The Palatal Mutation

Mutation, or umlaut, is a kind of regressive (or leftward) assimilation: a vowel is influenced by another vowel or vowel-like sound to its right. Mutation brings about a complete change in vowel quality: one phoneme is replaced by another.

The most important of these regressive processes is the palatal mutation (or i-mutation, i-umlaut), because of the number of vowels affected, the creation of entirely new vowel types, and its profound morphological effects. This change was caused by suffixal [i, j]; and these sounds occurred in a large number of inflections and derivational suffixes.

In the Gothic texts of the 4^th century there is yet no sign of the palatal mutation. In the earliest documents of the other Germanic languages, it has either been completed, as in Old English (OE), or it has at least started, as in Old High German (OHG).

In OE, i-mutation affects practically all vowels, both monophthongs and diphthongs. Only short e and i have no connection with it. Under the influence of [i] or [j] the vowels of the preceding syllable move to a higher front position:

a > e Gth. sandjan OE. sendan (to send)

a > æ > e Gth. badi OE. bedd (<*bæddi) (bed)

ā > OE. *hālian > (to heal)

o > Ø > e OE. *ofstian > efstan (to hurry)

ō > Ø > ē Gth. dōms, dōmjan, OE. dōm, dēman (doom, to deem)

OE. fōt (sg) – (*fōtiz>) fēt (pl) (foot – feet)

u > y Gth. fulljan OE. *fullian > fyllan (to fill)

ū > OE. *cūþian > cỹþan (to announce)

e a OE. eald, but ieldra (<*ealdira) (old – elder)

ie *hleahian > hliehhan (to laugh)

e o *afeorrian > afierran (to remove)

OE. *hēarian > hīeran (to hear)

ē a hēah, but hīehra (< *hēahira) (high)

īe *getrēowi > getrīewe (true)

ēo cēosan – cīesþ (< *cēosiþ) (to choose –(he) chooses).

Notes: 1. The ie/īe often become i/ī or y/ӯ:

afirran, afyrran; getrīwe, getrӯwe.

2. After the sounds [i] and [j] had produced the mutation, they were frequently lost.

3. The i-mutation has left many traces in Modern English:

1. different parts of speech: long – length, doom – to deem, food – to feed, full – to fill, Angles – English, etc.

2. different forms of a word: tooth – teeth, foot – feet, old – elder, etc.

Unit 6 The Early Germans

The Germanic ethnos derived from the migrations of Indo-European tribes who lived in Northern Europe during the first millennium BC. At the present level of research, it is rather difficult to draw linguistic and archaeological lines of division between the early Germans and their Celtic, Illyrian and even Slavic neighbours. The first Germanic consonant shift shows, for instance, that the separation from Celtic had just taken place.

As even Tacitus in his Germania testifies, the very name ‘Germanic’ is probably Celtic in origin or at least transferred under Celtic influence from a single tribe to the whole group.

Archaeological and linguistic criteria indicate that the Germans originally came from Southern Scandinavia and Jutland, although the territory of Northern Germany also played an important part in the process of development of the Germanic race.

Our knowledge of the ancient Germans, or Teutons, is based on testimonies by Greek and Roman writers, who for some reason or other were interested in them. The earliest of these was the Greek merchant and traveller Pytheas, from Massilia (now Marseilles), who lived in the first half of the 4^th centure BC. He was the first to mention Germanic tribes in his account of a sea voyage to the Baltic Sea. Pytheas’s work has not come down to us. Only a few fragments have been preserved by the Greek geographer Strabo (63 BC — 20 AD) and by the Roman historian Pliny the Elder (23 — 79 AD).

Next comes the Roman general, statesman, and writer Julius Caesar (100 — 44 BC), who conquered Gaul (now France) in 58 — 50 BC. As governor of Gaul, he fought successfully against the Germans who were constantly trying the cross the Rhine. In his Commentaries on the War in Gaul Caesar described some Germanic tribes, whom he combated and dealt with on the Rhine.

About a century later, Pliny the Elder in his great work Natural History made a list of Germanic tribes grouping them under six headings. A few decades later the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (55 — 120 AD) compiled a detailed description of the life and customs of the ancient Teutons; in his work Germania (98 AD) he also reproduced Pliny’s classification of the Germanic tribes.