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High German consonant shift

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Linguistics

   High German subdivides into Upper German (green) and Central German
   (blue), and is distinguished from Low German (yellow). The main
   isoglosses, the Benrath and Speyer lines, are marked in black.
   Enlarge
   High German subdivides into Upper German (green) and Central German
   (blue), and is distinguished from Low German (yellow). The main
   isoglosses, the Benrath and Speyer lines, are marked in black.

   In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or Second
   Germanic consonant shift was a phonological development ( sound change)
   which took place in the southern dialects of the West Germanic in
   several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries
   AD, and was almost complete before the earliest written records in the
   High German language were made in the 9th century. The resulting
   language, Old High German, can neatly be contrasted with the other
   continental west Germanic languages, which mostly did not experience
   the shift, and with Old English, which was completely unaffected.

General description

   The High German consonant shift altered a number of consonants in the
   Southern German dialects, and thus also in modern Standard German, and
   so explains why many German words have different consonants from the
   obviously related words in English. Briefly, there are four thrusts
   which may be thought of as four successive phases:
    1. Germanic voiceless stops became fricatives in certain phonetic
       environments (English ship maps to German Schiff);
    2. The same sounds became affricates in other positions (apple →
       Apfel);
    3. Voiced stops became voiceless (day → Tag); and
    4. /θ/ became /d/ (this → dies).

   This phenomenon is known as the "High German" consonant shift because
   it affects the High German dialects (i.e. those of the mountainous
   south), principally the Upper German dialects, though in part it also
   affects the Central German dialects. However the fourth phase also
   included Low German and Dutch. It is also known as the "second
   Germanic" consonant shift to distinguish it from the "(first) Germanic
   consonant shift" as defined by Grimm's law and the refinement of this
   known as Verner's law.

   The High German consonant shift did not occur in a single movement, but
   rather, as a series of waves over several centuries. The geographical
   extent of these waves varies. They all appear in the southernmost
   dialects, and spread northwards to differing degrees, giving the
   impression of a series of pulses of varying force emanating from what
   is now Austria and Switzerland. While some are found only in the
   southern parts of Alemannic (which includes Swiss German) or Bavarian
   (which includes Austrian), most are found throughout the Upper German
   area, and some spread on into the Central German dialects. Indeed,
   Central German is often defined as the area between the Appel/Apfel and
   the Dorp/Dorf boundaries. The shift þ→d was more successful; it spread
   all the way to the North Sea and affected Dutch as well as German.
   Most, but not all of these changes have become part of modern Standard
   German.

   Note that the geographical boundary between two varieties of a word is
   called an isogloss.

Overview table

   The effects of the shift are most obvious for the non-specialist when
   we compare Modern German lexemes containing shifted consonants with
   their Modern English or Dutch unshifted equivalents. The following
   overview table is arranged according to the original
   Proto-Indo-European phonemes. (G= Grimm's law; V= Verner's law)
   PIE→Germanic Phase High German Shift
   Germanic→OHG Examples (Modern German) Century Geographical Extent
   Standard
   German?
   G: *b→*p 1 *p→ff schlafen, Schiff
   cf. sleep, ship 4/5 Upper and Central German yes
   2 *p→pf Pflug, Apfel, Kopf,^1 scharf ^2
   cf. plough, apple, cup, sharp 6/7 Upper German yes
   G: *d→*t 1 *t→zz essen, dass, aus ^3
   cf. eat, that, out 4/5 Upper and Central German yes
   2 *t→tz Zeit "time", Katze
   cf. tide, cat 5/6 Upper German yes
   G: *g→*k 1 *k→hh machen, ich
   cf. make, Dutch ik "I" ^4 4/5 Upper and Central German yes
   2 *k→kch Bavarian: Kchind, Alemannic: Stokch
   cf. German Kind "child", Stock "stick" 7/8 Southernmost Austro-Bavarian
   and High Alemannic no
   G: *bʰ→*b
   V: *p→*b 3 *b→p Bavarian: perg, pist
   cf. German Berg "hill", bist "(you) are" 8/9 Parts of Bavarian/Alemanic
   no
   G: *dʰ→*đ→*d
   V: *t→*đ→*d 3 *d→t Tag, Vater
   cf. day, Dutch vader "father" ^5 8/9 Upper German yes
   G: *gʰ→*g
   V: *k→*g 3 *g→k Bavarian: Kot
   cf. German Gott "God" 8/9 Parts of Bavarian/Alemanic no
   G: *t→þ 4 þ→d Dorn, Distel, durch, drei, Bruder
   cf. thorn, thistle, through, three, brother 9/10 Throughout German and
   Dutch yes

   (Notes: ^1 Kopf originally meant "cup", but in Modern German means
   "head". ^2 Old High German scarph, Middle High German scharpf. ^3 Old
   High German ezzen, daz, ūz. ^4 Old English ic, "I". ^5 Old English
   fæder, "father"; English has shifted d→th in OE words ending in -der).

The four phases in detail

Phase 1

   The first phase, which may have begun in the fourth century and
   affected the whole of the High German area, saw the voiceless stops
   become geminated fricatives intervocalically, or single fricatives
   postvocalically in final position.

          p→ff or final f
          t→zz (later German ss) or final z (s)
          k→hh (later German ch)

   Note: In these OHG words, <z> stands for a voiceless fricative that is
   distinct somehow from <s>. The exact nature of the distinction is
   unknown; possibly <s> was apical while <z> was laminal.

   Examples:

          Old English slǣpan : Old High German slāfan (English sleep,
          Dutch slapen, German schlafen)
          OE strǣt : OHG strāzza (English street, Dutch straat, German
          Straße)
          OE rīce : OHG rīhhi (English rich, Dutch rijk, German reich)

   Note that the first phase did not affect geminate stops in words like
   *appul "apple" or *katta "cat", nor did it affect stops after other
   consonants, as in words like *scarp "sharp" or *hert "heart", where
   another consonant falls between the vowel and the stop. These remained
   unshifted until the second phase.

Phase 2

   The second phase, which was completed by the eighth century and
   concentrated on the Upper German area, saw the same sounds become
   affricates in initial position, when geminated, and when following a
   liquid consonant (l or r).

          p→pf (also spelled <ph> in OHG; after a liquid this later became
          f)
          t→tz (in Modern German often spelled <z> and pronounced /ts/)
          k→kch (pronounced /kx/; this step has not been completed by
          standard German).

   The Southern Austro-Bavarian dialects of Tyrol is the only dialect
   where the affricate /kx/ has developed in all positions. In High
   Alemannic, only the geminate has developed into an affricate, whereas
   in the other positions, /k/ has become /x/. However, there is initial
   /kx/ in modern High Alemannic as well, since it is used for any k in
   loanwords, for instance [kxariˈb̥ikx], and since /kx/ is a possible
   consonant cluster, for instance in Gchnorz [kxno(ː)rts] 'laborious
   work', from the verb chnorze.

   Examples:

          OE æppel : OHG aphul (English apple, Dutch appel, German Apfel)
          OE scearp : OHG scarpf (English sharp, Dutch scherp, German
          scharf, High Alemannic scharff)
          OE catt : OHG kazza (English cat, Dutch kat, German Katze, High
          Alemannic Chatz)
          OE tam : OHG zam (English tame, Dutch tam, German zahm)
          OE liccian : OHG lecchōn (English to lick, Dutch likken, German
          lecken, High Alemannic schlecke/schläcke /ʃlɛkxə, ʃlækxə/)
          OE weorc : OHG werk or werch (English work, Dutch werk, German
          Werk, High Alemannic Werch/Wärch)

   In the following combinations, however, the shift did not take place:
   sp, st, sk, ft, ht, tr.

          OE spearwa : OHG sparo (English sparrow, Dutch spreeuw, German
          Sperling)
          OE mæst : OHG mast (English mast, Dutch mast, German Mast[baum])
          OE niht : OHG naht (English night, Dutch nacht, German Nacht)
          OE trēowe : OHG [ge]triuwi (English true, Dutch (ge) trouw,
          German treu "faithful")

Phase 3

   The third phase, which had the most limited geographical range, saw the
   voiced stops become voiceless.

          b→p
          d→t
          g→k

   Of these, only the dental shift d→t finds its way into standard German.
   The others are restricted to Swiss German, and to Austrian and Bavarian
   dialects. This shift must have begun after the first and second phases
   ceased to be productive, or else the resulting voiceless stops would
   have shifted further to fricatives and affricatives. We are therefore
   thinking of the 8th or 9th century.

   It is interesting that in those words in which an Indo-European
   voiceless stop became voiced as a result of Verner's law, phase three
   of the High German shift returns this to its original value:

          PIE *māh₂ter- → Germanic *mōder → German Mutter

   Examples:

          OE dōn : OHG tuon (English do, Dutch doen, German tun)
          OE mōdor : OHG muotar (English mother, Dutch moeder, German
          Mutter)
          OE rēad : OHG rōt (English red, Dutch rood, German rot)
          OE biddan : OHG bitten or pitten (English bid, Dutch bieden,
          German bitten, Bavarian pitten)

   It is likely that pizza is an early Italian borrowing of OHG (Bavarian
   dialect) pizzo, a shifted variant of bizzo (German Bissen, "bite,
   snack").

Phase 4

   Finally, the fourth phase shifted þ→d. This differs from the other
   phases in that it affects a single consonant rather than a group of
   three in parallel. It is also distinctive in that affects Low German
   and Dutch. For this reason some authorities bracket it separately from
   the High German consonant shift, though most see it in the same
   context. This shift must have begun after the third phase ceased to be
   productive, or else the resulting d would have shifted further to t.

   This phase is precisely datable, beginning in the south in the 9th
   century and reaching Low German in the 10th, as the history of literacy
   in Old High German began before the fourth phase was completed. Thus
   early Old High German texts often show þ where classical OHG shows d. A
   particularly famous example, because of its striking semantic shift, is
   early OHG thiorna (virgin) → Modern German Dirne (whore). Further
   examples:

          early OHG thaz → classical OHG daz (English that, Dutch dat,
          German das)
          early OHG thenken → classical OHG denken (English think, Dutch
          denken, German denken)
          early OHG thegan → classical OHG degan (English thane, Dutch
          degen, German Degen, "warrior")
          early OHG thurstag → classical OHG durstac (English thirsty,
          Dutch dorstig, German durstig)
          early OHG bruather → classical OHG bruoder (English brother,
          Dutch broeder, German Bruder)
          early OHG munth → classical OHG mund (English mouth, Dutch mond,
          German Mund)
          early OHG thou → classical OHG du (English thou, German du, Old
          Dutch thu)

   In dialects affected by phase 4 but not by the dental variety of phase
   3, that is, Low German, Central German and Dutch, two Germanic phonemes
   merged: þ becomes d, but original Germanic d remains unchanged. One
   consequence of this is that there is no dental variety of Grammatischer
   Wechsel in Middle Dutch.

Chronology

   Since, apart from þ→d, the High German consonant shift took place
   before the beginning of writing of Old High German in the 9th century,
   the dating of the various phases is an uncertain business. The
   estimates quoted here are mostly taken from the dtv-Atlas zur deutschen
   Sprache (p.63). Different estimates appear elsewhere, for example
   Waterman, who asserts that the first three phases occurred fairly close
   together and were complete in Alemannic territory by 600, taking
   another two or three centuries to spread north.

   Sometimes historical constellations help us; for example, the fact that
   Attila is called Etzel in German proves that the second phase must have
   been productive after the Hunnish invasion of the 5th century. The fact
   that many Latin loan-words are shifted in German (e.g. Latin
   strata→German Straße), while others are not (e.g. Latin poena→German
   Pein) allows us to date the sound changes before or after the likely
   period of borrowing. However the most useful source of chronological
   data is German words cited in Latin texts of the late classical and
   early mediaeval period.

   Precise dating would in any case be difficult since each shift may have
   begun with one word or a group of words in the speech of one locality,
   and gradually extended by lexical diffusion to all words with the same
   phonological pattern, and then over a longer period of time spread to
   wider geographical areas.

   However, relative chronology for phases 2, 3 and 4 can easily be
   established by the observation that t→tz must precede d→t, which in
   turn must precede þ→d; otherwise words with an original þ could have
   undergone all three shifts and ended up as tz. The phenomenon that an
   early phase of a sound shift leaves a gap (in this case voiceless
   stops) which a later phase then fills by means of a chain shift is
   familiar enough; Grimm's law proceeds in a similar sequence.

   Alternative chronologies have been proposed. According to a not widely
   accepted theory by the German linguist Theo Vennemann, the consonant
   shift occured much earlier and was already completed in the early 1st
   century BC. Based on that, he subdivides the Germanic languages into
   High Germanic and Low Germanic.

Geographical distribution

   Dialects and isoglosses of the Rheinischer Fächer
   (Arranged from north to south: dialects in dark fields, isoglosses in
   light fields)
   Isogloss North South
   Low German/Low Franconian
   Uerdingen line ( Uerdingen) ik ich
   Düsseldorfer Platt (Limburgisch-Bergisch)
   Benrath line
   (Boundary: Low German - Central German) maken machen
   Ripuarian (Kölsch, Bönnsch, Öcher Platt)
   Bad Honnef line
   (State border NRW- RP) (Eifel-Schranke) Dorp Dorf
   Luxemburgisch
   Linz line ( Linz am Rhein) tussen zwischen
   Bad Hönningen line op auf
   Koblenzer Platt
   Boppard line ( Boppard) Korf Korb
   Sankt Goar line ( Sankt Goar)
   ( Hunsrück-Schranke) dat das
   Rheinfränkisch (e.g. Pfälzisch, Frankfurterisch)
   Speyer line (River Main line)
   (Boundary: Central German - Upper German) Appel Apfel
   Upper German

   Roughly, one may say that the changes resulting from phase 1 affected
   Upper and Central German, those from phase 2 and 3 only Upper German,
   and those from phase 4 the entire German and Dutch-speaking region. The
   generally-accepted boundary between Central and Low German, the
   maken-machen line, is sometimes called the Benrath line, as it passes
   through the Düsseldorf suburb of Benrath, while the main boundary
   between Central and Upper German, the Appel-Apfel line can be called
   the Speyer line, as it passes near the town of Speyer, some 200
   kilometers further south.

   However, a precise description of the geographical extent of the
   changes is far more complex. Not only do the individual sound shifts
   within a phase vary in their distribution (phase 3, for example, partly
   affects the whole of Upper German and partly only the southernmost
   dialects within Upper German), but there are even slight variations
   from word to word in the distribution of the same consonant shift. For
   example, the ik-ich line lies further north than the maken-machen line,
   although both demonstrate the same shift /k/→/x/. Furthermore, the
   exact line can move over a period of time. Since German reunification,
   a northward movement of the eastern end of the Benrath line has been
   observed.

   The subdivision of West Central German into a series of dialects
   according to the differing extent of the phase 1 shifts is particularly
   pronounced. This is known in German as the Rheinischer Fächer ("Rhenish
   fan"), because on the map of dialect boundaries the lines form a fan
   shape. Here, no fewer than eight isoglosses run roughly West to East,
   partially merging into a simpler system of boundaries in East Central
   German. The table on the right lists these isoglosses (bold) and the
   main resulting dialects (italics), arranged from north to south.

   For a map of the boundaries of a number of key sounds, see these
   external links:
   General map
   Rheinischer Fächer

East Germanic hypotheses

   Some of the consonant shifts resulting from the second and third phases
   appear also to be observable in Lombardic, the early mediaeval Germanic
   language of northern Italy, which is preserved in runic fragments of
   the late 6th and early 7th centuries. Unfortunately, the Lombardic
   records are not sufficient to allow a complete taxonomy of the
   language. It is therefore uncertain whether the language experienced
   the full shift or merely sporadic reflexes, but b→p is clearly
   attested. This may mean that the shift began in Italy, or that it
   spread southwards as well as northwards. Ernst Schwarz and others have
   suggested that the shift occurred in German as a result of contacts
   with Lombardic. If in fact there is a relationship here, the evidence
   of Lombardic would force us to conclude that the third phase must have
   begun by the late 6th century, rather earlier than most estimates, but
   this would not necessarily require that it had spread to German so
   early. However, as Lombardic was an East Germanic language and not part
   of the German language dialect continuum, it is equally possible that
   parallel shifts took place there independently.

   Similarly, Waterman shows that a change analogous to the fourth phase
   of the High German consonant shift may have taken place in Gothic (also
   East Germanic) as early as the third century AD, and suggests that it
   may have spread from Gothic to High German as a result of the
   Visigothic migrations westward (c. 375-500 AD). Like the Lombardic
   hypothesis, this is an interesting possibility but the present state of
   knowledge does not allow firm conclusions.
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