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)
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

"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, in this case, a word related to another word
- as in, "The English word 'Father is a cognate to the Latin word 'Pater'"