Old High German

1. Introduction to Old High German

Old High German (Althochdeutsch) is the earliest attested stage of the High German dialects, roughly 750–1050 CE. It is defined by the High German consonant shift that separates it from the other West Germanic languages.¹

It survives in a modest but important body of texts — the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli, glosses and translations.

2. Historical context

Old High German is not one uniform language but a group of southern German dialects (Bavarian, Alemannic, Franconian) recorded by monastic scribes. It gives way to Middle High German around the 11th century.

3. Writing system

Written in the Latin alphabet by clerics, with spelling that varies by scribe and monastery.

4. Sounds and the consonant shift

The one feature that defines Old High German — and still separates German from English today — is the High German (Second) Consonant Shift. The older West Germanic voiceless stops p, t, k became affricates or fricatives depending on their position in the word:²

This is exactly why Modern English water, ten, apple correspond to German Wasser, zehn, Apfel. Learn the shift and hundreds of English–German cognates become predictable. Old High German also still kept its unstressed final vowels distinct (a, o, u), which only later collapsed into the -e schwa of Middle High German — a key way to date a text.²

5. Core vocabulary

Old High German vocabulary sits recognisably between English and Modern German. Nouns are given in the nominative singular and verbs in the infinitive; spelling varies by scribe and dialect, so common variants are noted.²³

Pronouns

Numbers 1–10

People and family

The natural world

The body

Common verbs

Everyday words

6. Grammar in brief

Like the rest of early Germanic, Old High German has three genders and four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative), with strong and weak noun and adjective declensions. Verbs are strong (ablaut: bintan, bant, buntum, gibuntan 'bind') or weak (dental suffix: minnōn, minnōta 'love'), with two tenses.³

Its most important dating feature is phonological: full, distinct vowels in unstressed syllables (e.g. the -a, -o, -u of tag-a, geb-o, sun-u). When those vowels weaken to a single -e, the language has become Middle High German — the boundary that this and the Middle High German guide share.³

7. Learning resources

A recommended starting stack:

• Joseph Wright, An Old High German PrimerBeginner — classic primer, free on the Internet Archive
• Old High German — overview — history, dialects and the consonant shift

8. Practice

The drills below reinforce the vocabulary and, above all, the consonant shift — the key to reading Old High German and to linking it with English.

9. Honest limitations

• The surviving corpus is small; this limits how much can be taught.
• A reading language, spread across dialects with variable spelling.
• This guide now covers sounds, a broad core vocabulary and grammar in brief; deeper reading (full paradigms and texts) is left to the linked references.