Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of statements
describing the inherited Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stops as they developed
in Proto-Germanic (PGmc, the common ancestor of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European
family) in the 1st millennium BC. It establishes a set of regular correspondences
between early Germanic stops and
fricatives and the stop consonants of certain other Indo-European languages (Grimm used mostly Latin and
Greek for illustration). As it is presently formulated, Grimm's Law consists of three
parts, which must be thought of as three consecutive phases in the sense of a chain
shift[1]:
- Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops change into voiceless fricatives.
- Proto-Indo-European voiced stops become voiceless stops.
- Proto-Indo-European voiced aspirated stops become voiced fricatives; ultimately, in most Germanic languages these voiced
fricatives become voiced stops.
The voiced aspirated stops may have first become voiced fricatives before hardening to the voiced unaspirated stops "b", "d",
and "g" under certain conditions, however some linguists dispute this. See Proto-Germanic
phonology.
Grimm's law was the first non-trivial systematic sound change to be discovered in
linguistics; its formulation was a turning point in the development of linguistics, enabling
the introduction of a rigorous methodology to historical linguistic research. The "law" was discovered by Friedrich von Schlegel in 1806 and Rasmus Christian Rask in 1818, and later elaborated (i.e. extended
to include standard German) in 1822 by Jacob Grimm,
the elder of the Brothers Grimm, in his book Deutsche Grammatik. Some scholars use
the term Rask's-Grimm's rule.
In detail
Further changes following Grimm's Law, as well as sound changes in other Indo-European languages, can sometimes obscure its
effects. The most illustrative examples are used here.
| Change |
Germanic (shifted) examples |
Non-Germanic (unshifted) cognates |
| *p→f |
English: foot, Dutch: voet, German: Fuß, Gothic: fōtus, Icelandic, Faroese: fótur, Danish:
fod, Norwegian, Swedish: fot |
Ancient Greek: πούς (pūs), Latin: pēs, pedis, Sanskrit: pāda, Russian: под (pod),
Lithuanian: pėda, |
| *t→þ |
English: third, Old High German: thritto, Gothic: þridja, Faroese: triðji, Icelandic:
þriðji |
Ancient Greek: τρίτος (tritos), Latin: tertius, Gaelic treas, Sanskrit: treta, Russian:
третий (tretij), Lithuanian: trečias |
| *k→x (x later became h) |
English: hound, Dutch: hond, German: Hund, Gothic: hunds, Icelandic, Faroese: hundur,
Danish, Norwegian, Swedish: hund |
Ancient Greek: κύων (kýōn), Latin: canis, Gaelic cú' |
| *kʷ→hw |
English: what, Dutch: wat, German: was, Gothic: ƕa ("hwa"), Danish
hvad, Icelandic: hvað, Faroese hvat, Norwegian: hva |
Latin: quod, Gaelic ciod, Sanskrit ka-, kiṃ, Russian: ко- (ko-), Lithuanian:
ką' |
| *b→p |
English: warp; Swedish: värpa; Dutch: werpen; Icelandic, Faroese: varpa |
Latin: verber |
| *d→t |
English: ten, Dutch: tien, Gothic: taíhun, Icelandic: tíu, Faroese: tíggju, Danish,
Norwegian: ti, Swedish: tio |
Latin: decem, Greek: δέκα (déka), Gaelic deich, Sanskrit: daśan, Russian: десять
(des'at), Lithuanian: dešimt, |
| *g→k |
English: cold, Dutch: koud, German: kalt, Icelandic, Faroese: kaldur, Danish: kold,
Norwegian: kald, Swedish: kall, |
Latin: gelū |
| *gʷ→kw |
English: quick, Frisian: quick, queck Dutch: kwiek, German: keck, Gothic: qius, Old Norse:
kvikr, Icelandic, Faroese: kvikur, Swedish: kvick, Norwegian kvikk |
Lithuanian: gyvas |
| *bʰ→b |
English: brother, Dutch: broeder, German: Bruder, Gothic: broþar, Icelandic, Faroese:
bróðir, Danish, Swedish: broder, Norwegian bror |
Sanskrit: (bhrātā), Russian: брат (brat), Lithuanian: brolis, Old Church Slavonic
bratru |
| *dʰ→d |
English: door, Frisian: doar, Dutch: deur, German: Tür, Gothic: daúr, Icelandic, Faroese:
dyr, Danish, Norwegian: dør, Swedish: dörr |
Sanskrit: dwār, Russian: дверь (dver'), Lithuanian: durys |
| *gʰ→g |
English: goose, Frisian: goes, Dutch: gans, German: Gans, Icelandic: gæs, Faroese:
gás, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish: gås |
Russian: гусь (gus) |
| *gʷʰ→gw |
English: wife, Proto-Germanic: wiban (from former gwiban), Old Saxon, Old Frisian: wif, Dutch:
wijf, Old High German: wib, German: Weib, Old Norse: vif, Icelandic: víf, Faroese: vív,
Danish, Swedish, Norwegian: viv |
Tocharian A: kip, B: kwípe (vulva) |
- Note: Some linguists dispute the origin of the word "wife". The current assumed root word is Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰíbʰ-.
This is strikingly regular. Each phase involves one single change which applies equally to the labials (p, b, bʰ, f) and their equivalent dentals (t, d, dʰ, þ), velars (k, g, gʰ, h) and rounded velars (kʷ, gʷ, gʷʰ, hw). The first phase left the phoneme
repertoire of the language without voiceless stops, the second phase filled this gap but created a new one, and so on until the
chain had run its course.
Exceptions
The voiceless stops did not become fricatives if they were preceded by *s (itself a fricative).
| Change |
Germanic examples |
Non-Germanic examples |
| *sp |
English: spew, Gothic: speiwan, Dutch: spuien, German: speien, Norwegian, Swedish: spy,
Icelandic: spýja, Faroese: spýggja |
Latin: spuere |
| *st |
English: stand, Dutch: staan, German: stehen, Icelandic, Faroese: standa, Norwegian, Swedish:
stå |
Latin: stāre, Sanskrit: sta, Russian: стать (stat), Lithuanian: stoti |
| *sk |
English: short, Old Norse and Icelandic: skorta, Old High German: scurz |
Sanskrit: krdhuh, Latin: curtus, Lithuanian: skurdus |
| *skʷ |
English: scold, Old Norse: skäld, Icelandic: skáld, Dutch: schelden |
Proto-Indo-European: *skwetlo |
- Note: Some linguists dispute the origin of the word "scold" but *skwetlo is the current assumed root.
Furthermore, the voiceless stop *t also did not become a fricative if preceded by *p, *k, or *kʷ (themselves voiceless stops). The voiceless stop it was preceded by did fricativize, however. (In
other words, at the time in history when voiceless stops fricativized in Proto-Germanic, that fricativization only affected
leading voiceless stops when paired with the voiceless stop *t.) This is sometimes treated separately under the
heading Germanic spirant law:
| Change |
Germanic examples |
Non-Germanic examples |
| *pt→ft |
Gothic: hliftus "thief" |
Ancient Greek: κλέπτης (kleptēs) |
| *kt→ht |
English: eight, Dutch: acht, Frisian: acht, German: acht, Gothic: ahtáu Icelandic:
átta (pronounced [auhta]) |
Ancient Greek: οκτώ (oktō), Latin: octō |
| *kʷt→h(w)t |
English: night, Old High German: naht, Old Frisian, Dutch, German: nacht, Gothic: nahts
Icelandic: nótt (pronounced [nouht]) |
Greek: nuks, nukt-, Latin: nox, noct-, Sanskrit: naktam, Russian: ночь (noch), Lithuanian:
naktis |
The most recalcitrant set of apparent exceptions to Grimm's Law, which defied linguists for a few decades, eventually received
explanation from the Danish linguist Karl Verner (see the article on Verner's law for details).
Correspondences to PIE
The Germanic "sound laws", combined with regular changes reconstructed for other Indo-European languages, allow one to define
the expected sound correspondences between different branches of the family. For example, Germanic (word-initial) *b- corresponds
regularly to Latin *f-, Greek pʰ-, Sanskrit bʰ-, Slavic, Baltic or
Celtic b-, etc., while Germanic *f- corresponds to Latin, Greek, Sanskrit,
Slavic and Baltic p- and to zero (no initial consonant) in Celtic. The former set goes back to PIE *bʰ- (faithfully reflected in Sanskrit and modified in various ways elsewhere), and the latter set to PIE *p-
(shifted in Germanic, lost in Celtic, but preserved in the other groups mentioned here).
See also
References
- ^ Campbell, Lyle (2004). Historical linguistics, 2nd ed., Cambridge: MIT Press, 49. ISBN
0262532670.
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