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

• 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 Grimm

• 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

Unification of Germany

• 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

Grimm's law

• 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

= Indo-European languages

Indo-European Language Family Branches in Eurasia

• the shifts that Grimm tracked are derived from a common origin language, proto-Indo-European (PIE)
• 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
• see Indo-European word origins

Cognates

• "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'"

"P" to "F" sound

• "pater" (Latin) to "father" (English)
• "ped" (Greek) or "pous" (Greek) to "foot" (English)
• "pisces" (Latin") to "fish" (English)
• "pyre" (Latin) to "fire" (English)