2.1.2 Assimilative changes. Vowel mutation / Umlaut

Umlaut (the term of J. Grimm, from German um- "around"/"the other way" + Laut "sound") or mutation is a process of regressive assmimilation of a vowel by a vowel of the following syllable. Umlaut is a form of assimilation, the process by which one sound is changed to make it more like another following sound in the process of speech, which is explained by the fact that it requires less effort to pronounce the vowels which are closer according to the place of articulation, thus, it is natural way of language change for these vowels to be drawn closer together.

This process took place separately in various Germanic languages in approximately 450-500 AD, and affected all Germanic languages except Gothic.

There are 2 main types of mutation in Germanic languages:

1. palatal mutation or i-umlaut

2. velar mutation or u-umlaut, a/o-umlaut.

I-umlaut is the change of back vowels when they precede the syllable containing /i/, /iː/, or /j/. The main vowels affected by i-umlaut are back sounds a, o, u which undergo the process of fronting (becoming closer to the front vowel i of the following syllable). In other words when a two-syllable word had /a/, /o/ or /u/ in the first syllable and /i/ in the second, the vowel in the first syllable was fronted, e.g. OE *mūsi ‘mice’ shifted to *mȳsi, later - to mȳs, mīs and eventually ModE mice. Here the umlaut is observed on the first stage (ū > ȳ).

The abovementioned vowels underwent the following changes when preceding syllable with i:

• a → ä (e), e.g. OHG gasti → MHG geste

• ā → æ, e.g. OHG gibarida → MHG gebærde

• o → ö, e.g. OHG mohti → MHG möhte

• ō → œ, OHG skōni → MHG schoene

• u → ü, OHG turi → MHG tür.

It is obvious that vowel i which stimulated the umlaut was either reduced, or transformed into vowel e.

In OE of 16 basic vowels and diphthongs, only the 4 vowels ǣ, ē, i, ī were unaffected by i-mutation. I-umlaut was originally triggered by an /i/ or /j/ in the syllable following the affected vowel, by Old English times the /i/ or /j/ had generally dropped out or been modified (usually to /e/).

As a result of i-imlaut new phonemes appeared in German – e, æ, ö, œ, ü, ū.

Although umlaut was not a grammatical process, umlauted vowels often serve to distinguish grammatical forms (e.g. plural marker in man-men, tooth-teeth, goose-geese, foot-feet, mouse-mice, louse-lice, brother-brethren).

In other West and North Germanic languages i-umlaut could be observed.

U-umlaut is another type of mutation which occurred in Faroese and Icelandic, where a changed to ø/o in Faroese and ö in Icelandic when preceded by u, which produced narrowing influence.

In OE it resulted in diphthongization of stressed a(æ), e, i into ea, oe, io (later eo) respectively under the influence of vowels u, a/o of the following syllable.

So, it is obvious, that mutation as a type of assimilative vowel changes introduced new phonemes into the vocalic system of Germanic languages.