What changes did Christianization bring to the vocabulary of Old High German?

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The Christianization of the Germanic tribes significantly influenced the vocabulary of Old High German through a wave of loanwords derived from Latin. Because these borrowings occurred after the High German consonant shift, they do not exhibit the phonetic changes characteristic of earlier native vocabulary.1

These linguistic additions were almost exclusively related to the religious and cultural transition brought by the church. Examples of such borrowings include:1

  • predigōn (modern German predigen, "to preach"), from Latin praedicāre.1
  • tempal (modern German Tempel, "temple"), from Latin templum.1
  • spiagal (modern German Spiegel, "mirror"), from Latin speculum.1

Additionally, these borrowings often reflect sound changes that had already occurred in popular Latin. For instance, the Latin c before e shifted to a ts sound, resulting in Old High German terms like zella ("cell," from cella) and krūzi ("cross," from crucem). Similarly, the Latin medial -b- shifted to -v- in words like tavala ("table," from tabula).1