ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3351 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3351 ************************************ 24 May 2009 From: Ursula Georges Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked for our opinion of <Cord> as a plausible German given name for Lower Bavaria around the year 1340. You also inquired about bynames with the meaning 'artist' or 'painter'. Before we begin, we'd like to apologize for the amount of time this letter has taken. We hope this information is still useful to you. Nowadays we think of German as a single language, one spoken in Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland. In fact the written language is very nearly uniform across this region, and there is a single spoken standard used in dictionaries and taught to foreigners. But there is also considerable regional variation, and in our period that variation was much greater. The primary division was (and is) between Low German dialects, spoken in roughly the northern third of what is now Germany, and High German dialects, spoken in the centre and south. High German is further divided into Upper German, spoken in the mountainous south, and Middle German, spoken in an east-west strip running between the Low German and Upper German dialect areas. While you are correct that <Cord> is a pet name of <Conrad>, it is a Low German form of the pet name and thus would not have been used in Lower Bavaria. In the south, where Upper German dialects were spoken, the usual pet forms were <Cuntz> and <Cune> and their variants. Within the Upper German dialect area, however, there were regional differences in usage and spelling. Documents from Lower Bavaria in your period show a variety of spellings, but <Chuntz> and <Chunz> seem to be the most common. [2, 3, 4] They also suit the local pronunciation: in this region the initial consonant of the name was pronounced \kkh\, where \kh\ represents the sound of <ch> in Scottish <loch> and German <Bach>. The name as a whole was pronounced roughly \kkhoonts\, with \oo\ as in <book>. Modern <Ku"nstler> 'artist' doesn't appear to have been used as a byname in your period. (Here the <"> indicates an umlaut over the preceding letter.) However, <Maler>, the modern word for 'painter', does appear as a medieval byname: we have a Bavarian example as early as 1291, and again in 1495. [5,6,7] Because this is an occupational byname, at this relatively early date it can appear with the definite article, as <der Maler> 'the painter', as in the case of the fourteenth-century <Chuntz der Kellner> 'the Cellarer'. [3] We do not have enough information to say anything about the relative frequencies of occupational bynames with and without the definite article, but both forms were definitely in use. To sum up, both <Chuntz Maler> and <Chuntz der Maler> are fine names for a Lower Bavarian around 1340. I hope this letter has been useful. Please write us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. I was assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, Juliana de Luna, and Leonor Ruiz de Lison. For the Academy, Elizabeth Turner de Carlisle and Ursula Georges 24 May 2009 ----------------------------------------------------- References [1] Bahlow, Hans, _Dictionary of German Names_, tr. Edda Gentry (German-American Cultural Society, 1994 ISBN: 0924119357), s.n. Konrad. [2] Frensdorff, Ferdinand, Matthias Lexer, and Friedrich Roth. _Die Chroniken der schwäbischen Städte. Augsburg_ (S. Hirzel, 1865) p. 70, n. 4. http://books.google.com/books?id=wsgFAAAAQAAJ [3] Hemmerle, Josef and Helmut Flachenecker. _germania sacra: Das Bistum Augsburg, 1 : Die Benediktinerabtei Benediktbeuern_ (Walter de Gruyter: 1991; ISBN 3110129272, 9783110129274) p. 373, 589. http://books.google.com/books?id=VBTctMctCDoC [4] _Index Generalis in Monumenta Boica Volumina I - XXVII_ (Munich: Typis Academicis, 1887) p. 99, 168, 240, 506, 520, 594. http://books.google.com/books?id=5wkPAAAAYAAJ [5] Brechenmacher, Josef Karlmann, _Etymologisches Woerterbuch der deutschen Familiennamen_ (Limburg a. d. Lahn, C. A. Starke-Verlag, 1957-1960), s.n. Maler [6] Uckelman, Sara L., "German Names from 1495" (WWW: privately published, 2002-2006) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german/german1495.html [7] Uckelman, Sara L., "German Names from Kulmbach, 1495" (WWW: self-published, 2005) http://www.ellipsis.cx/~liana/names/german/kulmbach1495.html