Looking Back at Old German Hymnals

 

As I looked at hymnals used during World War I, I was reminded how rusty my German is and how fast language changes.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I am currently working on a story about a German-Lutheran girl living in America during World War I. So when a friend offered to let me look at some old German hymnals that had belonged to her mother, I was thrilled.

I haven’t used my German much since I took two years in college, but I can usually get the sense of a written document with the help of a dictionary and Google’s translation program. For the most part, that was also true when I looked at the title pages of Bobbi’s mother’s books, even though some of the German words seem to have fallen out of use. And even though it took more time to translate pages written in the old German script, I mostly managed to do so without human assistance, as in the case of the one at the top of this post.¹

Then I cane across this one.

I had downloaded two charts showing the old German script and providing the modern-day equivalent for each letter (or two-character grouping such as ch). Unfortunately, it didn’t help much with this particular title page. Trying to match up the letters in the red word at the top with the script on my charts, my best guess was “Pans-Buch.” “Buch” is book, but “pans” made no sense.

Fortunately, I have human resources as well. My daughter minored in German in college and has kept up with it much better than I have. She has even read the German versions of the Harry Potter books.

So I admitted my failure and sent it off to her. Although several words puzzled her, she got the gist of it. Turns out that what I thought was a P was an H and what I thought was an s was a d, so the word translated to “Handbook.”

I’m a pretty self-sufficient person, and I don’t like to ask for help.

But sometimes it’s the only way to get it right.

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¹ The top five lines read, “Church-Songbook for Evangelical Lutheran Congregations unaltered Augsburg Confession.” Presumably it was written for those congregations that followed the unaltered Augsburg Confession, which is a doctrinal statement adopted in Augsburg, Germany in 1530.

The Importance of Hymns

My father couldn’t carry a tune, but he loved music. He especially loved hymns, which he saw as an integral part of worship. Daddy picked the hymns for each service and marked the date in his personal copy of the hymnbook so that he wouldn’t use them too often. He had his favorites, but he liked variety, too.

He was also careful to pick only those hymns that taught good theology. I loved “In the Garden” because it was fun to sing, but Daddy hated it. To him, “In the Garden” was shallow and lacked a theological message. He did let me sing it around the house, but he would never have tolerated it in a church service.

Daddy must have taught me well, because I always feel let down when I attend a service without congregational singing. And, like Daddy, I appreciate hymns and songs with a solid message. But I’ll sing others, too, just for the pure enjoyment of it.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16, ESV.)

Amen.

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The photo shows DeTour Union Church, where I first discovered Daddy’s love of hymns. He took the photo as a slide in 1958 or 1959.