The New Middle High German Dictionary and its Predecessors as an Interlinked Compound of Lexicographical Resources

The paper gives, fi rstly, a brief overview over the history of
Middle High German (MHG) lexicography leading to the new
MHG dictionary. Secondly, it describes the digitisation of the
old MHG dictionaries which form a subnet in a wider net
of German dictionaries. Thirdly, this network, together with
specifi c tools and digital texts, is seen as an essential source
for compiling the new MHG dictionary, of which, fourthly, the
essential features, esp. its online version, are mentioned briefl y,
but will be demonstrated in detail in the full paper.
1. Looking back at the beginnings of Humanities Computing
in the sixties, one of the major subjects was the support the
computer would give to lexicographers. Many e-texts have been
created then for mere lexicographical purposes (Wisbey 1988).
The production of concordances and indices was at its heights
between 1970 and 1980 (cf. Gärtner 1980). However, the road
to real dictionary making came only gradually in sight when
lemmatization was required and semantics began to dominate
the discussion of computer application in lexicography. The
work on the dictionaries to the medieval Germanic languages
benefi ted a great deal from this development. This has
certainly been the case regarding MHG, the period of German
from ca. 1050 to ca. 1350 resp. – in the earlier periodisations
– to 1500. During the 20th century, the situation of MHG
lexicography had become more and more deplorable. Since
Lexer’s dictionary appeared in 1878, all plans for a new
dictionary had been unsuccessful. Therefore, many editors
of MHG texts published after 1878 provided glossaries as a
means of presenting such material that was not included in the
earlier dictionaries edited by Benecke/Müller/Zarncke (BMZ)
and Lexer with its Nachträge. It was not until 1985 that a group
of researchers at the University of Trier started compiling the
Findebuch which was published in 1992. The Findebuch was a
compilation of glossaries to editions in order to make up for
the lack of a new MHG dictionary. Also in the late eighties, on
the basis of the work on the Findebuch, planning began to work
out a new MHG dictionary (cf. Gärtner/Grubmüller 2000).
This time the plans were successful, and work on the new
dictionary started in 1994. The scientifi c use of the computer
had meanwhile become a conditio sine qua non, also for the new
MHG dictionary (cf. Gärtner/Plate/Recker 1999).
2. The work on a new dictionary relies to a great deal on
its predecessors. As the Findebuch had been compiled with
extensive use of the computer and existed in machine readable
form, the need for digitizing the old MHG dictionaries was
strongly felt from the beginning of the new dictionary’s
planning. The old dictionaries (BMZ, Lexer with Nachträge)
and the Findebuch are closely interconnected and can only
be used simultaneously. They were ideal candidates for the
composition of an electronic dictionary compound. Therefore,
as a supporting research project to the new dictionary, the
old ones were digitized and interlinked thus forming a digital
network (MWV). The work on this project has been described
to the LLC readers in detail (Fournier 2001; see also Burch/
Fournier 2001). Moreover, this network formed the starting
point for a wider net that interlinks many more dictionaries
to the German language and its dialects (cf. Woerterbuchnetz).
The most prominent among them is the 33vols. Deutsches
Wörterbuch (DWB) by the brothers Grimm.
3. The work on the new MHG dictionary (MWB) was
considerably supported by two more projects. First and
most essential for lexicographers working in different places
was the implementation of a web based workbench for the
composition of dictionaries. The development of a toolkit for a
collaborative editing and publishing of the MWB has also been
described to LLC readers in detail (Queens/Recker 2005). The
second project supporting the work on the new dictionary
was the extension of the digital text archive. At the beginning
of the work on the MWB, the lexicographical workbench
had to rely only on a small corpus of digital texts. This
number was effectively increased by a collaborative project
with the Electronic Text Center of the University of Virginia at
Charlottesville (cf. Recker 2002 and MHDTA/MHGTA 2004).
By now nearly all the texts of the Findebuch corpus have been
digitized and added to the corpus of the new dictionary.
4. In 2006 the fi rst instalment of the new MWB was published
together with a CD-ROM containing a PDF of the printed
form. The online version was to follow in 2007.
All digital resources created for the new dictionary are
fi rstly to the advantage of the lexicographer, and secondly
and still more important to the advantage of the user as
well. The lexicographer’s workbench provides an alphabetical
list of headwords (Lemmaliste), it offers an easy and quick
access to the old dictionaries (BMZ, Lexer, Findebuch), to
the lemmatized archive of instances (Belegearchiv) in form of
a KWIC-concordance, and fi nally to the whole corpus of etexts
which can be searched for more evidences. Not only
the lexicographer, but also the user of the online version has
access to all information on the usage of a MHG word, as I will
demonstrate in detail.
As the new MWB is a long term project, the online version
not only offers the already published instalments, but also the
complete material the forthcoming fascicles are based upon.
Furthermore, for the entries still to be worked out the old
dictionaries are always present for consultation together
with the new material of the archive and the corpus of etexts.
Thus, linking old and new lexicographical resources proves immensely valuable not only for the workbench of the
lexicographer, but also for the user of his work.
Images
Lexer’s MHG Dictionary within the Dictionary Net
The Online Version of the New MHG Dictionary
Bibliography
(Apart from the dictionaries, preferably research papers in
English are listed)
BMZ = Georg Friedrich Benecke, Wilhelm Müller, Friedrich
Zarncke: Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Leipzig 1854–1866.
Nachdruck mit einem Vorwort und einem zusammengefaßten
Quellenverzeichnis von Eberhard Nellmann sowie einem
alphabetischen Index von Erwin Koller, Werner Wegstein und
Norbert Richard Wolf. Stuttgart 1990.
Burch, Thomas / Fournier, Johannes / Gärtner, Kurt / Rapp,
Andrea (Eds.): Standards und Methoden der Volltextdigitalisierung.
Beiträge des Internationalen Kolloquiums an der Universität
Trier, 8./9. Oktober 2001 (Abhandlungen der Akademie der
Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz; Geistes- und
sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse; Einzelveröffentlichung Nr. 9).
Stuttgart 2002.
Burch, Thomas / Fournier, Johannes: Middle High German
Dictionaries Interlinked. In: Burch/Fournier/Gärtner/Rapp
2002, p. 297-301. Online-version: http://germazope.uni-trier.
de/Projects/MWV/publikationen
DWB = Deutsches Wörterbuch der Brüder Grimm.
Erstbearbeitung. 33 vols. Leipzig 1864-1971. Online-Version
(OA): http://www.DWB.uni-trier.de Offl ine-Version:
Der Digitale Grimm. Deutsches Wörterbuch der Brüder
Grimm. Elektronische Ausgabe der Erstbearbeituung.
Bearbeitet von Hans-Werner Bartz, Thomas Burch, Ruth
Christmann, Kurt Gärtner, Vera Hildenbrandt, Thomas
Schares und Klaudia Wegge. Hrsg. vom Kompetenzzentrum
für elektronische Erschließungs- und Publikationsverfahren
in den Geisteswissenschaften an der Universität Trier in
Verbindung mit der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften. 2 CD-ROMs, Benutzerhandbuch,
Begleitbuch. 1. Aufl age. Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins
2004, 5. Aufl age, 2007.
Findebuch = Kurt Gärtner, Christoph Gerhardt,
Jürgen Jaehrling, Ralf Plate, Walter Röll, Erika Timm
(Datenverarbeitung: Gerhard Hanrieder): Findebuch zum
mittelhochdeutschen Wortschatz. Mit einem rückläufi gen Index.
Stuttgart 1992.
Fournier, Johannes: New Directions in Middle High German
Lexicography: Dictionaries Interlinked Electronically. In:
Literary and Linguistic Computing 16 (2001), p. 99-111.
Gärtner, Kurt: Concordances and Indices to Middle High
German. In: Computers and the Humanities 14 (1980), p. 39-45.
Gärtner, Kurt: Comprehensive Digital Text Archives: A Digital
Middle High German Text Archive and its Perspectives, in:
First EU/NSF Digital Libraries All Projects Meeting, Rome
March 25-26, 2002. http://delos-noe.iei.pi.cnr.it/activities/
internationalforum/All-Projects/us.html Gärtner, Kurt / Wisbey, Roy: Die Bedeutung des Computers
für die Edition altdeutscher Texte. In: Kritische Bewahrung.
Beiträge zur deutschen Philologie. Festschrift für Werner
Schröder zum 60. Geburtstag. Hrsg. von E.-J. Schmidt. Berlin
1974, p. 344-356.
Gärtner, Kurt / Grubmüller, Klaus (Eds.): Ein neues
Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch: Prinzipien, Probeartikel,
Diskussion (Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in
Göttingen. I. Philologisch-historische Klasse, Jg. 2000, Nr. 8).
Göttingen 2000.
Gärtner, Kurt / Plate, Ralf / Recker, Ute: Textvorbereitung und
Beleggewinnung für das Mittelhochdeutsche Wörterbuch. In:
Literary and Linguistic Computing 14, No. 3 (1999), p. 417-423.
Lexer = Lexer, Matthias: Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch.
Nachdruck der Ausgabe Leipzig 1872-1878 mit einer
Einleitung von Kurt Gärtner. 3 Bde. Stuttgart 1992.
Lexer Nachträge = Matthias Lexer: Nachträge zum
mittelhochdeutschen Handwörterbuch. Leipzig 1878.
MHDTA/MHGTA = Final report on the Project „Digital
Middle High German Text Archive“ to the DFG and NSF.
Charlottesville / Trier 2004. http://www.mhgta.uni-trier.
de/MHGTA_Final_Report.pdf
MWB = Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch Online-Version
(OA): http://mhdwb-online.de Print-Version with CD:
Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Im Auftrag der Akademie der
Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz und der Akademie
der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen hrsg. von Kurt Gärtner,
Klaus Grubmüller und Karl Stackmann. Erster Band, Lieferung
1ff. Stuttgart 2006ff. Project Homepage: http://www.mhdwb.
uni-trier.de/
MWV = Mittelhochdeutsche Wörterbücher im Verbund.
[Middle High German Dictionaries Interlinked] Online-
Version (OA): http://www.MWV.uni-trier.de Offl ine-Version:
Mittelhochdeutsche Wörterbücher im Verbund. Hrsg. von Thomas
Burch, Johannes Fournier, Kurt Gärtner. CD-ROM und
Begleitbuch. Stuttgart 2002.
Queens, Frank; Recker-Hamm, Ute: A Net-based Toolkit
for Collaborative Editing and Publishing of Dictionaries. In:
Literary and Linguistic Computing 20 (2005), p. 165-175.
Recker, Ute: Digital Middle High German Text Archive. In:
Burch / Fournier / Gärtner / Rapp 2002, p. 307-309.
Wisbey, Roy: Computer und Philologie in Vergangenheit,
Gegenwart und Zukunft. In: Maschinelle Verarbeitung
altdeutscher Texte IV. Beiträge zum Vierten Internationalen
Symposion, Trier 28. Februar bis 2. März 1988. Hrsg. von Kurt
Gärtner, Paul Sappler und Michael Trauth. Tübingen 1991, p.
346-361.
Wörterbuch-Netz: http://www.woerterbuchnetz.de