Do you understand this Low German?

17 comments

1. r/german

2. No

   A few words here and there and with some guessing maybe a sentences. But really understand? No.

3. No

4. As a German, you can read and understand some of it, but not most of it. There is a book that was published as a result of a study. “The Hanseatic League in Novgorod” by Catherine Squires. The study revealed that the German language there has characteristics that can be traced back to the Russian document language of the time. Professors of linguistic history have studied this language, which is so old. That’s why I suspect that hardly anyone can still read it all

5. Most German only really starts being readable to the modern untrained eye in the 17. century and that is already difficult. Continuing I’m talking about High German (not standard) and this is Low German. I can understand the gist of modern Low German texts but going any further back is probably impossible unless someone specifically trains for it.

6. The first is early Middle Low German. Very hard to read. How well do you understand English from the 13th century?

   The later ones I can mostly understand.

7. The listing of names are easier to understand than the body. Funnily the actualy translated the patronyms . I assume Nougarden Wassile Nykitenson means Novgorodian Vasily Nikitovich.

8. No. Maybe if I heard someone speak it I could grasp what they talk about 8n general. But not written, no way.

9. No.

10. Reads like dutch to me (i don’t speak dutch)

11. I can read it for the most part but I know Low German which is very different from modern standard German, and I speak Dutch.

12. sounds like weirder dutch

13. I can read about 60/70% of it, but only because I had a few university classes where we worked with old primary literature and I had medieval studies as well, but a few word stump me. It’s more context than understanding word for word

14. It’s very hard to read, there are lots of word the meaning of which I can’t make out, e.g. “copfart”. If I had to guess what the first 2 complete sentences mean, I would say:

    Standard High German:

    “Also wenn ein Deutscher oder ein Gote wird (?) fahren (?) zu den Crelen, und es geschieht ihm da etwas, dann habe der Nowgoroder nichts damit zu tun. Will auch der Nowgoroder nach seinem eigenen Willen nicht weiter fahren mit der Kogge, so sollen sie von jeglicher Fahrt eine halbe Mark Silber geben.”

    Translated:

    “So when a German or Goth wants to go to the Crelen, and there happens something to him, the Nowgorodian shall not have anything to do with it. Also, if the Nowgorodian by his own will does not want to continue his journey with the cog, then they shall give one half mark of silver.”

    Crelen: could be a place, maybe Karelia?

    A cog (German: Kogge) is a medieval type of ship.

    A mark is a weight measurement (see also: Deutsche Mark, the former currency unit).

15. I only understand “Copfart”, and that’s enough.

16. I would need my dictionary, but yes. Enough to grasp the general idea. 😅

17. just a couple of words for comparision from the second letter, how I would I guess them ect.

    |Original|German Guess|English Translation|Comment|
    |:-|:-|:-|:-|
    |Alle|Alle|All||
    |Alle de gene|All diejenigen|Everybody, All the people, who|g softens to j still in a lot of dialects|
    |breff|Brief|letter/mail|brev in Nordic languages|
    |sen|sehen|see|North Germen aacent spoken as: se’n|
    |und|und|and||
    |horen|hören|hear||
    |dat|dass / das|that /the|still in Northern dialect, kind of the minimumwi|
    |her|Herr|Mr.||
    |wi|wir|we||