of the Ries, are not so frequent as in
other parts of the district. We hear besides
ale more frequently ele (=alle); besides Nearle,
Nearleng, etc. Near the Frankish boundary,
in Oettingen, Laub, Kreuth, etc., the Frankish
dialect naturally shows a slight influence, but

11 Cf. Weinhold, Buyr. Gram. $2, p. 5.

12 Cf. Mayer, Ortsnamen hn Ries, pp. 7 ff.

13 Cf. Beitrjge zur Anthropologic und Urgeschichte
Bayerns, hrsg. von Ranke und Rudinger., Vol. viii.



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December, 1896. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Vol. xi, No. 8.



466



the Swabian idioms are not crowded out as
one might imagine, a number of doublets
occuring. Besides hond($. pers. plur of habev)
we hear habed.

Still further southeast, south from Oettingen
toward Wemding, in Huisheirii, Gosheim, etc.,
we hear instead of i woes : i woas ; instead of
goes : goas, for which reason these people are
sometimes called the " Pfalzer ". These are
however exceptional cases. In former years
a few Catholic villages situated between Har-
burg and Wemding really belonging to the
" Pfalz ".'4 The above examples are the only
traces left of the Pfalzer dialect.

There is a slight difference between the
speech of the Protestants and Catholics, al-
though this may sound strange. There is
even a difference in their outward appearance.
Ordinarily the peasant of the Ries wears a
striped cap, close fitting with a hanging ex-
tension, to which is attached a tassel. On
Sunday he wears a felt hat or, if he be wealthy,
a high cap of otter fur. His coat is short,
generally made of black velvet or broadcloth.
On Sunday many wear a long coat extending
almost to the ankles or a japoti. The vest
is also made of black velvet or broad cloth with
silver buttons as large as a walnut. The
trowsers are made of leather and reach to the
knee. They are usually highly ornamented
with stitchwork. Long white stockings are
worn in summer, black stockings in winter.
Low leather shoes of simple make are com-
mon. The dress of the women is somewhat
like that of the Swiss women, varied and
picturesque. Among the Catholics the men
usually wear long trowsers reaching to the
ankles. Both men and women are fond of dis-
playing gaudy colors. x s

To return to the subject of language, I still
remember from my school days, that Protes-
tant boys pronounced the word seek : sel and
the word hiecht: knjchd, while Catholics
said : seal or sel, krieachd etc.

Kauffmann, 1 ^ Bopp,'7 Birlinger," 8 From-
man,'9 Weinhold*° and other writers on Swa-
bian dialects have made similar observations.

At the time of the Reformation and especially

14 Cf. Bavaria, ii, 853 ff. 15 Cf. Bavaria ii. 862 ff.

16 p. fir. §71. 17 p. 55. \%Al. xi, 49.

19 D. M. ii. 107. 20 Alem . Cram., p. 80. §88.



during the Thirty Years War, when Catholk s
and Protestants were publicly and politically
opposed to each other, such a phenomenon
could be easily explained. Villages, which
were Protestant, were compelled to accept
Catholic priests as their pastors, but on the
other hand, Catholic villages turned Protestant
voluntarily. Under such a continual change
the language of the people in the Ries and in
Swabia generally .became somewhat influenced
by the Protestant or Catholic preachers who,
coming from different parts of the country,
brought with them their dialect." Upon the
whole, the Catholics are conservative not only
in their religion, customs and habits, but
also in regard to their dialect." And thus
we may, perhaps, say, that the Catholic
idioms and vowels represent a purer Swabian
dialect than the Protestant. We cannot say,
however, that the Catholics in the Ries come
in contact with the Franks less than the Pro-
testants do. I see therefore in the few slight
differences between the Catholic and Protes-
tant speech, which is not readily discerned,
merely the preservation of an older condition,
which, however, is gradually disappearing.
Vocalism.

As to the relation of vowel quantities to the
Middle High German and New High German,
we must remember, that in judging the quan-
tities the position of the word in the sentence
is of great importance. The accent has in
almost every dialect more or less influence on
the vowels and their quantity. For instance,
in the dialect of the Ries, ich, when emphasized
is pronounced like i, when less emphasized
like 1, if it is not accented at all, like 2.

The dialect of the Ries has lengthened the
M.H.G. short vowels and obscured the long
ones or diphthongized them. This the dialect
has in common with the Swabian dialects, but
the tendency to lengthen or shorten a vowel
varies in different parts of Swabia, as was
already observed by Bopp. 2 3 In many cases
the quantity of the vowels cannot be accurately
determined.

21 Cf. Friedrich Kluge, Von Luther bis Lessinf, pp. 128 ff.

22 Cf. H. Fisher, Viertetjakreshe/t 1881 p. 132. and Rapp,
D. M., ii. 104.

23 Cf. C. Bopp, Der Vokalismus des Schwabischen in tier
Mundart von Mitnsingen, p. 27. 8.



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December, 1896. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Vol. xi, No. 8.



468



a. Letigthening of the vowels.
Lengthening of the old vowels is one of the
chief characteristics in N.H.G. as compared
with M.H.G., especially in dissyllabic words
with an open first syllable. This loss of the
original short vowels is frequent in the dialect
of the Ries. Going even farther than the
N.H.G., our dialect has a long vowel usually
before liquida cum muta {part, kail, salts, etc.).
There is a well marked tendency to strengthen
monosyllabic uninflected nouns through " Ton-
fiille," or, as Sweet 2 4 calls it, compound fall-
ing or rising-falling tone as in England oh,
when expressing sarcasm (sak, sals, Alois, etc.),
This process of lengthening is due to a
tendency to distinguish between the inflected
and uninflected forms. Often the lengthened
and the original short forms of the same word
exist side by side, and thus help sometimes to
distinguish more clearly cases and numbers in
the declension (dial, blelr).

b. Shortening of the vowels.

The shortening of old long vowels is not
uncommon in the dialect and in many cases
agrees with N.H.G. The position of a vowel
before double consonants and combination of
consonants, causes shortening (nOchbr, bldtr).
We find, however, cases of shortening without
plausible reason. M.H.G. short vowels usually
remain before p, t, k, and before the spirants
that have resulted from these stops (tenues) in
the H.G. shifting of sounds : ff, zs, hh (ch) ;
(babl=pappel). Exceptions, however, are nu-
merous. The shortening of M.H.G. long
vowels in the dialect of the Ries is an excep-
tional phenomenon and to be explained partly
by the following double consonant, partly by
other elements that preserve shortness, and
partly from a slighter degree of stress.
Umlaut.
The umlaut of the root-vowel is found in
cases in which the N.H.G. does not show it,
in nouns and adjectives as well as in verbs
(brnk, brik=J>riicke; arwedp, arbpdj=arbeiten
etc.). On the other hand, we also find cases
of umlaut in N.H.G. in which the dialect does
not show it (bud—biltte, lupfo=lupfen.) This
irregularity is, perhaps, due to the Frankish-
Bavarian influence and to the mixture of

24 Cf. Sweet, A New Engl. Grammar , p. 228.



Catholic-Protestant population. In conse-
quence of it, a great many are found in the
Ries dialect. Besides mSndeng we have mede
=montag; weschz : w&scha ; blaes : blub, etc.
The umlaut of the diphthongs deserves special
attention. Most diphthongs have the stress
on the first element. Sometimes three vowels
are combined and then we have a triphthong,
as in drub, tswoii, gloes, etc., or rather glides,
which sounds are produced during the transi-
tion from one sound to another. Glides, how-
ever, are not so frequent as in other Swabian
dialects.

The principal points, in which the influence
of the Frankish-Bavarian dialect upon the
dialect of the Ries is shown, are as follows :

1. M.H.G a>Frankish o, as in; hod=M.H.
G. hat, hat 3. p. sing., i»V=M.H.G. bare, N.
H.G. bahre.

2. M.H.G. ou (au)> £ and o, as in: gg-=
M.H.G. ouge, N.H.G. auge; £g/>=M.H.G.
koafen, N. H.G. kauj 'en.

3. M.H.G. 1 (long) iu>ae, as in; blaebg—
M.H.G. bellben, N.H.G. bleiben; laed=M.H.
G. liute, N.H.G. leute.

4. M.H.G. u (long)>a<?, as in : haos=M.H.
G. hus, N.H.G. haus, aof(: fl/)=M.H.G. iif
N.H.G. auf.

5. M.H.G. ei>e : e, as in medle=M.H.G.
meit, N.H.G. mddchen; dr£gd (: drerhd)=
M.H.G. treit, N.H.G. tragi. '

The Frankish dialect has no pure a, while
in the Ries the pure a is very common.

Also the Bavarian (Altbairisch., Oberpfiilz-
isch) influence appears in some words :

1. M.H.G. 6>oa, as in roat=M.H.G. r6t,
N.H.G. rot: frequently before r the o is diph-
thongized, roar— M.H.G. rdr. O.H.G. rdra,
N.H.G. rohr. The umlaut of this oa is ea as
in kledsdr plur. from kloasdr— M.H.G. klister,
N.H.G. kloster.

2. The M.H.G. diphthong uo>uzas in gusd
=M.H.G. guot, N.H.G. gut.

3. The suffix eng is also to be considered
as a result of the Bavarian influence as in :
bre deugj=M. H. G. pr^digen, N. H . G. predigen;
schuldeng: schulde— M.H.G. schuldic, N.H.G.
schuldig.

4. The disappearance of ch in the suffix
lich, which is substituted for le (sometimes=
eng), the dialect of the Ries has in common



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December, 1896. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. Vol xi, No. 8.



470



with Bavarian-Swabian or East-Swabian dia-
lects (redle=M.H.G. redelich, N.H.G. red-
lich etc.).

The nasalized vowels a, e, 6 and 3 are as
common as in other Svvabian dialects and also
nasalized diphthongs. But as to their quan-
tity or quality, whether open or close, short or
long, there is some difference.

CONSONANTISM.

b often interchanges with w, no doubt due
to Bavarian influence. 2 5 The medial b is often
represented by w as in lewed, which is Frank-
ish, while lebed is Swabian. Inorganic f is
not known in the Ries. M.H.G. / (v) is only
exceptionally represented by pf (ftJludrJ=M,
H.G. vldderii), the dialect differing here again
from other Svvabian dialects. As in most of
the Southern German dialects, no distinction is
made between p and b, b frequently disap-
pears.

Similarly no distinction is made between d
and /; d is seldom dropped, but appears
frequently inorganically.

The past participle of the verbum substan-
tivum seiu retains its s. The Rieser says
gu>£S3 or gwesd which distinguishes it from
other Swabian dialects. The Swabian forms
gwez or gsae (the diphthongization of gesin)
are not known in the Ries.

The Sibilants occur frequently, a phenom-
enon which again characterizes the dialect as
Swabian.

The guttural system does not show any
Upper Alemannian characteristic; 26 g shows
sometimes Frankish aspiration as in hertsoch
=N.H.G. herzog, or sometimes in sechd in-
stead of segd=N.H.G. sagi\ g becomes, how-
ever, more frequently tenuis (sa/cd=sagl); ch
is sometimes palatal, sometimes guttural ;
final ch is dropped, but not so commonly as in
other Swabian dialects, the Ries dialect agree-
ing here again with Frankish Bavarian.
The sonorous consonants.

In regard to the semi-vowels little is to be
said as they agree upon the whole with com-
mon Swabian. In exceptional cases/ shows
a slight friction as m juks3=M.Yi.G. juchezen
N.H.G. jauchzen ; _//rf£=N.H.G. jiidin.

25 Cf. Birlinger, Die Au^sburger Mundart, p. 17.

26 Cf. Paul's Grundriss I, 283 .



The liguids / and r have in the dialect of
the Ries a greater influence upon the vowels
than they have in other Swabian dialects, due
to the Bavarian influence.

The liquids frequently develop the svara-
bhakti vowel, a phenomenon not very common;
Bopp in his dissertation on the dialect of
Miinsingen denies its local existence. Kauff-
mann and Wagner mention only a few cases.
In comparison with common Swabian we find
also that the dialect of the Ries does not show
so many inorganic /'s: r is seldom dropped
and not so generally neglected as in Upper-
Swabia. 2 ? The uvular r (Zapfchen -;-) is not
known in the Ries. Into other parts of Swabia
for example, (Reutlingen), as Prof. Wagner
asserts, 2 ? this uvular r, the so-called 'grasseyer'
of the French, has been introduced by the
French soldiers quartered there during the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies. This position is, I think, not tenable,
because the same phenomenon, if it had been
caused by the French, would have been found
also in most of the other parts of Swabia and
Bavaria. The Bavarian r is more liquid than
the Alemannian.

The nasals in, n and ng show upon the
whole the same characteristics as in common
Swabian. The nasalized consonant is fre-
quently dropped, but the nasalized vowels and
diphthongs retain their nasal sound.

F. G. G. Schmidt.
Cornell College.



JEAN-BAPTISTS ROUSSEAU AS HIS-
TORIOGRAPHER.

When Rousseau left Paris in 1711, without
waiting for the final decree 1 declaring his
perpetual banishment from France, on account
of the famous couplets of 1710,2 he went to
Soleure, Switzerland. There he was received
by the French ambassador, the Comte de Luc,

27 Cf. Sailer's S&mmtliche Schri/ten insclvw&b. Diahcte.

28 Cf. Wagner, p. 170.

1 This decree was registered April 7, 1712.

2 The question as to the authorship of these couplets is no
easy matter to decide. I believe, however, after examining
all the evidence to be obtained at the Bibliotheque Nationale,
that Rousseau did not write them. The proof against Joseph
Saurin, who was accused by Rousseau, is also insufficient, and
the probabilities are that the real author will never be known.



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