Günther Zainers druckersprachliche Leistung: Untersuchungen zur Augsburger Druckersprache im 15. Jahrhundert (review)

This book addresses an important but complex phenomenon, the development of the spelling of German in the books printed by Günther Zainer, the first printer at Augsburg, during the 1470s. Thanks to the books of printers like Zainer, Johann Bämler, Anton Sorg, and Johann Schönsperger, Augsburg German came to enjoy high esteem as a linguistic model already by the 1530s. As long ago as 1890 linguists began to examine Augsburg printers' German in some detail, but, as Dr Fujii shows, previous work on the subject — in effect carried out by linguists largely ignorant of printing practice — has been too generalizing in its approach and often simply inaccurate. As Fujii points out, scholars have treated Augsburg printers as a more or less homogeneous group instead of focusing on one specific printing house; they have failed to approach the printed output in strict chronological order; and no one has examined the involvement of individual compositors in the production of a particular book. These shortcomings he seeks to remedy by detailed analysis, in chronological order, of eighteen books Zainer printed between 1471 and c. 1478, noting developments in the graphemic system and in particular having regard to any variation within a book that may indicate a change of compositor. The books in question are, in chronological sequence, Gebetbüchlein 1471 (ISTC ig00112700); Apollonius 1471 (ia00925000); Griseldis 1471 (ip00402850); Der Heiligen Leben 1472 (ij00156000); Belial 1472 (ij00074000); Das goldene Spiel 1472 (ii00081000); Albrecht von Eyb's Ehebüchlein 1472/3 (ie00181000); Plenarium 1474 (ie00074000); German Bible 1475/6 (ib00627000); Spiegel menschlichen Lebens 1475/6 (ir00231000); Schwabenspiegel 1475/6 (il00047000); German Bible 1477 (ib00629000); Schachzabelbuch 1477 (ic00415000); Weg zu dem Heiligen Grab 1477 (il00365000); Barlaam und Josaphat c. 1475/78 (ib00127000); Spiegel des Sünders c. 1475/78 (is00674000); Steinhöwel's Esopus 1477/8 (ia00119000); and Ortolf's Arzneibuch 1477/8 (io00109000). The linguistic details are too complex to set out here, but, in simple terms, Fujii is principally concerned with the way in which the vowels (and some consonants) of medieval German are realized in Zainer's books. As an example, medieval German î and ei generally appeared as ei and ai respectively in fifteenth-century Augsburg before coalescing into ei in Modern German (thus mîn, kein > mein, kain in Augsburg but appear as mein, kein today). Fujii focuses on ten characteristic phenomena of this kind — and, with remarkable patience and diligence, has counted (by hand, not with a computer!) and plotted the occurrence of each, together with survivals of the older spellings and irregularities and inconsistencies. Behind this admirably slim volume lies, then, an enormous labour.

Zainer himself hailed from Reutlingen (south of Stuttgart) and had trained with Johann Mentelin at Strasbourg. Of the origins of his compositors we know nothing (though at this early date these are most likely to have trained at Mainz or Strasbourg, perhaps Bamberg). So, given that there was as yet no such thing as standard German orthography, what spelling practices was Zainer to adopt in Augsburg? Initially he followed Augsburg scribal practice, whose characteristic features Fujii extrapolates from manuscripts written by six amateur and professional scribes of the period 1450–70. Thus, in the 1471 Gebetbüchlein, set by a single compositor, Zainer carefully observes the above-mentioned clear distinction between ei and ai. In the next two books, Apollonius and Griseldis, both written by the Ulm physician Heinrich Steinhöwel, he largely respects the spellings of the author. But thereafter Zainer demonstrates greater independence over his choice of what texts to print and how to spell them: from Der Heiligen Leben onwards he abandons the complementary distribution of ai and ei, using ei for both (as in Modern German), perhaps under the influence of the practice in Strasbourg and/or of Nuremberg where ei was already in regular use. Fujii also notes that from the Plenarium onwards, and especially in...