Common Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages

1. Phonetic peculiarities of the Germanic languages

Although the history of the English language begins in the 5^th century (with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Great Britain) and the earliest written documents belong even to a later date, the comparative-historical method makes it possible for us to reconstruct some of the phonetic features which characterized the speech of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes before the invasion.

1.1. The First Consonant Shift

On the basis of observations made by Rasmus Rask in 1818, Jakob Grimm codified the correspondences between certain consonants in the Germanic languages and those in Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek in 1822. Following the genealogical classification of languages, the Germanic languages diverged from the other Indo-European languages as a result of the operation of the First Consonant Shift (“First Germanic Sound Shift”), which is often called Grimm’s Law. The essence of Grimm’s law is that the quality of some sounds changed in all Germanic languages while the place of their formation remained unchanged.

As proved by Grimm, all the Indo-European stops seem to have gradually changed in Old Germanic. Correspondences between Indo-European and Germanic consonants may be grouped under three categories:

1) The Indo-European voiceless stops [p, t, k] and their aspirated parallels [p^h, t^h, k^h] changed to corresponding spirants, i.e. the labial [p] and [p^h] changed to the labial [f], the dental [t] or [t^h] changed to the dental [θ], and the velar [k] or [k^h] changed to the velar [h] (originally pronounced as [x] in the Ukrainian хата).

Examples:

p (p^h) > f U п’ять, Gk pente, G fünf, E five

t (t^h) > θ U три, L trēs, Gt Þrija, E three

k (k^h) > h Gk kunos, L canis, G Hund, E hound

2) The Indo-European voiced stops [b, d, g] became voiceless [p, t, k].

Examples:

b > p U слабий, E sleep; U болото, E pool

d > t U два, E two; U вода, E Water

g > k U іго, E yoke

3) The Indo-European aspirated voiced stops [b^h, d^h, g^h] correspond to Germanic voiced stops without aspiration [b, d, g].

Examples:

b^h > b Skt bhrātar, E brother

d^h > d Skt vidhavā, E window

g^h > g Skt vāhanam, E wagon

There are some exceptions to Grimm’s law. For example, the Indo-European [p, t, k] remained unchanged after the sound [s]. E.g. U стояти, E stand.

Certain apparent exceptions to Grimm’s law were explained by a Danish linguist Karl Verner in 1877.

Let us compare the Latin words frāter, māter, pater with their Old English equivalents broþor, modor, fæder. In accordance with Grimm’s law the sound [t] in all the Latin words should have corresponded to the sound [θ] (written þ) in all the Old English words. As it was, only the word broþor showed the regular consonant-shift [t > θ]. In the two other words we find the voiced stop [d].The explanation given by K. Verner is that if an Indo-European voiceless stop was preceded by an unstressed vowel, the voiceless fricative which developed from it in accordance with Grimm’s law became voiced, and later this voiced fricative became a voiced plosive (stop). That is p, t, k > b, d, g. Latin pater has a Germanic correspondence fæder because the stress in the word was on the second syllable, and so voiceless plosive was preceded by an unstressed vowel.

Verne’s law explains why some verbs in Old English changed their root consonant in the past tens and in Participle II – originally, these grammatical forms had the stress on the second syllable. Hence the basic forms such as sniðan (to cut) and weorðan (to become) were sniðan – snað – snidon – sniden; weorðan – wearð- wurdon – worden.