A Middle High German Primer

Middle High German embraces the High German language from about 1100 to 1500. It is divided into three dialect groups: Upper German, Franconian and East Middle German. This book restricts itself to Upper German between about 1200 and 1300.

As well as a grammar and glossary, the primer provides texts from Berthold von Regensburg, the Swabian Lantrehtbuoch, Hartman von Ouwe, Walther von der Vogelweide, Reinmar, Ulrich von Lichtenstein, Das Niebelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach.

Joseph Wright (1855-1930) started work at the age of six as a donkey-boy in the local stone quarry. The next year he went to work in a woolen mill. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Wright tired of relying on his literate workmates for news and taught himself to read. Soon he was attending night school, and he later started his own night school, the money from which supported his study of Mathematics and German at the University of Heidelberg. After further studies at London, Heidelberg and Leipzig, he became a lecturer at Oxford, and eventually Professor of Comparative Philology. Among his many books was the English Dialect Dictionary.