Indo-European and Germanic

Indo-European

Sanskrit	Latin	Gothic	German	English
pitar-	pater	fadar	Vater	father
*	pellis	fill	Fell	fell
grha	hortus	gards	Garten	garden
dvau	duo	twai	zwei	two
dasa	decem	taihun	zehn	ten

The Indo-European Territory Today

The Centum/Satem Isogloss

Sanskrit	śatám
Avestan	satəm
Lithuanian	šim̃tas
Old Church Slavonic	sŭto
Latin	centum
Greek	hekatón
Old Irish	cēt
Middle Welsh	cant
English	hundred
Tocharian	känt

The Centum/Satem Isogloss

Indo-European Expansion

Regularity

Sanskrit	Latin	Gothic	German	English
pitar-	pater	fadar	Vater	father
*	pellis	fill	Fell	fell
grha	hortus	gards	Garten	garden
dvau	duo	twai	zwei	two
dasa	decem	taihun	zehn	ten

Germanic Developments: Grimm’s Law

aspirated voiced stops	→	voiced stops	→	voiceless stops	→	voiceless fricatives
bh	→	b	→	p	→	f
dh	→	d	→	t	→	θ
gh	→	g	→	k	→	x
		edere	→	etan
		ager	→	æcer
				piscis	→	fisc
				frater	→	brōþor
				pater	→	fæder

Germanic Developments: Verner’s Law

aspirated voiced stops	→	voiced stops	→	voiceless stops	→	voiced stops
bh	→	b	→	p	→	b
dh	→	d	→	t	→	d
gh	→	g	→	k	→	g
				s	→	r
if immediately preceded by IE word stress:				p	→	f
				t	→	θ
				k	→	x
				s	→	s
				frater	→	brōþor
				pater	→	fæder

Germanic Developments: Weak Verbs

Strong

Tense formation characterized by gradation of the stem vowel:

Ich sehe ihn / I see him / ég sé hann

Ich sah ihn / I saw him / ég sá hann

Ich habe ihn gesehen / I have seen him / (ég hef séð hann)

Weak

Tense formation characterized by a dental suffix:

Ich höre ihn / I hear him / ég heyri hann

Ich hörte ihn / I heard him / ég heyrði hann

Ich habe ihn gehört / I have heard him / ég hef heyrt hann

Germanic Developments: Weak Adjectives

Strong

Gutes Bier	First word in phrase
Gute Könige	First word in phrase

Weak

Das gute Bier	Preceded by definite article
Die guten Könige	Preceded by definite article

The Germanic Language Family

North Germanic

Postposed article:

• et universitet “a university”
• universitetet “the university”

Middle voice for reflexive/reciprocal/passive uses:

• Jag kallas Erik
• Vi ses
• Hann fannsk í kirkjunni

West Germanic

High German Consonant Shift

/p/	after vowels	→	/ff/ <ff>
/t/	after vowels	→	/ss/ <zz>
/k/	after vowels	→	/xx/ <hh/ch>
/p/	initially, after /lmnr/, or geminated	→	/pf/ <pf>
/t/	initially, after /lmnr/, or geminated	→	/ts/ <z>
/k/	initially, after /lmnr/, or geminated	→	/kx/ <ch/kh>
/d/	in some cases	→	/t/
/b/	mostly in geminates	→	/p/
/g/	mostly in geminates	→	/k/

High German Consonant Shift

PG	OS	OE	PDE	OHG	German
*apō-	apo	apa	ape	affe	Affe
*etan	etan	etan	eat	essen	essen
*makōn	makōn	macian	make	mahhōn	machen
*apala-	appul	æppel	apple	apful	Apfel
*twai	twā	twā	two	zwei	zwei
*daga-	dag	dæg	day	tacg	Tag
*rebja-	ribbi	ribb	rib	rippi/ribbi	Rippe