Lecture 1
The Purpose of Studying. The Main Peculiarities of the Germanic
Languages
1. Subject and aims of the History of English.
The English language of today reflects many centuries of development. The political and
social events that have in the course of English history so profoundly affected the English
people in their national life have generally had a recognizable effect on their language.
Among these events we can name such as: the Christianity of Britain in 597 that brought
England into contact with Latin civilization, the Scandinavian invasions that resulted in
a considerable mixture of the two races and their languages, the Norman conquest that
made English for two centuries the language of the lower classes, while the nobles used
French. In a similar way the development of England as a maritime power, the expansion
of the British Empire, the growth of commerce and industry, of science and literature,
each in its way contributed to make English what it is today. Thus, the English language
reflects in its entire development the political, social, and cultural history of the English
people.
This course covers the main events in the historical development of the English Language:
the history of its phonetic structure and spelling, the evolution of its grammatical system,
the growth of its vocabulary, and also the changing historical conditions of Englishspeaking communities relevant to language history.
The object of The History of the English Language is the English Language itself,
its phonetic, grammatical and lexical aspects.
The subject of The History of the English Language is:
 main changes in the phonetic structure and spelling of the language at
different stages of the development of the language;
 the evolution of the grammatical system;
 the growth and development of the vocabulary.
All these changes are considered against the background of the main historical
events that took place in the country.
A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English
we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level – phonetics,
grammar or lexis taking no account of the origin of present-day features or a tendency to
change. The synchronic approach can be contrasted to the diachronic. When considered
diachronically every linguistic fact is interpreted as a step in the never ending evolution
of language.
A language can be studied synchronically:
 a certain period in the history of the development of a language is taken
(fixed time boundaries) – horizontal study;
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

each level of a language is studied (phonetics, grammar, lexicon);
different functional varieties of a language are studied (different dialects
of this period).
or diachronically:
 all periods in the history of the development of a language are taken –
vertical study;
 only one level of a language is studied (phonetics or grammar or lexicon);
 only one functional variety of a language is studied (e.g. Standard
English).
These two types of studying a language are closely interconnected and create a
full picture of the development of a language.
Through learning the history of the English language the student achieves a variety of
aims: theoretical and practical. One of the aims is to provide the student with the
knowledge of linguistic history sufficient to account for the principal features of presentday English.
While studying modern English we find in its vocabulary, phonetic and grammatical
structure a number of phenomena difficult to understand. It is very difficult to read
English words as the written form of the English word is conventional rather than
phonetic.
e.g. bit-[ bit]- 3 letters, 3 sounds (we see full correspondence between Latin letters and
English sounds)
bite-[bait]- 4 letters, 3 sounds (we see no correspondence between the vowels and
their graphic representation , the final -e is not pronounced, but conventionally serves to
show that the preceding letter -i has its English alphabetic value which is [ai], not [i] as
in other languages).
knight - [nait] - 6 letters, 3 sounds (we see the letters k and gh do not stand for any sounds
but gh evidently shows that i stands for [ai]).
At the time when the Latin alphabet was introduced into Britain (7 cent.) its letters were
used on a phonetic principle and their significance was the same as in Latin, i.e. the letters
stood, roughly, for the same sounds as in Latin. Later, after the introduction of printing
in the 15th century, the written form of the word became fixed, while the sounds
continued to change. This resulted in a growing discrepancy between letter and sound and
in the modern peculiar use of Latin letters in English. Many modern spellings show how
the words were pronounced some four or five hundred years ago, e.g. in the 14th centuries
knight sounded as [knix't], root as [ro:t], tale as ['ta:lə].
Another illustration may be drawn from the vocabulary. Since English belongs to the
Germanic group of languages, it would be natural to expect that it has many words or
roots in common with German, Swedish, Danish. In English
summer,
in
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German Sommer, long-lang,etc. We also find many words in common with the
Romance languages: French, Latin, Spanish: peace (English) - pace (Latin, Italian), army
(English) - amee (French), armata (Italian). The history of English accounts for these and
other peculiarities. The history of English will say when and how these borrowings were
made.
As for grammar , the history of English will supply explanations both for the general
features of the grammatical structure and for its specific peculiarities. It will explain why
English has so few inflections; how its analytical structure arose - with an abundance of
compound forms and a fixed word order; why modal verbs take no ending -s in the 3rd
person singular; why some nouns add -en or change the root-vowel in the plural instead
of adding -s (e.g. oxen, feet) and so on and so forth.
The theoretical aim of the course is to supply the student with all necessary to consider
such problems as 1) the relationship between statics and dynamics in language; 2) the role
of linguistic and extralinguistic factors; 3) the interdependence of different processes in
language history.
The history of English is connected with other disciplines. It is connected with the
history of England, connecting the development of English with concrete historical
conditions of English people’s life. The history of English is closely connected with
theoretical grammar, phonetics and lexicology.
2. Evolution of language and scope of language history
The evolution or historical development of language is made up of diverse facts and
processes. Firstly it includes the internal or structural development of the language
system, the inner history. The description of internal linguistic history is usually presented
in accordance with the division of language into linguistic levels. The main levels are: the
phonetic and phonological levels; the morphological level, the syntactic level, and the
lexical level. So the History of the language can be subdivided into historical phonetics,
historical morphology, historical syntax and historical lexicology.
The evolution of language includes also many facts which pertain to the functioning of
language in the speech community and these functional aspects constitute the “external”
or “outer” history of the language and embrace a large number of diverse matters: the
spread of the language in geographical and social space; the differentiation of language
into functional varieties (geographical variants, dialects, standard and sub-standards);
contacts with other languages. In discussing these aspects of history we shall deal with
the concept of language space, that is the geographical and social space occupied by the
language (known as its horizontal and vertical dimensions; and also with the concept of
linguistic situation.
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Linguistic situation embraces the functional differentiation of language and the
relationships between the functional varieties. Most of these features are connected with
the history of the speech community e.g. with the structure of society, the migration of
tribes, economic and political events; the growth of culture and literature.
3. Connections
The History of the English Language is interconnected with other linguistic and
non-linguistic disciplines:
1. General Linguistics – provides us with general linguistic laws and rules
valid for and language.
2. History – historical events that take place in a country influence to a great
extent the language of this country.
3. Theoretical Phonetics – provides us with main phonetic notions and helps
to explain phonetic phenomena.
4. Theoretical Grammar – provides us with main grammatical notions and
helps to explain grammatical phenomena.
5. Lexicology - provides us with main lexicological notions and helps to
explain lexical phenomena.
6. Cultural Studies – helps to understand better the connection between the
culture and the language of the country and their mutual influence.
7. Literature – gives us examples of the languages of this or that historical
period and these works of literature serve as the material for the language
research.
4. Modern Germanic Languages.
We are going to speak about the inner and the outer history of the English language. The
outer history of the language is the events in the life (history) of the people speaking this language
affecting the language, i.e. the history of the people reflected in in their language. The inner
history of the language is the description of the changes in the language itself, its grammar,
phonetics, vocabulary or spelling.
Languages can be classified according to different principles. The historical classification
groups languages in accordance with origin from a common linguistic ancestor.
Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one
of the groups of the IE linguistic family. Most of the area of Europe and large parts of other
continents are occupied today by the IE languages, Germanic being one of their major groups.
The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:
English− in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South
African Republic, and many other former British colonies and dominions;
German− in Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein /'likt(ə)nstain/ and Switzerland;
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Netherlandish− in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) (known also as Dutch and
Flemish respectively);
Afrikaans− in the South African Republic;
Danish− in Denmark;
Swedish− in Sweden and Finland;
Norwegian −in Norway;
Icelandic− in Iceland;
Frisian− in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;
Faroese− in the Faroe Islands;
Yiddish− in different countries.
Lists of Germanic languages given in manuals and reference-books differ in some points,
for the distinction between separate languages, and also between languages and dialects varies.
Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are
often referred to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; the
linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned, for it has intermixed with Danish; Br E and
Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent languages.
It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic languages, especially on
account of English, which in many countries is one of two languages in a bilingual community,
e.g. in Canada. The estimates for English range from 250 to 300 million people who have it as
their mother tongue. The total number of people speaking Germanic languages approaches 440
million. To this rough estimate we could add an indefinite number of bilingual people in the
countries where English is used as an official language (over 50 countries).
All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development
at the early stages of history. The survey of their external history will show where and when the
Germanic languages arose and acquired their common features and also how they have developed
into modern independent tongues.
5. The earliest period of Germanic history. Proto-Germanic.
The Proto-Germanic Language (PG) is supposed to have split form the IndoEuropean Language (IE) some time between 15th and 10th c. B.C. The Ancient Germans
(the Teutons) moved further north and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and
in the region of the Elbe.
The Proto-Germanic Language has never been recorded in written form. In the
th
19 c. it was reconstructed by means of comparative linguistics.
With time the dialectal differences among the Germanic tribes grew because of
the migration and geographical expansion. The reasons for this migration and expansion
were:
 overpopulation in the areas of the original settlement;
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 poor agricultural techniques;
 scanty natural resources in the areas of the original settlement;
The earliest migration of the Germanic tribes from the region of the Elbe was to
the Scandinavian Peninsula. As a result, 2 branches of the Proto-Germanic Language
appeared:
 southern branch (those who remained in the region of the Elbe);
 northern branch (those who moved northwards, to the Scandinavian
Peninsula).
Later some of the tribes returned to the mainland and settled east of the other
Germanic tribes. As a result, the Proto-Germanic Language split into 3 branches:
 East Germanic Languages (those who returned and settled in the east);
 North Germanic Languages (those who moved northwards, to the
Scandinavian Peninsula, and stayed there);
 West Germanic Languages (those who never left the mainland).
The external history of the ancient Teutons around the beginning of our era is known from
classical writings. The first mention of Germanic tribes was made by Pitheas, a Greek historian
and geographer of the 4th century B.C., in an account of a sea voyage to the Baltic Sea. In the 1st
century B.C. in COMMENTARIES ON THE GALLIC WAR (COMMENTARII DE BELLO
GALLICO) Julius Caesar described some militant Germanic tribes, who boarded on the Celts of
Gaul in the North-East. The tribal names Germans and Teutons, at first applied to separate tribes,
were later extended to the entire group. In the 1st century A.D. Pliny the Elder, a prominent
Roman scientist and writer, in NATURAL HISTORY (NATURALIS HISTORIA) made a classified
list of Germanic tribes grouping them under six headings. A few decades later the Roman
historian Tacitus compiled a detailed description of the life and customs of the ancient Teutons
DE SITU MORIBUS ET POPULIS GERMANIAE; in this work he reproduced Pliny's
classification of the Germanic tribes.
6. Old Germanic Languages
East Germanic
The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from
Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were
the Goths. They were among the first Teutons to leave the coast of the Baltic Sea and start
on their great migrations. Around 200 A.D. they moved south-east and some time later
reached the lower basin of the Danube, where they made attacks on the Eastern Roman
Empire, Byzantium. Their western branch, the Visigotae, invaded Roman territory,
moved on to southern Gaul. The eastern Goths, Ostrogotae consolidated into a powerful
tribal alliance in the lower basin of the Dniester, were subjugated by the Huns under
Attila, traversed the Balkans and set up a kingdom in Northern Italy, with Ravenna as its
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capital. The short-lived flourishing of Ostrogothic culture in the 5th-6th century came to
an end with the fall of the kingdom.
The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4th6th century. The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian. In the 4th
century Ulfilas, a West-Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospels from Greek into
Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. Parts of Ulfilas‘ Gospels - a
manuscript of about two hundred pages, probably made in the 5th or 6th century - have
been preserved and are kept now in Sweden. It is written on red parchment with silver
and golden letters and is known as the SILVER CODEX. The SILVER CODEX is one of
the earliest texts in the languages of the Germanic group; it represents a form of language
very close to PG and therefore throws light on the pre-written stages of history of all the
languages of the Germanic group, including English.
The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written
traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in place-names, which reveal the
directions of their migrations: Bornholm and Burgundy go back to the East Germanic
tribe of Burgundies; Andalusia is derived from the tribal name Vandals; Lombardy got
its name from the Langobards, who made part of the population of the Ostrogothic
kingdom in Northern Italy.
North Germanic
The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise
to the North Germanic subgroup of languages.
The North Germanic tribes settled on the southern coast of Scandinavia and in
Northern Denmark (since the 4th c. A.D.). They lived relatively isolated and showed little
dialectal variation at that time.
There existed one common language – Old Norse/Old Scandinavian. It had the
following characteristics:
 It used the original Germanic Alphabet called the Runes/the Runic
Alphabet. It appeared in the 3rd – 4th c. A.D. It has come down to us in
runic inscriptions – separate words written/carved on objects made of
wood, stone, metal.
 It was spoken by all North Germanic tribes.
In the 9th – 10th c. A.D. the Scandinavians started their voyages to America and
islands in the Atlantic Ocean (Leif Ericson, a Scandinavia raider, was the first to land on
the American Continent). In addition to this overpopulation in the fjord areas caused the
migration of the people to inner Scandinavia. This provoked the beginning of the
linguistic differentiation. In Scandinavia the linguistic division corresponded to the
political division: there were 3 kingdoms (Sweden, Denmark and Norway) that were
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constantly fighting for dominance and they had 3 respective languages (earliest records
in these languages date back to the 13th c.):
 Old Danish – later it developed into Danish (now the national language
of Denmark);
 Old Swedish - later it developed into Swedish (now the national language
of Sweden and a part of Finland);
 Old Norwegian – was the last to develop, later transformed into
Norwegian (now the national language of Norway).
In the 8th c. A.D. sea-rovers and merchants founded numerous colonies on the
islands in the North Sea and in the Atlantic Ocean (the Shetland Islands, the Orkneys, the
Faroe Islands) and reached even Iceland and Greenland. Thus two more North Germanic
languages appeared:
 Faroese (In the Faroe Islands the writing was done in Danish for centuries.
The first written records in Faroese appeared only in the 18th c.);
 Icelandic (9th c. A.D.)
The Icelandic Language was THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL NORTH
GERMANIC LANGUAGES because:
1. The isolation of Iceland caused the preservation of archaic vocabulary
and grammatical system.
2. The preservation of archaic vocabulary and grammatical system makes
this language very close to Old Norse and helps to reconstruct this ancient
common Germanic language.
3. Icelandic has the largest body of written texts (12th – 13th c.), e.g.:
– “The Elder Edda” (12th c.) – a collection of heroic songs;
– “The Younger Edda” (13th c.) – a text-book forpoets;
– Old Icelandic Sagas.
West Germanic
The West Germanic tribes lived between the Oder and the Elbe and they never
left the mainland. The dialectal differentiation of West Germanic was probably quite
distinct even at the beginning of our era. On the eve of their great migrations of the 4th
and 5th c. the West Germans included several tribes. They were:
 the Franconians (Low, Middle and High Franconians) – settled the lower
basin of the Rhine and with time began to speak the language of the
Romanised Celts, apart from Low Franconians who spoke Old Low
Franconian that later developed into  Dutch; The modern language of the
Netherlands, formerly called Dutch, and its variant in Belgium, known as the
Flemish dialect, are now treated as a single language, Netherlandish. It is spoken
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by almost 20 million people; its northern variety, used in the Netherlands has a
more standardized literary form. About three hundred years ago the Dutch
language was brought to South Africa by colonists from Southern Holland.
Their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic
language, Afrikaans. Afrikaans has incorporated elements from the speech
of English and German colonists in Africa and from the tongues of the
natives. Writing in Afrikaans began as late as the end of the 19th c. Today
Afrikaans is the mother-tongue of over four million Afrikaans and coloured
people and one of the state languages in the South African Republic
(alongside English).
 the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes and the Frisians – settled the coastal
territories of the Netherlands, Germany, the south of Denmark and the
British Isles. The languages they spoke were:
– Old English – later developed into  English (national language
– 16th c.; first
written records – 7th c.);
– Old Saxon – later developed into a territorial dialect in Germany;
- Old Frisian – later developed into  Frisian
At the later stage of the great migration period - in the 5th c. - a group of West
Germanic tribes started out on their invasion of the British Isles. The invaders came from
the lowlands near the North Sea: the Angles, part of the Saxons and Frisians, and probably
the Jutes. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English language.
The territory of English was at first confined to what is now known as England proper.
From the 13th to the 17th c. it extended to other parts of the British
Isles. In the succeeding
centuries English spread overseas to other continents. The first English written records
have come down from the 7th c., which is the earliest date in the history of writing in the
West Germanic subgroup.
The Frisians and the Saxons who did not take part in the invasion of Britain stayed on the
continent. The area of Frisians, which at one time extended over the entire coast of the North Sea,
was reduced under the pressure of other Low German tribes and the influence of their dialects,
particularly Low Franconian (later Dutch). Frisian has survived as a local dialect in Friesland (in
the Netherlands) and Ostfriesland (the Federal Republic of Germany). It has both an oral and
written form, the earliest records dating from the 13th c.
In the Early Middle Ages the continental Saxons formed a powerful tribe in the lower basin
of the Elbe. They were subjugated by the Franks and after the breakup of the Empire entered its
eastern subdivision. Together with High German tribes they took part in the eastward drive and
the colonisation of the former Slavonic territories. Old Saxon known in written form from the
records of the 9th c. has survived as one of the Low German dialects.
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
High Germans – settled the southern mountainous areas of Germany and
spoke Old High German that later developed into two distinctive
languages:
 German:
– is known for great dialectal diversity;
– first written records – 8th – 9th c.;
– 12th c. – literary form of the language appears.
 Yiddish
The High Germans included a number of tribes whose names are known since the
early Middle Ages: the Alemanians, the Swabians, the Bavarians, the Thuringians and
others.
Another offshoot of High German is Yiddish. It grew from the High German
dialects which were adopted by numerous Jewish communities scattered over Germany
in the 11th and 12th c. These dialects blended with elements of Hebrew and Slavonic and
developed into a separate West Germanic language with a spoken and literary form.
Yiddish was exported from Germany to many other countries: Russia, Poland, the Baltic
States and America.
7. Linguistic features of Germanic Languages.
All the Germanic languages of the past and present have common linguistic
features: some of these features are shared by other groups in the Indo-European family;
others are specifically Germanic. The Germanic group acquired their specific distinctive
features after the separation of the ancient Germanic tribes from other Indo- European
tribes and their further expansion and disintegration, that is during the period of the PG
parent-language. These PG features inherited by the descendant languages, represent the
common features of the Germanic group. Other common features developed later, in the
course of individual histories of separate Germanic languages, as a result of similar
tedencies arising from PG causes. On the other hand, many Germanic languages have
been transformed and even lost in later history.
Phonetic System. Word stress
The peculiar Germanic system of word accentuation is one of the most important
distinguishing features of the group; it arose in PG, was fully or partly retained in separate
languages and served as one of the major causes for many linguistic changes.
It is known that in ancient Indo-European, prior to the separation of Germanic, there existed
two ways of word accentuation: musical pitch and force stress. The position of the stress was free
and movable, which means that it could fall on any syllable of the word – a root-morpheme, an
affix or an ending – and could be shifted both in form-building and word-building.
Both these properties of the word accent were changed in Proto-Germanic. Force and
expiratory stress became the only type of stress used. In Early Proto-Germanic word stress was
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still as movable as in ancient Indo-European but in Late Proto-Germanic its position in the word
was stabilized. The stress was now fixed on the first syllable, which was usually the root of the
word and sometimes the prefix; the other syllables – suffixes and endings – were unstressed. The
stress could no longer move either in form-building or word-building.
These features of word accent were inherited by the German languages, and despite later
alterations are observed today. In Modern English there is a sharp contrast between accented and
unaccented syllables due to the force of stress. The main accent commonly falls on the rootmorpheme, and is never shifted in building grammatical forms.
The following English words illustrate its fixed position in grammatical forms and derived
words: be'come, be'coming, over'come; 'lover, 'loving, be'loved. It would be interesting to
compare these native words with words of foreign origin which move the stress in derivation,
though never in form-building: exhibit, exhibition.
The heavy fixed word stress inherited from Proto-Germanic has played an important role
in the development of Germanic languages, and especially in phonetic and morphological
changes. Due to the difference in the force of articulation the stressed and unstressed syllables
underwent widely different changes: accented syllables were pronounced with great
distinctiveness and precision, while unaccented ones became less distinct and were phonetically
weakened. Since the stress was fixed on the root, the weakening and loss of sounds mainly
affected the suffixes and grammatical endings. Many endings merged with the suffixes, were
weakend and dropped. E.g., the reconstructed PG word “fish”, with its descendants in Old
Germanic languages:
e.x. PG fiskaz – Gt (gothic) fisks – O Icel. fiskr - OE fisc – ME fish
Vowel system
Throughout history, beginning with PG, vowels displayed a strong tendency to
change. They underwent different kinds of alterations: qualitative, quantitative,
independent, dependent.
Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound, e.g. [o >
a] [p >f]. Quantitative changes make long sounds short or visa versa short sounds long [i
: > ı]. Dependent changes are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions ( a
sound changes under the influence of the neighboring sounds). Independent changes or
regular affect a certain sound in all positions.
From an early date the treatment of vowels was determined by the nature of word
stress. In accented syllables the oppositions between vowels were carefully maintained
and new distinctive features were introduced, so that the number of stressed vowels grew.
In unaccented positions the original contrasts between vowels were weakened or lost; the
distinction of short and long vowels was neutralised so that by the age of writing the long
vowels in unstressed syllables had been shortened. As for originally short vowels, they
tended to be reduced to a neutral sound, losing their qualitative distinctions and were often
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dropped in unstressed final syllables (e.x. PG fiskaz – Gt (gothic) fisks – O Icel. fiskr OE fisc – ME fish).
Strict differentiation of long and short vowels is commonly regarded as an
important characteristic of the Germanic group. Long vowels tended to become closer
and to diphthongize. Short vowels often changed into more open sounds. This tendency
can be seen in the earliest vowel changes which distinguished the PG vowel system from
its PIE source.
IE short [o] changed in Germanic into the more open vowel [a] and thus ceased to
be distinguished from the original IE [a]; in other words in PG they merged into [o]. The
merging of long vowels proceeded in the opposite direction: IE long [a:] was narrowed
to [o:] and merged with [o:].
In Germanic Languages the vowels displayed a tendency to positional assimilative
changes: the pronunciation of a vowel was modified under the influence of the following
or preceding consonants. This process affected two pairs of vowels: e and i, and o and u.
The direction of the change may be formulated in the following way:
1. Indo-European e appeared in the root of the Germanic languages as i in certain
phonetic conditions, namely before i, j in the next syllable or before the nasal n:
L ventus –→ Gt winds,OIcel. vindr (wind)
L edit → OHG izit, OE iteþ
2. Indo-European u corresponded to u in the root of Germanic languages, if it
was followed by u or nasal+consonant, in other cases Indo-European u appeared in
Germanic Languages as o:
Lith sunus → OIcel sunr, OE sunu (son)
Celt hurnan → OE horn (horn)
(In certain phonetic conditions namely before the nasal [n] and before [i] or [j] in
the next syllable the short Indo-European vowels [e], [i], [u] remained or became close
in the following syllable of the roots in Germanic Languages( i.e. appeared as [i] and
[u]):
L ventus –→ Gt winds,OIcel. vindr (wind)
L edit → OHG izit, OE iteþ
Lith sunus → OIcel sunr, OE sunu (son)
In the absence of these conditionsthe more open allophones were used: [e] and
[o]
L edere → OIcel eta, OE etan (eat)
Celt hurnan → OE horn (horn))
After the changes in Late PG, the vowel system contained the following sounds:
Short vowels: i, e, a, o, u
Long vowels: i: e: a: o: u:
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Сonsonants (Proto-Germanic consonant shift, Grimm's Law, Verner's Law).
The specific peculiarities of consonants constitute the most remarkable distinctive
feature of the Germanic linguistic group. Comparing with other languages within the IE
family reveals regular correspondences between Germanic and non-Germanic
consonants. We regularly find [f] in Germanic where other IE languages have [p]: E full
R полный; wherever Germanic has [p], cognate words in non-Germanic languages have
[b]: E pool R болото. The consonants in Germanic look shifted when compared with nonGermanic languages. The alterations of the consonants took place in PG, and the resulting
sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group. The changes of
consonants in PG were first fromulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the
early 19th century and are often called Grimm’s Law. It is also known as the 1st or ProtoGermanic consonant shift.
Jacob Grimm divided this shift into 3 parts, which he called acts. They took place
at different times.
A c t I: IE voiceless plosives are shifted to corresponding voiceless fricatives in
Germanic.
p > f L pes- Gt fōtus – OIcel. fotr – ME foot
t > θ L tres – Gt Þreis- OIcel Þrir – ME three
k > x L cor- Gt hairto – OIcel hjarta – ME heart
A c t II: IE voiced plosives are shifted to voiceless plosives in Germanic languages.
b > p Lith bala – OHG pfuol ME pool
d > t L decem – Gt taihun – OIcel tiu- ME ten
g > k L iugum – Gt juk – OIcel ok – ME yoke [jouk] иго
A c t III: Indo-European voiced aspirated plosives were reflected either as voiced
fricatives or as pure voiced plosives.
bh > v ( or b) OInd. bhrāta - Gt broÞar- OIcel broðir- ME brother
dh > ð ( or d) OIcel rudhira – Gt raūÞs – OIcel rauðr – ME red
gh > g
L hostis – Gt gasts – OIcel gestr – ME guest
Another important series of changes were discovered in 19th century by a Danish
scholar Carl Verner. They are known as Verner’s Law. These changes seemed to
contradict Grimm’s Law and were regarded as exceptions. According to Verner’s Law
all the Early PG voiceless fricatives f, θ, x, and PIE s became voiced between vowels if
the preceding vowel was unstressed; in the absence of these conditions they remained
voiceless.
PIE p > PG f>v pa’ter > Early PG fa’θar/ fa’ðar - > Late PG ‘faðar > OE fæder
> ME father
PIE k > PG x > g L so’crus- Gt swaihro- German schwager (деверь, шурин)
PIE s > PG z ( r ) L au’ris- Gt auso- OIcel eyra ME ear
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PIE t > PG θ > ð,d OInd sa’tam – Gt hund – OIcel hundrað
The causes and mechanisms of the Proto-Germanic consonant shift have been a matter of
discussion ever since the shift was discovered.
When Jacob Grimm first formulated the law of the shift he ascribed it to the allegedly
daring spirit of the Germanic tribes which manifested itself both in their great migrations and in
radical linguistic innovations. His theory has long been rejected as naïve and romantic.
Some philologists attributed the shift to the physiological peculiarities of the Teutons,
namely the shape of their glottis: it differed from that of other Indo-European tribes, and the
pronunciation of consonants was modified. Other scholars maintained that the consonant shift
was caused by a more energetic articulation of sounds brought about by the specifically Germanic
word stress. Another theory suggested that the articulation of consonants in Germanic was, on the
contrary, marked by lack of energy and tension.
The theory of “linguistic substratum” which was popular with many 20th c. linguists,
attributes the Proto-Germanic consonant changes – as well as other Germanic innovations – to
the influence of the speech habits of pre-Germanic population in the areas of Germanic settlement.
The language of those unknown tribes served as a sort of substratum (‘under-layer’) for the wouldbe Germanic tongues; it intermixed with the language of the Teutons and left certain traces in
Proto-Germanic. This hypothesis can be neither confirmed nor disproved, since we possess no
information about the language of pre-Indo-European inhabitants of Western Europe.
According to recent theories the Proto-Germanic consonant shift could be caused by the
internal requirements of the language system: the need for more precise phonemic distinction
reliable in all phonetic conditions. According to J. Kurylowicz, before the shift the opposition of
voiced and voiceless plosives was neutralized (that is, lost) in some positions, namely before the
sound [s]; therefore new distinctive features arouse in place of or in addition to sonority. [p], [t],
[k] changed into [f], [q], [x] and began to be contrasted to [b], [d], [g] not only through sonority
but also through the manner of articulation as fricatives to plosives. This change led to further
changes: since [f], [q], [x] were now opposed to [b], [d], [g] through their fricative character,
sonority became irrelevant for phonemic distinction and [b], [d], [g] were devoiced: they changed
into [p], [t], [k] respectively. That is how the initial step stimulated further changes and the entire
system was shifted. It is essential that throughout the shift the original pattern of the consonant
system was preserved: three rows of noise consonants were distinguished, though instead of
opposition through sonority consonants were opposed as fricatives to plosives.
Another explanation based on the structural approach to language interprets the role of the
language system from a different angle. Every subsystem in language tends to preserve a
balanced, symmetrical arrangement: if the balance is broken, it will soon be restored by means of
new changes. After the replacement of [p], [t], [k] by [f], [q], [x] the positions of the voiceless
[p], [t], [k] in the consonant system were left vacant; to fill the vacuums and restore the
equilibrium [b], [d], [g] were devoiced into [p], [t], [k]. In their turn the vacant positions of [b],
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[d], [g] were filled again in the succeeding set of changes, when [bh], [dh], [gh] lost their aspirated
character. This theory, showing the shift as a chain of successive steps, fails to account for the
initial push.
Peculiarities of the grammatical system.
The Old Germanic languages had a synthetic grammatical structure, which means
that the relationships between the parts of the sentence were shown by the forms of the
words rather than by their position or by auxiliary words. In later history all the Germanic
languages developed analytical forms and ways of word connection.
The grammatical forms were built in the synthetic way: by means of inflections,
sound interchanges and suppletion.
The suppletive way was inherited from ancient IE, was restricted to a few personal
pronouns, adjectives and verbs.
L
Fr R Gt OIcel OE NE
ego je я
ik
ek
ic
I
Inflections were the principal means of form-building and they corresponded to the
inflections used in non-Germanic but most of them were shorter and simpler.
The wide use of sound interchanges has always been a characteristic feature of the
Germanic group. It was inherited from IE and became very productive in Germanic.
OE
ME
German
beran
bear
gebären
bær
bore (sg)
gebar
bæron
(pl)
boren
born
geboren
bīrÞ
bears
The bulk of the verbs in PG and in the OG languages fall into two large groups
called strong and weak. Jacob Grimm proposed these terms and called the verbs strong
because they had preserved the richness of form since the age of the parent language when
weak verbs lacked such variety of form.
The strong verbs built their principal forms with the help of root vowel interchanges
plus grammatical endings. The weak verbs built the tense by inserting a special suffix
between the root and the ending.
The original structure of a noun in Germanic, as well as in other IE languages,
presents itself as follows: a noun consists of 3 elements:
1. the root
2. a stem-building suffix
3. a case inflexion
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Let us consider each of the three; the meaning of the root is clear: it is the lexical
meaning of the noun. The meaning of the case inflexion is also clear: it expresses the
relation between the thing denote by the substantive and other things or actions and also
the category of number.
The meaning of the stem-building suffix is much more difficult to define. From the
point of view of the period to which the texts of Old Germanic belong, this suffix no
longer has any meaning at all. It would appear that originally stem-building suffixes were
a means of classifying the nouns according to their meaning. What the principle of
classification was, is hard to tell, there is only one type of noun in Gothic which is characterized by a distinct semantic feature. These are nouns denoting relationship and derived
by means of the:
1. stem-forming suffix r
e.g. fadar, broÞar, swistar, etc.
For all other type it has not proved possible to discover a common feature of
meaning.
-a-, -o-, -i-, -u- are stem-building suffixes. These stems are called:
2. Vocalic stems. Declension of these nouns – strong declension
There are some other types of noun-stems in Old Germanic languages:
3. n-stems. This declension is called weak.
4. root-stems - a peculiar type. These nouns never had a stem-building suffix, so
that their stem had always coincided with their root. Later the stem-building suffix lost
its own meaning and merged with the case inflexion. As a result the stem of the noun
consisted of the root alone.
Declension of Adjectives in Old Germanic languages is complicated in a way which finds
no parallel in other IE languages. The adjectives could be declined according to the strong and
weak declension.
Weak declension forms are used when the adjective is preceded by a demonstrative
pronoun or the definite article; they are associated with the meaning of definiteness. In all other
contexts forms of the strong declension are used.
Old Germanic vocabulary.
Until recently it was believed that the Germanic languages had a large proportion of words,
which have no parallels in other groups of the IE family. Recent research however, has revealed
that Germanic has inherited and preserved many IE features in lexics as well as at other levels.
The most ancient etymological layer in the Germanic Vocabulary is made up of words (roots)
shared by most IE languages. In addition to roots the common IE element includes other
components of words; word-building affixes and grammatical inflexions.
Words, which occur in Germanic alone and have no parallels outside the group, constitute
the specific features of the Germanic languages. They appeared in PG or in later history of
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separate languages from purely Germanic roots. Semantically, they also belong to basic spheres
of life: nature, sea, home, life, etc. Like IE layer the specifically Germanic layer includes not only
roots but also affixes and word-building patterns.
Here are some examples whose roots have not been found outside the group, and some
word-building patterns which arose in Late PG.
These are instances of transition from compound words into derived words; they show the
development of new suffixes – from root morphemes – at the time when many old derivational
stem-suffixes had lost their productivity and ceased to be distinguished of the word structure. The
new suffixes made up for the loss of stem-suffixes.
In addition to native words the OG languages share some borrowings. The earliest are to
be found in most languages of the group. Probably they were made at the time when the Germanic
tribes lived closer together as a single speech community that is in late PG. It is known that the
name of the metal ironwas borrowed from the Celtic languages in late PG. Cf. Celt. isarno, Gt
eisarn, OIcel. sarn, OE isen, iren (The Teutons may have learned the processing of iron from the
Celts.)
A large number of words must have been borrowed from Latin prior to the migration of
West-Germanic tribes to Britain. These words reflect the contacts of the Germanic tribes with
Rome and the influence of the Roman civilization on their life; they mostly refer to trade and
warfare:
L. pondo, Gt. pund, OE pund, NE pound
L. prunus, OE plume, NE plum
L. strata via, OHG strâza, OE stræt, NE street.
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