The Germans of Schleswig-Holstein are Saxons, and all true Saxons speak Low-German, and Low-German is more different from High-German than English is from Lowland Scotch. Low-German, however, is not to be mistaken for vulgar German. It is the German which from time immemorial was spoken in the low countries and along the northern sea-coast of Germany, as opposed to the German of the high country, of Swabia, Thuringia, Bavaria, and Austria. These two dialects differ from each other like Doric and Ionic; neither can be considered as a corruption of the other; and however far back we trace these two branches of living speech, we never arrive at a point when they diverge from one common source. The Gothic of the fourth century, preserved in the translation of the Bible by Ulfilas, is not, as has been so often said, the mother both of High and Low German. It is to all intents and purposes Low-German, only Low-German in its most primitive form, and more primitive therefore in its grammatical framework than the earliest specimens of High-German also, which date only from the seventh or eighth century. This Gothic, which was spoken in the east of Germany, has become extinct. The Saxon, spoken in the north of Germany, continues its manifold existence to the present day in the Low-German dialects, in Frisian, in Dutch, and in English. The rest of Germany was and is occupied by High-German. In the West the ancient High-German dialect of the Franks has been absorbed in French, while the German spoken from [pg 122] the earliest times in the centre and south of Germany has supplied the basis of what is now called the literary and classical language of Germany.
Although the literature of Germany is chiefly High-German, there are a few literary compositions, both ancient and modern, in the different spoken dialects of the country, sufficient to enable scholars to distinguish at least nine distinct grammatical settlements; in the Low-German branch, Gothic, Saxon, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, and Dutch; in the High-German branch, Thuringian, Frankish, Bavarian, and Alemannish. Professor Weinhold is engaged at present in publishing separate grammars of six of these dialects, namely, of Alemannish, Bavarian, Frankish, Thuringian, Saxon, and Frisian: and in his great German Grammar Jacob Grimm has been able to treat these, together with the Scandinavian tongues, as so many varieties of one common, primitive type of Teutonic speech.
But although, in the early days of German life, the Low and High German dialects were on terms of perfect equality, Low-German has fallen back in the race, while High-German has pressed forward with double speed. High-German has become the language of literature and good society. It is taught in schools, preached in church, pleaded at the bar; and, even in places where ordinary conversation is still carried on in Low-German, High-German is clearly intended to be the language of the future. At the time of Charlemagne this was not so; and one of the earliest literary monuments of the German language, the “Heliand,” i.e. the Saviour, is written in Saxon or Low-German. The Saxon Emperors, however, did little for German literature, while the Swabian Emperors were proud of being the patrons of art and poetry. [pg 123] The language spoken at their court being High-German, the ascendency of that dialect may be said to date from their days, though it was not secured till the time of the Reformation, when the translation of the Bible by Luther put a firm and lasting stamp on what has since become the literary speech of Germany.
But language, even though deprived of literary cultivation, does not easily die. Though at present people write the same language all over Germany, the towns and villages teem everywhere with dialects, both High and Low. In Hanover, Brunswick, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, the Free Towns, and in Schleswig-Holstein, the lower orders speak their own German, generally called Platt-Deutsch, and in many parts of Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, Ostfriesland, and Holstein, the higher ranks too cling in their every-day conversation to this more homely dialect.[28] Children frequently [pg 124] speak two languages: High-German at school, Low-German at their games. The clergyman speaks High-German when he stands in the pulpit; but when he visits the poor, he must address them in their own peculiar Platt. The lawyer pleads in the language of Schiller and Goethe; but when he examines his witnesses he has frequently to condescend to the vulgar tongue. That vulgar tongue is constantly receding from the towns; it is frightened away by railways, it is ashamed to show itself in parliament. But it is loved all the more by the people; it appeals to their hearts, and it comes back naturally to all who have ever talked it together in their youth. It is the same with the local patois of High-German. Even where at school the correct High-German is taught and spoken, as in Bavaria and Austria, each town still keeps its own patois, and the people fall back on it as soon as they are among themselves. When Maria Theresa went to the Burgtheater to announce to the people of Vienna the birth of a son and heir, she did not address them in high-flown literary German. She bent forward from her box, and called out: “Hörts! der Leopold hot án Buebá”: “Hear! Leopold has a boy.” In German comedies, characters from Berlin, Leipzig, and Vienna are constantly introduced speaking their own local dialects. In Bavaria, Styria, and the Tyrol, much of the poetry of the people is written in their patois; and in some parts of Germany sermons even, and other religious tracts, continue to be published in the local vernaculars.
There are here and there a few enthusiastic champions of dialects, particularly of Low-German, who still cherish a hope that High-German may be thrown back, and Low-German restored to its rights and former dominion. Yet, whatever may be thought of the relative excellences of High and Low German,—and in several points, no doubt, Low-German has the advantage of High-German,—yet, practically, the battle between the two is decided, and cannot now be renewed. The national language of Germany, whether in the South or the North, will always be the German of Luther, Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe. This, however, is no reason why the dialects, whether of Low or High German, should be despised or banished. Dialects are everywhere the natural feeders of literary languages; and an attempt to destroy them, if it could succeed, would be like shutting up the tributaries of great rivers.
After these remarks it will be clear that, if people say that the inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein do not speak German, there is some truth in such a statement, at least just enough of truth to conceal the truth. It might be said, with equal correctness, that the people of Lancashire do not speak English. But, if from this a conclusion is to be drawn that the Schleswig-Holsteiners, speaking this dialect, which is neither German nor Danish, might as well be taught in Danish as in German, this is not quite correct, and would deceive few if it were adduced as an argument for introducing French instead of English in the national schools of Lancashire.
The Schleswig-Holsteiners have their own dialect, and cling to it as they cling to many things which, in other parts of Germany, have been discarded as old-fashioned [pg 126] and useless. “Oll Knust hölt Hus,”—“Stale bread lasts longest,”—is one of their proverbs. But they read their Bible in High-German; they write their newspapers in High-German, and it is in High-German that their children are taught, and their sermons preached in every town and in every village. It is but lately that Low-German has been taken up again by Schleswig-Holstein poets; and some of their poems, though intended originally for their own people only, have been read with delight, even by those who had to spell them out with the help of a dictionary and a grammar. This kind of homespun poetry is a sign of healthy national life. Like the songs of Burns in Scotland, the poems of Klaus Groth and others reveal to us, more than anything else, the real thoughts and feelings, the every-day cares and occupations, of the people whom they represent, and to whose approval alone they appeal. But as Scotland, proud though she well may be of her Burns, has produced some of the best writers of English, Schleswig-Holstein, too, small as it is in comparison with Scotland, counts among its sons some illustrious names in German literature. Niebuhr, the great traveller, and Niebuhr, the great historian, were both Schleswig-Holsteiners, though during their lifetime that name had not yet assumed the political meaning in which it is now used. Karsten Niebuhr, the traveller, was a Hanoverian by birth; but, having early entered the Danish service, he was attached to a scientific mission sent by King Frederick V. to Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, in 1760. All the other members of that mission having died, it was left to Niebuhr, after his return in 1767, to publish the results of his own observations and of those of his companions. His “Description of Arabia,” and [pg 127] his “Travels in Arabia and the Adjoining Countries,” though published nearly a hundred years ago, are still quoted with respect, and their accuracy has hardly ever been challenged. Niebuhr spent the rest of his life as a kind of collector and magistrate at Meldorf, a small town of between two and three thousand inhabitants, in Dithmarschen. He is described as a square and powerful man, who lived to a good old age, and who, even when he had lost his eyesight, used to delight his family and a large circle of friends by telling them of the adventures in his Oriental travels, of the starry nights of the desert, and of the bright moonlight of Egypt, where, riding on his camel, he could, from his saddle, recognize every plant that was growing on the ground. Nor were the listeners that gathered round him unworthy of the old traveller. Like many a small German town, Meldorf, the home of Niebuhr, had a society consisting of a few government officials, clergymen, and masters at the public school; most of them men of cultivated mind, and quite capable of appreciating a man of Niebuhr's powers. Even the peasants there were not the mere clods of other parts of Germany. They were a well-to-do race, and by no means illiterate. Their sons received at the Gymnasium of Meldorf a classical education, and they were able to mix with ease and freedom in the society of their betters. The most hospitable house at Meldorf was that of Boie, the High Sheriff of Dithmarschen. He had formerly, at Göttingen, been the life and soul of a circle of friends who have become famous in the history of German literature, under the name of “Hainbund.” That “Hainbund,” or Grove-club, included Bürger, the author of “Lenore;” Voss, the translator of Homer; the Counts Stolberg, Hölty, and [pg 128] others. With Goethe, too, Boie had been on terms of intimacy, and when, in after life, he settled down at Meldorf, many of his old friends, his brother-in-law Voss, Count Stolberg, Claudius, and others, came to see him and his illustrious townsman, Niebuhr. Many a seed was sown there, many small germs began to ripen in that remote town of Meldorf, which are yielding fruit at the present day, not in Germany only, but here in England. The sons of Boie, fired by the descriptions of the old, blind traveller, followed his example, and became distinguished as explorers and discoverers in natural history. Niebuhr's son, young Barthold, soon attracted the attention of all who came to see his father, particularly of Voss; and he was enabled by their help and advice, to lay, in early youth, that foundation of solid learning which fitted him, in the intervals of his checkered life, to become the founder of a new era in the study of Ancient History. And how curious the threads which bind together the destinies of men! how marvelous the rays of light which, emanating from the most distant centres, cross each other in their onward course, and give their own peculiar coloring to characters apparently original and independent! We have read, of late, in the Confessions of a modern St. Augustine, how the last stroke that severed his connection with the Church of England was the establishment of the Jerusalem bishopric. But for that event, Dr. Newman might now be a bishop, and his friends a strong party in the Church of England. Well, that Jerusalem bishopric owes something to Meldorf. The young schoolboy of Meldorf was afterwards the private tutor and personal friend of the Crown-Prince of Prussia, and he thus exercised an influence both on the political and the religious views of King Frederick [pg 129] William IV. He was likewise Prussian Ambassador at Rome, when Bunsen was there as a young scholar, full of schemes, and planning his own journey to the East. Niebuhr became the friend and patron of Bunsen, and Bunsen became his successor in the Prussian embassy at Rome. It is well known that the Jerusalem bishopric was a long-cherished plan of the King of Prussia, Niebuhr's pupil, and that the bill for the establishment of a Protestant bishopric at Jerusalem was carried chiefly through the personal influence of Bunsen, the friend of Niebuhr. Thus we see how all things are working together for good or for evil, though we little know of the grains of dust that are carried along from all quarters of the globe, to tell like infinitesimal weights in the scales that decide hereafter the judgment of individuals and the fate of nations.
If Holstein, and more particularly Dithmarschen, of which Meldorf had in former days been the capital, may claim some share in Niebuhr the historian,—if he himself, as the readers of his history are well aware, is fond of explaining the social and political institutions of Rome by references to what he had seen or heard of the little republic of Dithmarschen,—it is certainly a curious coincidence that the only worthy successor of Niebuhr, in the field of Roman history, Theodore Mommsen, is likewise a native of Schleswig. His History of Rome, though it did not produce so complete a revolution as the work of Niebuhr, stands higher as a work of art. It contains the results of Niebuhr's critical researches, sifted and carried on by a most careful and thoughtful disciple. It is, in many respects, a most remarkable work, particularly in Germany. The fact that it is readable, and has become a popular book, has excited the wrath of many critics, who evidently [pg 130] consider it beneath the dignity of a learned professor that he should digest his knowledge, and give to the world, not all and everything he has accumulated in his note-books, but only what he considers really important and worth knowing. The fact, again, that he does not load his pages with references and learned notes has been treated like a crimen lœsæ majestatis; and yet, with all the clamor and clatter that has been raised, few authors have had so little to alter or rectify in their later editions as Mommsen. To have produced two such scholars, historians, and statesmen as Niebuhr and Mommsen, would be an honor to any kingdom in Germany: how much more to the small duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, in which we have been told so often that nothing is spoken but Danish and some vulgar dialects of Low-German!
Well, even those vulgar dialects of Low-German, and the poems and novels that have been written in them by true Schleswig-Holsteiners, are well worth a moment's consideration. In looking at their language, an Englishman at once discovers a number of old acquaintances: words which we would look for in vain in Schiller or Goethe. We shall mention a few.
Black means black; in High-German it would be schwarz. De black is the black horse; black up wit is black on white; gif mek kil un blak, give me quill and ink. Blid is blithe, instead of the High-German mild. Bottervogel, or botterhahn, or botterhex, is butterfly, instead of schmetterling. It is a common superstition in the North of Germany, that one ought to mark the first butterfly one sees in spring. A white one betokens mourning, a yellow one a christening, a variegated one a wedding. Bregen or brehm is used instead of the High-German gehirn; it is the English brain. [pg 131] People say of a very foolish person, that his brain is frozen, de brehm is em verfrorn. The peculiar English but, which has given so much trouble to grammarians and etymologists, exists in the Holstein buten, literally outside, the Dutch buiten, the Old-Saxon bi-ûtan. Buten in German is a regular contraction, just as binnen, which means inside, within, during. Heben is the English heaven, while the common German name is Himmel. Hückup is a sigh, and no doubt the English hiccough. Düsig is dizzy; talkig is talkative.