Germanica selecta: Ausgewahlte Schriften zur germanischen und deutschen Philologie zum 75. Geburtstag des Autors (review)

Published in recognition of Professor emeritus Stefan Sonderegger’s 75th birthday, Germanica selecta contains thirty-three of the honoree’s many published articles on Germanic and German philology. Dating from 1959 through 2000, the articles display Sonderegger’s unusual scholarly breadth and depth while simultaneously documenting and acknowledging a long and illustrious research agenda. Sonderegger taught at the University of Zurich for well over thirty years and was celebrated upon his retirement in articles by his colleagues, former students, and friends in a remarkable and important festschrift Verborum amor (ed. by Harald Burger, Alois M. Haas, and Peter von Matt, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992). These two collections present complementary aspects of Sonderegger’s solid work in Germanic philology, with a strong concentration on the medieval period as well as scholarly works which frequently draw on territory Sonderegger himself has charted. Germanica selecta includes an update of the bibliography in the festschrift, with some seventy-five items for the period 1992–2002.

The six headings under which the essays are classified help outline Sonderegger’s wide range, thus the appeal this collection offers: ‘Comparative history of the Germanic languages’, ‘Germanic-German legal and charter language’, ‘The history of the German language in general’, ‘Old High German language and literature’, ‘Middle High German and Early New High German’, and ‘The history of the study of Germanic philology and the Brothers Grimm’ [translations mine]. Only one of the articles (‘Languages and culture in the Germanic-speaking world: The history of the written word’, translated for publication in 1997) is in English. But these headings, as broad as they sound, only hint at the areas Sonderegger commands: Gothic, his native Alemannic dialect, Swedish, Dutch, Latin, and Greek, onomastics, runes, historiography, legal issues, translation, rhetoric, oral and written registers, lexicology, humanism, theology, xenophobia, and St. Gall, among others. Had an index been provided, it would have been extensive and impressive indeed. No fewer than six articles deal with Notker Labeo, the Benedictine monk (d. 1022) whose translations and commentary of classical and Biblical texts Sonderegger has studied in great detail. In his descriptions of historical linguistic phenomena, Sonderegger strives to uncover both that which is consistent across time and that which is changing, following, as it were, in Jacob Grimm’s footsteps—Grimm having described language as ‘that which never stands still’ (das unstillstehende). One of the masterworks of twentieth-century historical linguistic studies of German is Sonderegger’s own Grundzüge deutscher Sprachgeschichte: Diachronie des Sprachsystems, vol. 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1979).

The editors claim they have selected Sonderegger’s most important articles from 1959–2000, without attempting to justify their choices. Not only are the essays reprinted (and retypeset), but some small corrections have been included. Equally important, the editors have thankfully added wording to alert the reader to cited articles that are in this collection. Original publication data are provided, although the references to the reprinted articles do not include updated pagination, a minor irritation. Nearly two-thirds of the essays first appeared in festschrifts, some of which may not be readily available in libraries, a further justification for this new volume. Some lack of consistency occurs naturally, due to editions being available at various junctures or to original editing norms (for example, the use of abbreviations).

Those familiar with Sonderegger’s work will here again appreciate his use of reproductions from manuscripts and other books (some from his own remarkable private library), the inclusion of tables and charts, and his unfailing strategy of providing rich original linguistic documentation as well as critical footnotes. Like few others in the field, Sonderegger has a command of the history of the discipline of Germanic philology and has made its founder, Jacob Grimm, an object of his research. For readers of Language, of special interest might be Sonderegger’s investigation of Grimm’s...