INSTRUCTORS:
Prerequisite: Intro to Germanic Philology I
Building on the survey of the Germanic family in Germanic Philology I, this class will provide an introduction to Germanic comparative philology. We will take a broad view of the subject: our foundational perspective will be the methodology of linguistic comparison and reconstruction, but we will also look closely at the cultural dimension of philology (including literary history). During the first half of the semester, we will examine a variety of topics relevant to the cultural background of the Germanic languages in general, including religion, law, poetics, and heroic legend. In the second half, we will survey the Indo-European background and contexts for Germanic as a whole, from both linguistic and cultural perspectives.
Students are not expected to have prior familiarity with any language other than modern English. Coursework involves readings, philological exercises, and the study of short, glossed excerpts from medieval texts. The overall aim is to provide a basic familiarity with the methods and subject matter of Germanic philology and to make the medieval and ancient languages and texts that provide the field’s raw data appear less unfamiliar.
Weekly Schedule
Two pre-recorded 1-hour lectures plus one 2-hour preceptor sessions per week as assigned (4hours/week total).
Week 1
1a Neighbours and Background: Germanic in Context
1b A Sketch of Proto-Germanic
Week 2
2a From Tacitus to the Viking Age
2b Germanic Law
Week 3
3a Germanic Paganism
3b Germanic Heroic Legend
Week 4
4a The Problem of the Nibelungs
4b Germanic Alliterative Verse
Week 5
5a Germanic Christianity
5b Norse and English in Contact
Week 6
6a The Relatives of Germanic: The Oldest Indo-European Languages
6b The Relatives of Germanic: The Other Indo-European Languages
Week 7
7a The Sounds of Proto-Indo-European
7b Sound Changes to Proto-Germanic
Week 8
8a Roots, Nouns, and Morphology in Proto-Indo-European
8b Nominal Changes to Proto-Germanic
Week 9
9a Verbs in Proto-Indo-European
9b Verbal Changes to Proto-Germanic
Week 10
10a Wackernagel’s and Kuhn’s Laws: Aspects of Syntactic Change
10b Dragons: Poetic Culture in Indo-European and Germanic
Week 11
11a The Indo-European ‘Homeland’
11b Germanic in Europe
Week 12
12a The North Germanic Languages Today
12a The West Germanic Languages Today
Required Texts
The Amazon links are provided for convenience only, and we encourage students to purchase texts wherever they wish.
Course History
This course will be offered in the following semesters.
| Semester | Preceptor(s) |
|---|---|
| Spring 2023 | Dr. Paul Peterson & Dr. Nelson Goering |
| Spring 2020 | Dr. Paul Peterson |
| Spring 2018 | Dr. Nelson Goering & Dr. Paul Peterson |
