This document summarizes the major changes that occurred from Indo-European to Germanic languages, including changes to the verbal system, adjectives, accent, vowels, and consonants. It outlines Grimm's Law, which describes the first sound shift that was responsible for differences between Germanic and other IE languages. Specifically, it explains how IE aspirated voiced stops became fricatives then unaspirated stops in Germanic, and how IE voiceless and voiced stops shifted to new consonants in Germanic languages. Exercises are provided to apply Grimm's Law to modern English words.

1. ENG424: History of the
English Language
Dr. Mubarak Alkhatnai
Week 4
All presentations are made based on the course main reference: Algeo (2010) unless stated otherwise.

2. Major changes from IE to Germanic
1. Germanic has a large number of words that have no known
cognates in other IE languages.
2. All IE distinctions of tense and aspect were lost in the verb
save for the present and past.
– Germanic verbal system is not as complicated as that of IE.
3. Germanic developed a preterit tense form with a dental suffix
(d, t). Thus, all Germanic languages has two forms verbs:
weak: regular; strong: irregular. (Grimm’s classification)
4. All older forms of Germanic had two ways of declining their
adjectives:
– Weak declension: with “the”
– Strong declension: without “the”
• e.g. Old English pa geongan ceorlas = the young fellows geonge ceorlas = young fellows.

3. 5. IE has a “free” accentual system. Accent shifted from one
syllable to another in various forms of the word. Stress on the
first syllable in Germanic.
– First syllable is always stressed in Old English.
– Greek had stress even on the suffix
– Germanic accent is predominantly a matter of stress (loudness) rather
than pitch (tone). IE had both.
6. IE vowels underwent Germanic modification.
– IE o was retained in Latin but modified to a in Germanic
• Latin: octo = Gothic ahtau = eight
– IE ā became ō in Germanic
• Latin: māter = Old English: mōdor = mother
7. IE stops bh, dh, gh, p, t, k, b, d, and g underwent modification
in the First Sound Shift (Grimm’s Law).
• These sound appear in Germanic as b, d, g, f, θ, h, p, t, k.

4. Grimm’s Law
• Jacob Grimm (Germany 1st half of 19th
century) described the First Sound Shift to
state the difference between Germanic and
other IE languages.
• Changes over the years and in set of shifts that
completed before the next began:
1- IE aspirated voiced stops became voiced fricatives
and then unaspirated voiced stops.
• IE: bh, dh, gh became the Germanic sounds β ð ɤ and
later in initial position b, d, g. (they went under changes
in most non-Germanic languages e.g. Latin/Greek)

5. IE Latin/Greek Germanic
bh f-/ɸ b
Example bhrater frater brother
dh f-/θ d
Example dhwer foris door
gh h-/χ g
Example ghordho hortus OE geard “yard”

6. 2. IE voiceless stops p, t, k, became respectively
the voiceless fricatives f, θ, x (later h in initial
position)
IE Latin/Greek Germanic
p f
Example pəter pater father
t θ
Example treyes tres three
k h
Example krn cornu horn

7. 3. IE voiced stops b, d, g, became respectively
the voiceless stops p, t, k
IE Latin/Greek Germanic
b p
Example able apple
d t
Example dwo duo two
g k
Example genu genu knee (loss of k is modern)

8. Exercise 1
Find the modern English words that evolved from
their origin on the left:
Peter
Pur-treyes
tu
korn-kerd-

9. Exercise 2
Using Grimm’s law, explain how these words
evolved from their origins:
Words Their origin Explanation
break bhreg-door
dhwer-guest
ghosti-fish
pisk-thin
ten-what
kwod
eat ed-acre
agro-