Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik

ALBRECHT GREULE Research areas: (especially theolinguistics and religious hymn), text grammar, onomastics, historical syntax. THE RELIGIOUS HYMN IN THE RESEARCH SPECTRUM OF THEOLINGUISTICS The religious hymn in the research spectrum of theolinguistics N O T E Theolinguistics describes how people succeed in communicating about the divine through language. One task of theolinguistics is to establish a taxonomy of theolectal texts. Translation texts play an important role here, e.g. translations of the Bible, which are also used in vernacular worship services. In addition, religious hymns have played a significant role in worship services in German-speaking regions since the Reformation. Theolinguistics also aims to analyze hymn lyrics from a perspective of linguistic criticism with regard to their suitability for use in worship services. A N N O T A T I O N Theolinguistics describes how humans manage to communicate about the divine using language. It is a task of theolinguistics to establish the taxonomy of theolectal texts. Thereby, translation texts play an important role, e.g. translations of the Bible, which are also employed in church services, held in the vernacular. Furthermore, since the Protestant Reformation, hymns have played an important role in church services within the German-speaking area. It is also a task of theolinguistics to analyse the song texts critically in terms of language with regard to the usability of these texts in church services. 1. THEOLINGUISTICS “Not another hyphenated linguistics!” I understand this objection to the term theolinguistics well; I, too, struggled for a long time with how I K E Y W O R D S: theolinguistics, religious language, sacred language, religious hymn, linguistic criticism. K E Y W O R D S: theolinguistics, religious language, sacred language, hymn, linguistic criticism. 120 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIV–LXV Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik what it is that interests and fascinates me about this area of language use. Initially, I used the term “sacred language” for this; others speak of the “language of religion” or “religious language.” In view of the sheer, almost unmanageable wealth of topics and the enormous research potential that has accumulated over time, particularly beyond the field of German studies, it became increasingly clear to me that the term theolinguistics is best suited to identifying, with reasonable precision and beyond national-language and religious-studies boundaries, what this field is about. Where does the interest in theolinguistic questions come from? If we ask what a cultural language is, we see that the catalogue of criteria by which a language is designated a cultural language cannot do without including the criterion of whether it has a religious form or register—in other words, in different terminology, the criterion of “sacrality” (Greule 2004: 140f.). Anyone who gains an overview of the shape and emergence of the cultural languages of Europe (Janich, Greule 2002) will find that the translation of the Bible into the “vernacular,” often as a consequence of the Reformation, provided the decisive impetus for the emergence of a standard language or even for the development of vernacular writing in general. The German “unified language” is the best example of this. Put in terms of the linguistics of varieties, this means that, according to all historical linguistic experience, every speech community—which is in each case defined by a distinct historical language—has a more or less strongly developed linguistic domain defined by one or more religions. Its manifestation within the structure of varieties may be called a “theolect.” This may be realized in spoken, sung, or written form. If I understand religion as the bond between human beings and a personal, transcendent being—usually called Gott (Greek theós)—then theolinguistics is the science that studies the forms of language in which people have expressed and express this relationship to theos. The term “theolinguistics” was introduced into research by Jean-Pierre van Noppen, who first used it in the mid-1970s and defined it with increasing precision in later works. In 1995, van Noppen writes: theolinguistics seeks to describe how human discourse may be employed to refer to the divine, and beyond that, how language operates in „religious“ situations in manners which may not meet the narrow standards of direct, univocal reference, but which nevertheless operate with a logic which can be demarcated in terms of known linguistic processes (metaphor, speech acts,...) David Crystal contributed to the term’s actual dissemination and reception, using “theolinguistics” in 1987 in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (German Straipsniai / Articles 121 A L B R E C H T G R E U L E Ausgabe 1993): „Theolinguistik. Die Untersuchung der Sprache von Bibelgelehrten, Theologen und anderer mit Religionstheorie und –ausübung befasster Personen“. Nach wie vor stammen, wenn man das Internet zu Rate zieht, die meisten Belege für den Gebrauch dieses Terminus aus den englischsprachigen Quellen. At this point, Andreas Wagner’s programmatic essay Theolinguistik? – Theolinguistik! (Wagner 1999) must be highlighted. In this passionate plea for theolinguistic research, Wagner points out the benefits that collaboration between linguists and theologians could bring to both disciplines. He addresses numerous research gaps in a focused way and proposes specific research projects. No religion is excluded from theolinguistic research, neither so-called pagan (pre-Christian) religions nor nature religions. In this respect, however, the term “theolinguistics” is not without its problems. Theos stands for God (in monotheism) or gods (in polytheism) in personal form; thus, theolinguistics—at least if one is guided by the etymology of the word—would exclude religions that, for example, worship Mana, that is, an all-pervading, non-personal supernatural power or energy. Furthermore, it is obvious that theolinguistics—in simplified terms—is situated at the boundary between linguistics and theology, just as ethno-, psycho-, and sociolinguistics are situated at the boundary between linguistics and, respectively, ethnology, psychology, and sociology. The term “theology,” however, has a very distinctive profile: although it derives from the Hellenistic (cultic-mythological) tradition, it was incorporated into Christian usage in the fourth century. Because of its association with “pagan” roots, it took a further eight centuries before it could become the umbrella term for the scholarly study of questions of faith in the Christian tradition; yet today it is most firmly rooted precisely in that tradition. Put pointedly, “theolinguistics” would thus be quite Eurocentric and even Christocentric. A solution capable of achieving consensus is therefore urgently needed in the long term, so as to avoid giving the impression that a single tradition seeks to claim for itself the entirety of scholarly reflection on religious language—an objection voiced increasingly from anthropological, ethnological, and, in part, religious-studies circles. Assuming this consensus, theolinguistic research should exclude neither any language nor any religion from investigation. “Languages” are understood to include not only standard or written languages; in principle, the subject of investigation is all human utterances that constitute a theolectal communication situation or arise from one. Moreover, theolinguistics is not restricted to synchrony— 122 A c t a L i n g u i s t i c a L i t h u a n i c a L X I V – L X V Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik It is limited, but it also has considerable historical depth. Just as comparison can be made across historical depth, so too can interlingual, contrastive comparison, as well as interreligious comparison. By the latter, I mean, for example, the comparison of Jewish prayer with Christian prayer, as has already been done. The major problem of translating canonical texts into vernacular languages belongs to this area. Theolinguistic research can be conducted at every level of the language system within the broad framework of inquiry outlined here: at the level of phonetics (e.g. rhetoric in preaching, but also hymns), graphetics (e.g. the Tetragrammaton), morphology (e.g. morphemes marking sacrality), lexicon, syntax, phraseology, text grammar (e.g. the text grammar of prayer), and pragmatics. The category of theonym must not be forgotten; it concerns the names and epithets of God and gods. Research may likewise address the text types of theolekts, even though we are still far from having anything like a generally binding taxonomy of theolektal text classes. Working toward one—religion by religion and language by language—is one of the future tasks of theolinguistics. The complexity of such a taxonomy corresponds fully to the complexity of the term “theolekt,” which I would like to treat as equivalent to the older term “religious language.” In view of this complexity, the following reflections on possible categories of theolektal text classes are logically incomplete and are based mainly on the experience gained so far in the field of Christianity. 1. The category of canonical texts is relatively easy to delimit; it includes, for example, the Bible and its translations, the Torah, the Qur’an, and other similarly foundational writings. 2. The cultic-ritual domain is considerably more heterogeneous. It encompasses all texts and textual instances, in any language, that are used in worship and devotion. For a Catholic service, for example, the range of these texts extends from the fixed elements of the liturgy composed in hieratic language, through canonical texts delivered as readings and the sermon—which may draw on very different varieties of a language—and often archaic church hymns, to spontaneous intercessions (e.g. in a children’s, youth, or group service), which are increasingly formulated in a religious colloquial language. 3. The next domain would be the individual’s personal experience of God, expressed most readily in private prayers (often formulated independently and spontaneously) and in so-called testimonies, but also in statements that rebel against God. Straipsniai / Articles 123 ALBRECHT GREULE 4. The official-language domain constitutes a separate area in cases where a religion is institutionalized. 5. The religious-educational and theological-scholarly domains cannot be sharply distinguished from one another; in them, people speak and write in a particular form of theolekt. 6. Finally, the artistic domain should also be highlighted, encompassing texts of religious poetry and religious writing (in this case, however, not theological-scholarly or journalistic writing). Since it is often precisely a personal experience of God that inspires a poet or writer, such texts may indeed take the form of a prayer or testimony. 7. If we also venture to consider “religious” language in the mass media, we find further distinctive features, but also numerous overlaps with the domains mentioned so far. This overview makes clear that the question of a taxonomy of theolektal texts is above all a question of criteria, or of a catalogue of criteria. The broadly understood communicative context, variety, stylistic level, function, intentionality, or medium—all of these (and certainly many other variables) come into play here. The task is to determine what this configuration ultimately looks like and what it actually yields. 2. THEOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH IN PRACTICE I describe the progress of theolinguistic research from my own experience: from the perspective of a Germanist linguist and philologist. From this perspective, however, it must be reported that the study of “religious” language is given very little attention in contemporary and recent German linguistics—to put it bluntly, it is ignored, even though—as I indicated above—“theoglossia,” as speaking to or about God might also be called, is essential to describing the level of linguistic culture in a speech community. A change of perspective seems to be under way, insofar as an important collection, Sprache und Religion, was published recently, summarizing the current state of research (Gerber, Hoberg 2009). A perennial focus of Germanist research is the highly significant research on the language of Luther’s Bible translation. Research in this area has 124 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIV–LXV Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik gradually also included the song texts written by Martin Luther (see Chapter 4 below). The theolinguistically significant finding of this research is that the German vernacular not only received the title “fourth sacred language,” but also became the language of Protestant worship. Thus, for the Protestant churches, the problem that the Catholic Church grappled with until the Second Vatican Council was resolved: the problem of having to celebrate the liturgy in a foreign and dead language. The continuing appeal of Bible translation for Germanists, and the tensions concealed within the interchurch relationship, are illustrated by the problems surrounding the creation of the “Unified Translation.” As recently as 2005, an EKD press release was headlined in the following dramatically worded terms: “‘Protestant participation in the ‘Unified Translation’ of the Bible is no longer possible.” The issue was the revision of the Unified Translation in light of the rigid 2001 Roman instruction “Liturgiam authenticam.” It was the instruction Liturgiam authenticam that caused the extensive large-scale project to revise the missal (“Missal 2000”) to fail. In 1988, the “International Working Group of Liturgical Commissions in the German-speaking Region” established a study commission, which was ultimately intended to prepare a new edition of the German missal of 1975, created after Vatican II. I have reported several times on my work on the commission. The revision and retranslation of thousands of liturgical texts, the work carried out by the approximately 10 members of AG3, was ultimately—unfortunately—destined for the wastepaper basket. However, as part of the “Missal 2000” project, I also became familiar with the state of research on Polish sacred language. A comparison of German and Polish research is extremely revealing. They stand in stark contrast to one another. First, in Poland it is the specialists in Polish language and literature who are advancing theolinguistic research. Second, after the study of religious language in Poland was all but prevented before the political transition, it is now being pursued with all the more dynamism. Religious language has meanwhile become one of the most popular subjects of investigation in Polish linguistics. There is a wealth of smaller and larger studies on individual religious text types (prayer, sermon, hymn, Bible translations); many important theoretical and practical aspects are being investigated both synchronically and diachronically; and although several areas have so far been explored only tentatively, the necessary capacity is available and favorable conditions for further development have been established. Third, large interdisciplinary conferences on re- are held cyclically in Poland. Straipsniai / Articles 125 ALBRECHT GREULE religious language. Some of them see themselves as a forum for a wide range of theolinguistic questions, while others foreground a manifestation or an aspect of religious language, e.g. the language of catechesis, religious language in the media, or the functions of individual theolektal text genres. Fourth, scholarly efforts concerning religious language in Poland are now also institutionally established. There is a Commission for Religious Language (interdisciplinary and ecumenically composed), based within the Council for the Polish Language at the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The Commission specifically pursues relevant projects, and the research findings are subsequently published. A detailed account can be found in Greule, Kucharska-Dreiß, Makuchowska 2005. Comparison with the state of research in Germany, together with collaboration with Polish theolinguists, gave rise to the idea of providing an international framework for theolinguistic research. The International Working Group, which first met in 2006 in Wrocław and then annually in Bochum, Kouvola, Jena, Freiburg, and Prague, set itself the task of promoting research into the diverse manifestations of religious language in Europe. The proceedings of its meetings are published in the book series Theolinguistica. 3. AT THE CENTER OF THEOLINGUISTICS: THE LANGUAGE OF THE LITURGY Liturgy generally refers to religious rituals for the worship of God and the strengthening of communal faith. It is realized entirely through language. It is therefore essential to examine the language of the liturgy closely, and a linguistic perspective can be particularly illuminating and fruitful. While in the churches of the Reformation the German language, as the language of worship, can look back on a long tradition, Latin—a “dead” language—remained the language of worship in the Roman Catholic Church. The texts used in the liturgy, their linguistic style, and the question of their classification were understandably not a subject for German studies, the study of a “living” individual language, its history, and its linguistic culture. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) brought about a profound change by recognizing the use of the vernacular in the liturgy as often very beneficial to the people. The linguistic foundations for a theory of liturgical text and speech genres, especially with regard to Catholic worship, 126 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIV–LXV Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik include knowledge of the following fundamental categories: (1) the rituality of worship, (2) the communicative structure of worship, and (3) the forms in which language appears in worship. The forms in which language occurs in worship are distinguished as follows: (1) multilingualism, (2) textuality, (3) spoken language, (4) written language, and (5) sung language. In addition to the cantillation important to liturgical scholars, sung language also includes the church hymn texts of interest to hymnologists and linguists. With the founding of the Interdisciplinary Working Group on Hymnal Research at the University of Mainz in 1991, followed by the establishment of a hymnal archive at the same university, the study of the church hymn and its language in Germany not only acquired a home; decisive research initiatives also stem from there. It can be argued that the establishment of the graduate research group Geistliches Lied und Kirchenlied interdisziplinär (1996–2005) made Mainz the center of hymnological research in Germany. Although it did not produce any expressly linguistic monographs on the language of German church hymns, linguistics has a voice, and its knowledge helps shed light on the subject, as is evident, for example, from the standard work Geistliches Wunderhorn (Becker 2001). Linguists are likewise taking part in the revision of “Gotteslob.” What is called for here above all is linguistic criticism, and especially criticism of the new spiritual song grounded in linguistic scholarship. 4. THE SACRED SONG – OLD AND NEW 4.1. History The subject of the following discussion is the texts of sacred songs, also called hymns, first transmitted between approximately 1450 and approximately 1550. Leaving aside the Old High German Petruslied, “Christ ist erstanden” is considered the oldest German-language hymn. For the first time, a four-line song originally consisting of a single stanza is preserved in its entirety—not merely its incipit—and a complete notation of the neumes is provided by a Klosterneuburg manuscript of the 14th century (facsimile in Becker 2001: 29). The earliest evidence that “Christ ist erstanden” was sung by the people (“populus”), and where, is found in the Salzburg Liber Ordinarius from around the middle of the 12th century: an “Easter play” was incorporated into the end of Easter Sunday matins (the night service), a procession to the “holy sepulchre,” at Straipsniai / Articles 127 ALBRECHT GREULE whose climax was the proclamation of the Resurrection to the clergy and the people. The congregation’s response to the message of the Resurrection was the song “Christ ist erstanden.” “Congregational singing here is an integral part of the liturgy, officially regulated, deliberately conceived, and organically integrated into its course; it is by no means an unofficial ‘addition’ that could simply be omitted” (Praßl 2000: 36). Which songs the congregation sang, or was supposed to sing, at Mass at various times of the church year is conveyed to the congregation of Gebenbach, near Amberg, by the pastor Paul Gössel in the parish book he authored between 1419 and 1437, that is, before the Reformation (pagina 92v): from Candlemas to Palm Sunday Nu bitte wir den heilig(e)n geist, ferner Sancta maria muter reyne meid / alle vnß(er) not die sey dir geklaid and des helf uns sancta maria; from Easter to Pentecost Crist ist erstanden and Also her ist dieser tag / das den nyemend mit lobe erfüllen mag; during the Christmas season: uns ist geborn ein kind (Greule 1998: 386). Martin Luther began writing and composing German sacred songs in 1523. In his reflections on reorganizing the worship service, he expressed the wish for as many German songs as possible, to be sung by the people during worship. In Geneva, Calvin introduced congregational singing in 1542 with a psalm song (before and after the sermon) and ensured that a complete psalter of songs was produced in 1562. The hymns sung from memory by the “people” are linguistic monuments whose communicative reach extends across dialectal and confessional boundaries, thanks to their wide dissemination and popularity. For this reason, from the 16th century onward, they very probably also contributed to linguistic leveling and to the emergence of the New High German written language. Considerable research remains to be done on this subject. 4.2. Transmission “The hymn and the hymnbook experienced a heyday in the 16th century. Much of what had already developed in the Middle Ages blossomed anew with the help of the Reformation. The vigorous development of vernacular congregational singing and the hymnbooks that grew out of it also had a technical precondition: the invention of printing in 1492 and the invention of music printing with movable type around 1520” (Möller 2000: 69). The texts were transmitted in different ways: the earliest were transmitted in manuscript; later, the texts appeared in print. Both handwritten and printed song texts are occasionally found; mostly they are 128 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIV–LXV Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik but either transmitted together with other song texts (in song sheets, songbooks, hymnals) or with texts of other genres. The songs initially created by Luther himself and then by his fellow reformers were disseminated on broadsheets; they were intended to be sung by the people in church services, at home, and also in the street. Soon, however, it became necessary to collect individual broadsheets into songbooks. The Achtliederbuch (1523/1524) marked the beginning of the series of Protestant hymnals with musical notation. On the Catholic side, Michael Vehe (1637) and Johann Leisentritt (1567) compiled hymnals (Möller 2000: 69). The term hymnal, which only became established in the mid-18th century, generally refers to a collection of congregational songs intended for use in worship. The inclusion of melodies alongside song texts was not a matter of course. In addition to song texts, hymnals also contain prefaces, instructions, prayers, and indexes. 4.3. Linguistic analysis In the following discussion, I draw by way of example on vernacular renderings in song form of the seven words of Jesus on the cross. These are handwritten or printed song texts (sigla: H, P, L, W) from the period between the mid-15th and mid-16th centuries, each paraphrasing the biblical passages Luke 23:34; Luke 23:43; John 19:25; Matthew 27:46; John 19:28; John 19:30; Luke 23:4. For purposes of analysis, the relevant words of Jesus have been extracted from the context of their respective stanzas (Greule 2009: 774f.). 4.3.1. Spelling/pronunciation, rhyme structures. The (originally) handwritten song texts that have been transmitted allow us to infer their scribal dialect. Thus, for example, text H can be classified as Bavarian on the basis of various spellings, but especially the spellings Nymbar (= nim war) and fürbar (= für war). The same cannot be said with equal certainty of text L, which was printed in Bavaria. Even with texts transmitted from a very early date, one must allow for a mixed scribal dialect in the earliest version available to us. This has, for example, been demonstrated for the oldest version of “Es kommt ein Schiff geladen” (1450) (Bekker 2001: 61–63). The e-apocope occurs in all four Seven Words texts, but is not applied consistently, which is also related to the requirements of meter and rhyme (H: ich..sag, im paradeys, hend; P: paradeysz, but: yn deyne hende; L: ich beger, sag ich; but: im Paradeyse, in deine hennde; W: paradies, but consistently heut). Straipsniai / Articles 129 ALBRECHT GREULE The loanword from Latin (in) paradiso illustrates the state of (completed) diphthongization of Middle High German long /i, u, ü/ around 1500. H: paradeys, P: paradeysz, L: Paradeyse (but W paradies); likewise in weib/weyb, mein/meyn, dein/deyn, sein/seyn, pey/bey, Hewt/heuth/ heut. Conclusions about pronunciation can sometimes be drawn from the rhymes. Thus W <got> rhymes with <hat> (= rounded /a/). In the spelling <mein>, which rhymes in H, the spelling <thain> (instead of thuoen) is a hypercorrect spelling that indirectly attempts to account for the sound change /uo/ > /oa/ before a nasal. 4.3.2. Textual coherence. Textual coherence captures the structural connectedness of a text beyond the sentence level. The macrostructural unit of the hymn is the stanza. The principal means available for establishing coherence are recurrence (the repetition of a linguistic element or structure, especially referential recurrence = coreference and feature recurrence = isotopy) and connection. In song texts consisting of several stanzas, it is illuminating to trace the coherence between the individual stanzas (subtexts of the overall text). In Luther’s three-stanza hymn “Mytten wir ym leben synd,” coherence among the stanzas is created primarily through structural recurrence (Becker 2001: 87). Apart from the identity of the stanzas imposed by rhythm and rhyme scheme, recurrence of syntactic structures is further reinforced by expression recurrence: lines 1+2 form a sentence, each introduced by the preposition Mitten yn. Lines 3+4 form an interrogative sentence beginning with a w-interrogative word. Line 5 answers the question in line 3, with almost identical lexical repetition du/dir – herr alleyn. Lines 8–11 (Trishagion) are identical in all stanzas. Lines 12+13 form a sentence following the pattern las/laß uns/unns nicht + infinitive + prepositional phrase dependent on the infinitive (line 13). 4.3.3. Syntax. The Seven Words texts predominantly attest simple sentences: Es ist nun alles das vollbracht (H), du wirst heut sein bey mir im Paradeyse (L), o vater, jch befehl dir nu meinen geist (W). The first of the Seven Words also requires a complex sentence in the Latin of the Bible: Vergib jn (...) / wan sie nit wissen, was sie thain (H); Vergib jn das sy wissendt nit / was sie an mir verbringen (the causal conjunction is missing, L); vergie b aus güttikeit / was disz volck thut aus unwissenheyt (W). In Michael Weiße’s Gesangbuch der Böhmischen Brüder (W), one comes to the conclusion that a number of Weiße’s expressions have become set phrases and recur repeatedly. These include word groups such as aus hertz̄ens 130 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIV–LXV Das geistliche Lied im Forschungsspektrum der Theolinguistik grund, enge pforte, im höchsten thron. Unlike the other Seven Words texts H, P and L, which have no ornamental attribution, Michael Weiße’s free shaping of the text is also evident in the embellishment of Jesus’ words with word groups. In L, the twice-occurring adverbal genitive is noteworthy: Johannes sol dein warten; der (=Maria) solt du (=Johannes) fleissig pflegen. The causality marked in Latin in the first (non enim sciunt) and fourth (utquid dereliquisti me) of the Seven Words is rendered in different ways: 1. enim: with the subordinator wan (H), wor (P); prepositionally with unwissenheyt (W), and not at all (L); 2. utquid: wie (H, L), wy (P), warumb (W). 4.3.4. Lexicon. The biblical vocabulary (including the loanword paradeys) in the Seven Words texts, whose authors presumably relied on Bible translations, is unsurprising. Only W departs more freely from the biblical source. W uses the adjective lustig in the sense of ‘pleasurable’ as an attribute of paradies, showing that the semantic shift to its New High German meaning had not yet taken place. Like P, W uses weibesbild (Lat. mulier) to refer to Mary at the cross, which likewise shows that the expression’s current derogatory connotation, despite its origins in Middle High German, was not yet present. The Jesus words are incorporated into the surrounding song text exclusively through speech-introducing verbs. There is considerable variation here, arising in part because the speech introductions have acquired emotional connotations: sprach, schray die wart, mit lauten schreÿen (H); sprach, we claget, ruft, bekannt, vorhieß (P); sprach, sagt, ruefft pierleych, redt, Hub ann (L); sprach, verhiesch, rieff laut (W). In the Seven Words texts, the words of Jesus present stylized spoken language. Interestingly, they also exhibit different discourse particles: while these are absent in P, there is only one in L (Fürwar) and W (gewies), whereas in H they are used repeatedly to reinforce the statement (gewiss, fürbar, warlich, doch). 4.3.5. Morphology. The following verb forms are attested in the Seven Words texts. 1st person singular present: ich..sag, enpfilch ich (H); <ich> befil (P); ich beger, sag ich, ich..empfilch (L); ich befehl (W) – 2nd person singular present: wirstu, hast dw (H), du wirst, solst han (P); du wirst, solt du, hast du (L); du solt, verlestu (W) – 3rd person singular: ist, mich türstet (H); ist, mich dursth (P); ist, sol, mich dürst (L); thut, ist, sol, mich dürstett, auswey st (W) - 3rd person plural: sie.. wissen (H); sie wizzen, thun (P); sy wissent, sie verbringen (L). – Singular imperative: Vergib, Nymbar (H); vorgib, ny(m) war (P); thu(o)e, Vergib, nym(m) war, sich an (L); vergie b, sih (W). Straipsniai / Articles 131 ALBRECHT GREULE With the exception of W, the Seven Words texts display no peculiarities in the area of word formation, which is related to their dependence on biblical language. Weiße alone has two (new-sounding) abstract noun formations with the suffixes -keit (güttikeit) and -heit (unwissenheyt). The juxtaposition weybsbildt (P) and weibesbild (W) is noteworthy. 5. CONCLUSION I cannot summarize all the diverse tasks assigned to theolinguistics. But Germanists undoubtedly also have something to say about the critique of religious language use. I would like to illustrate this in a few sentences through the problem of the new sacred song. After we had examined three new sacred songs through the lens of linguistics, my student Martina Meyer summarized as follows: “New sacred songs are (...) musical pieces that seek to distinguish themselves from church hymns perceived as ‘old’ and ‘conventional.’” (Greule, Meyer 2006: 75). When something new appears, the general impression is that it is particularly suited to younger people or characteristic of them. This raises the question of whether the texts of new sacred songs should also be written in a distinctive youth language. Recognizing that there can be no uniform youth language, we conclude that neither youth language nor what is regarded as such should be used in the texts of New Sacred Songs. Youth-language expressions are, in fact, avoided in two of the three texts examined. In the third case, where the lyricist tries to use phrases such as “Micro-, Macro-, Mega-Psycho” under the heading “If the bush were not in the desert,” the verdict is damning: it would have been better not to do so. LITERATURE Becker Hansjakob u. a. 2001: Geistliches Wunderhorn. Große deutsche Kirchenlieder. München: C. H. Beck Verlag. Crystal David 1993: Die Cambridge-Enzyklopädie der Sprache. Frankfurt/M., New York: Campus, 412. 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Greule Albrecht, Kucharska-Dreiß Elżbieta 2011: Theolinguistik: Gegenstand – Terminologie – Terminologie – Methoden. – Theolinguistik: Bestandsaufnahme – Tendenzen – Impulse, hrsg. von Albrecht Greule und Elżbieta Kucharska-Dreiß. Insingen: Verlag Bauer & Raspe, 11–18. Greule Albrecht, Kucharska-Dreiß Elżbieta, Makuchowska Marzena 2005: Neuere Forschungen zur Sakralsprache im deutsch-polnischen Vergleich. Erträge – Tendenzen – Aufgaben. – Heiliger Dienst 2005, Heft 2, 73–91. Greule Albrecht, Meyer Martina 2006: „Ich geh durch Ödland“. Neue Geistliche Lieder unter der Lupe der Sprachwissenschaft. – Auf der Suche nach dem neuen geistlichen Lied, hrsg. von Siri Fuhrmann, Annette Albert-Zerlik. Tübingen: Francke-Verlag, 2006, 63–77. Janich Nina, Greule Albrecht (Hrsg.) 2002: Sprachkulturen in Europa. Ein internationales Handbuch. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Möller Christian 2000: Das 16. Jahrhundert. – Kirchenlied und Gesangbuch. Quellen zu ihrer Geschichte. Ein hymnologisches Arbeitsbuch, hrsg. von Christian Möller. Tübingen: Francke, 69–127. Noppen Jean-Pierre van 1995: Methodist Discourse and Industrial Work Ethic. A Critical Theolinguistic Approach. – Belgisch tijdschrift voor filologie en geschiedenis 73, Afl. 3: Moderne talen letterkunde, 693–714. Praßl Franz Karl 2000: Das Mittelalter. – Kirchenlied und Gesangbuch. Quellen zu ihrer Geschichte. Ein hymnologisches Arbeitsbuch, hrsg. von Christian Möller. Tübingen: Francke, 29–68. Wagner Andreas 1999: Theolinguistik? – Theolinguistik! – Internationale Tendenzen der Syntax, Semantik und Pragmatik. Akten des 32. Linguistischen Kolloquiums in Kassel 1997 (Linguistik International 1), hrsg. von Hans Otto Spillmann, Warnke Ingo. Frankfurt/M. u. a.: Peter Lang, 507–512. Straipsniai / Articles 133 ALBRECHT GREULE The Religious Hymn in the Research Spectrum of Theolinguistics SUMMARY The article discusses the problems of translating, interpreting, and adapting sacred texts (from various Christian denominations) from a cultural perspective, a topic that has recently become particularly prominent in Germany and Poland in the field of theolinguistics. It briefly reviews the bibliography of the works and the main research principles of pioneers of this branch of linguistics—Jean-Pierre van Noppen, David Crystal, and Andreas Wagner—who define the creation and integration of normative concepts in the sacred sphere without violating the rules of the language in which they are used or the principles of theological dogmatics. In analyzing the features of the German translation of the “Vetus Itala” portion of the Vulgate, the importance of establishing the interference relationship between theolect (i.e., the language of a particular social group or one of its members, rich in terms and concepts from the sacred sphere) and the standard language is emphasized. That is, the necessity of identifying the translator’s and social environment’s determining influence is recognized; this is often assessed as a predisposing factor in defining the formal (i.e., linguistic) and cultural (i.e., factual and real-world) differences of the adapted text. It is emphasized that the theolinguistic research method, based on the convergence of synchronic and diachronic modes of analysis, is particularly useful for revealing the actual meaning of the translated text’s idiolectal concepts, and should therefore be regarded as integral with respect to both the language system and factual material. Because of the exceptionally complex structure of the object under study—the Holy Scriptures—and the abundance of translation versions from different periods, the theolinguistic research method is applied on the basis of taxonomic principles. The article focuses primarily on problems in translating religious hymns from Latin into German and interpreting them. It discusses aspects of preparing manuscript and printed texts, identifies various linguistic nuances in the study of the object under investigation, and illustrates the results of analyses from different branches of linguistics (phonetics) and grammar (morphology, syntax). Received on October 11, 2011. PROF. DR. ALBRECHT GREULE Hangstraße 30, D-93173 Wenzenbach-Grünthal, Deutschland [email protected] 134 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXIV–LXV