Grimm's law

Grimm's law

from Jacob Grimm, of the "Brothers Grimm"
a "law" or rule for sound changes from original Proto-Indo-European language to modern descendent languages

Brothers Grimm[edit | edit source]

collected and published old or traditional Germanic fairy tales and stories
- a collector of traditional stories is called a "folklorist"
Wilhelm & Jacob Grimm wrote "Grimms' Fairy Tales"

Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (1785–1863)
- started a comprehensive German dictionary
- wrote treatise on German mythology
- his observations on "sound shifts" is considered the key development into the study of linguistics

Grimm was concerned with development of a common German identity
- so his work was purposefully aimed at creating that identity
- the movement is called "German nationalism" for the creation of a German "nation"
until the late 19th century, Germany was divided into states, principalities and subordinate regions to other European powers
- much of southern Germany was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire
- and eastern Germany was either part of or owned parts of Poland and Bohemia (modern Czech and Slovakia)
- in the 18th century, the northern German kingdom of Prussia was formed in 1701
- following the defeat of Napoleon, the "German Confederation" was formed (1815)
  - was a loose joining of 39 independent states, with the Emperor of Austria as its president
- in 1866, Prussia defeated the Austrians and created a separate North German Confederation
- following the German defeat of France in 1870 ("Franco-Prussian War"), the German Empire was declared (1871)
  - the King of Prussia, William I was declared Kaiser (from "Caesar") with Berlin as its capital

Jacob Grimm was not the first to notice the sound shifts in related European languages
- however, he was the first to comprehensibly track them
- he thus constructed a larger theory and set of rules governing those shifts
Grimm observed three "phases" of sound changes (called by linguists, a "chain shift")
- the sound shifts are related to how a sound is made by breath and tongue placement
Grimm's law concerns "mechanics" of speech
- i.e., the way the sound is formed
- for example,
  - "P" is spoken by closing the lips and breathing out
  - "F" is spoken by closing the top front teeth upon the bottom lip (while not closing the top lip)

the shifts that Grimm tracked are derived from a common origin language, proto-Indo-European (PIE)
- "proto" means original or precursor (came before) as in a "prototype"
the PIE people started in central Eurasia, likely just north of the Black and Caspian seas, starting approx. 3,000 BC
- they were nomadic herders & raiders
- having domesticated horses they were highly mobile and successful at war
- PIE was probably a common language in those areas between 4500 and 2500 BC
as the original PIE speakers spread across Eurasia the languages they spoke became regionalized
- i.e., as they spread apart, they started pronouncing words differently from one another
note: English is a Germanic language
- Old English was entirely Germanic
- Middle and Modern English are from the combination of Old English with French, Latin & Greek
see Indo-European word origins

"cognate" means "related" or "connected"
as an adjective, "cognate" indicates that a word is related to or shifted from another word
- as in, "The English word 'Father' is cognate with the Latin word 'Pater'"
as a noun cognate means something related, and in linguistics, a word that is related to another word
- as in, "The English word 'Father is a cognate to the Latin word 'Pater'"
the below examples show:
- a modern English word
- it's origin in PIE (the proto-Indo-European language)
- the Latin cognate from the PIE original
- the German cognate, from which English was derived

Click EXPAND for more "P" to "F" sound shifts

foot
- PIE: pods
- Greek: pous
- Latin: ped
- proto Germanic: fot (pronounced "fott")
fish
- PIE: pisk
- Latin: pisces
- proto-Germanic: fiskaz
fire
- PIE: paewr
- Latin: pyre
- proto-Germanic: fur

ten
- PIE: dekmt
- Latin: decim (in Latin the "C" is pronounced like a hard "K", so "decim" is pronounced "dekim"
- prot-Germanic: tehun

apple
- PIE: h₂ébōl or ab(e)l (w/ "B" sound)
- Latin: n/a (pommum)
- proto-Germanic: ap(a)laz

= aspirated "Bh" or soft "beh" to hard "B"
brother
- PIE: bʰréh₂tēr (likely pronounced "Bhe-re-ter")
- Latin: frater ("Br" to "Fr" shift)
- proto-Germanic: brothar

aspirated "Dh" or soft "deh" to hard "D"
- mead (a drink made of honey)
  - PIE: médʰu (likely pronounced "mehd-hoo")
  - Latin: mel
  - proto-Germanic: meduz

goose
aspirated "Gh" or soft-"geh" to hard "G"
- PIE: ǵʰans-
- Latin: anser or hanser
- prot-Germanic: gans (with hard "G" sound)