Consonants

The comparison of the Germanic and non-Germanic languages within the Indo-European family reveals regular correspondences between German and non-German consonants.

First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law) –in the 19^th Jacob Grimm, a German scholar, discovered the existence of regular correspondence between Indo-European (IE) and German consonants and subdivided them into 3 groups:

 

№	Consonant Correspondences	Examples
Old	Modern
IE	PG	Non-German (Latin)	German (OE)	Non-German (Italian, рус.)	German (English, German)
	[bh,dh,gh] à aspirated voiced stops	[b, d, g] non-aspirated voiced stops	bhrāta (Hind)	brōþor	брат	brother, Bruder
rudhira(Hind)	rēad	-	red
hostis	giest	гость	guest, Gast
	[b, d, g] à voiced stops	[p, t, k] voiceless stops/plosives	labare	pōl	болото	pool, Pfuhl
decem	tīen	dieci, десять	ten
genu	cnēo	ginocchio	knee, Knie
	[p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives	[f, q, h] voiceless fricatives	pedis	fōt	piedi	foot, Fuß
tres	þrēo	tre, три	three
cordis	heort	cuore	heart, Herz

 

Verner’s Law –Carl Verner, a Danish scholar (19^th c.), explained the consonant correspondences as a gradual historical process (a change takes place in the course of time):

 

Consonant Correspondences	Latin	OE	ModE
1. [p, t, k] à voiceless stops/plosives	[f, q, h] à voiceless fricatives	[v, ð/d, g] voiced fricatives	septem	seofen	seven
pater	fæđer	father
socrus	swaiho(Gothic)	Schwager(Germ)
2. Rhotacism	ausis (Lithuanian)	Auso (Gothic)	ear, Ohr (Germ)
[s] à	[z] à	[r]

P.S.: these processes usually happened on condition that the consonants were situated between vowels and if preceded by an unstressed vowel.

Modern Examples: seethe – sodden, death – dead, was – were.

 

Second Consonant Shift –happened in the 9^th c. in Old High German and today we can observe it comparing English and German:

 

Consonant Correspondences	English	German
1. [t] à à	[ts]	two	zwei
[s]	water	Wasser
2. [q] à	[d]	three	drei
3. [d] à	[t]	daughter	Tochter
4. [k] à	[h]	make	machen

H/w:

1. Ex. 3-5, p. 48-49 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева (copies).