Customer Reviews

Middle High German Verbs

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For any student who has struggled through Iwein or the Nibelungenlied, this is an essential reference. It is the perfect supplement to Lexer's Taschenwoerterbuch, and greatly extends the brief synopses available in Wright or Asher. Moreover, the warm and engaging style manages to bring the most obscure Ablautreihe to life. It should also be noted that this is not simply a verb list: there is a guide to MHG pronunciation, a grammatical precis, and an extensive index (so you don't already have to know that 'geseit' is a variant of 'sagen' in order to look it up and find the corresponding paradigm).

This book is an excellent reference book for anyone who studies history of the German language, especially the Middle High German period. Not only does Shay provide conjugation tables for 340 of the most frequently used verbs, he also provides a thorough overview of the verbal system, as well as a list of all the weak verbs. This text is very similar to books in the "501 Verbs" series (like "501 French Verbs," "501 Italian Verbs," etc.), except this is an historical language. It would be nice to see more books like this written about other historical languages simply because they would be so useful and handy.

Scott Shay has done an excellent job in producing this book. While not a novel on a "day in the life" or a time travel fantasy escape, it does what it is suppose to do, present Middle High German Verbs. It has done so in a simple, easy to understand and well researched way. Given this level of attention by Scott Shay, I would love to see other novels flow from his [pen] computer.