High German consonant shift

In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases. It probably began between the third and fifth centuries and was almost complete before the earliest written records in High German were produced in the eighth century. From Proto-Germanic, the resulting language, Old High German, can be neatly contrasted with the other continental West Germanic languages, which for the most part did not experience the shift, and with Old English, which remained completely unaffected.

General description

The High German consonant shift altered a number of consonants in the southern German dialects – which includes Standard German, Yiddish, and Luxembourgish – and so explains why many German words have different consonants from the related words in English, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages. The term is sometimes used to refer to a core group of nine individual consonant modifications. Alternatively, it may encompass other phonological changes that took place in the same period.
For the core group, there are three changes, which may be thought of as three successive phases. Each phase affected three consonants, making nine modifications in total:
#The three Germanic voiceless stops became fricatives in certain phonetic environments: English ''ship'' , Dutch , Norwegian versus German ;
#The same sounds became affricates in other positions: Eng. ''apple'' , Du. , Nor. versus Ger. ; and
#The three voiced stops became voiceless: Eng. ''door'' , Du. , Nor. versus Ger. .

Since phases 1 and 2 affect the same voiceless sounds, some scholars find it more convenient to treat them together, thus making for only a two-phase process: shifts in voiceless consonants (phases 1–2 of the three-phase model) and in voiced consonants (phase 3). The two-phase model has advantages for typology, but it does not reflect chronology.

Of the other changes that sometimes are bracketed within the High German consonant shift, the most important (sometimes thought of as the fourth phase) is:
:4. (and its allophone ) became (''this'' : ). This also affects Dutch (''this'' : ), and has parallels in Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish, but not Icelandic (''this'' : / , but , respectively).

This phenomenon is known as the ''High German'' consonant shift, because the core group affects the High German languages of the mountainous south. 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 its refinement, 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 extents of these waves vary. 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. Whereas some are found only in the southern parts of Alemannic German (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 / and the / boundaries, thus between complete shift of Germanic (Upper German) and complete lack thereof (Low German). The shift > was more successful; it spread all the way to the North Sea and affected Dutch as well as German. Most of these changes have become part of modern Standard German.

The High German consonant shift is a good example of a chain shift, as was its predecessor, the first Germanic consonant shift. For example, phases 1 and 2 left the language without a phoneme, as this had shifted to or . Phase 3 filled this gap ( > ), but left a new gap at , which phase 4 then filled ( > ).

Overview table

The effects of the shift are most obvious for the non-specialist when comparing 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 (PIE) phonemes. Note that the pairs of words used to illustrate sound shifts are cognates; they need not be semantic equivalents.

Notes:

Core group

Phase 1

The first phase, which affected the whole of the High German area, affected the voiceless plosives , and in intervocalic and word-final position. These became geminated (long) fricatives, except in word-final position where they were shortened and merged with the existing single consonants. Geminate plosives in words like "apple" or "cat" were not affected, nor were plosives preceded by another consonant like in "sharp" or "heart". These remained unshifted until the second phase.

* > (> finally)
* > (> finally)
* > (> finally)

presumably went through an intermediate bilabial stage , although no distinction between and was made in writing. It can be assumed that the two sounds merged early on.

The letter stands for a voiceless fricative that is distinct somehow from . The exact nature of the distinction is unknown; possibly was apical while was laminal (a similar distinction exists in Basque and formerly in Old Spanish). It remained distinct from throughout Old High German and most of the Middle High German period, and was not affected by the late Old High German voicing of prevocalic to .

In many West Central German dialects, the words ("that, what, it") did not shift to , even though ''t'' was shifted in other words. It is not quite clear why these exceptions occurred.

Examples:
: Old English : Old High German (English ''sleep'' , Dutch : German )
: OE : OHG (English ''street'' , Dutch : German )
: OE : OHG (English ''rich'' , Dutch : German )

Phase 2

In the second phase, which was completed by the 8th century, the same sounds became affricates in three environments: in word-initial position; when geminated; and after a liquid ( or ) or nasal ( or ).
: > (also written in OHG)
: > (written or )
: > (written in OHG).

Examples:
: OE : OHG , (English ''apple'', Dutch , Low German : German )
: OE : OHG , (English ''sharp'', Dutch , Low German : German )
: OE : OHG (English ''cat'', Dutch , Low German : German )
: OE : OHG (English ''tame'', Dutch , Low German : German )
: OE : OHG (English ''lick'', Dutch , Low German , German : High Alemannic , / )
: OE : OHG , (English ''work'', Dutch , Low German , German : High Alemannic /)

The shift did not take place where the plosive was preceded by a fricative, i.e. in the combinations . also remained unshifted in the combination .
: OE : OHG (English ''sparrow'', Dutch , German )
: OE : OHG (English ''mast'', Dutch , Low German , German )
: OE : OHG (English ''night'', Dutch , Low German , German )
: OE : OHG (English ''true'', Dutch , Low German , German ; the cognates mean "trustworthy","faithful", not "correct","truthful". Although, English ''true'' can mean "faithful" as well in some instances, like in a phrase such as "he stayed true to her".)

Following also prevented the shift of in words which end in in modern Standard German, e.g. , . These stems had in OHG inflected forms (, ).

For the subsequent change of , written , see below.

These affricates (especially ) have simplified into fricatives in some dialects. was simplified to in a number of circumstances. In Yiddish and some German dialects, this occurred in initial positions, e.g., Dutch : German : Yiddish 'horse'. In modern standard German, the pronunciation for word-initial is also a very common feature of northern and central German accents (i.e. in regions where does not occur in the native dialects; compare German phonology).

There was an even stronger tendency to simplify after and . This simplification is also reflected in modern standard German, e.g. 'to throw' ← OHG ← , 'to help' ← OHG ← . Only one standard word with remains: 'carp' ← OHG .

*The shift of > occurs throughout the High German area, and is reflected in Modern Standard German.
*The shift of > occurs throughout Upper German, but there is wide variation in Central German dialects. In West Central German dialects, initial ''p'' and the clusters ''-pp-'' and ''-mp-'' are unaffected by the shift (cf. Luxembourgish ~ Standard German ); in Ripuarian, the clusters ''rp'' and ''lp'' also remain unaffected, while in Moselle Franconian and Rhine Franconian, they have become ''rf'' and ''lf'' (e.g. Ripuarian ~ Moselle/Rhine Franconian ). In East Central German, the clusters and remained untouched. The shift > is reflected in standard German, but there are many exceptions to it, i.e. forms adopted with Central or Low German consonantism (, , , etc.). Moreover, this affricate is infrequent in word-initial position: fewer than 40 word stems with are used in contemporary standard German, mostly early borrowings from Latin. This rareness is partly due to the fact that word-initial was virtually absent in Proto-Germanic. Note, however, that the Upper German dialects have many more such words and that they have used productively, which is not the case in standard German.
*The shift of > is today geographically highly restricted and seen only in the southernmost Upper German dialects. In mediaeval times, it was much more widespread (almost throughout Upper German), but was later "undone" from the north southward. Tyrolese, the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialect of Tyrol, is the only dialect in which the affricate has been preserved in all positions, e.g. Cimbrian 'not any' (cf. German ). In High Alemannic, only the geminate is preserved as an affricate, whereas in the other positions, has been simplified to , e.g. High Alemannic 'to adhere, stick' (cf. German ). Initial does occur to a certain extent in modern High Alemannic in place of any ''k'' in loanwords, e.g. 'Caribbean' (?), and occurs where + , e.g. 'laborious work', from the verb .

Phase 3

The third phase, which had the most limited geographical range, saw the voiced plosives become voiceless.
: ''b'' > ''p''
: ''d'' > ''t''
: ''g'' > ''k''
Of these, only the dental shift ''d'' > ''t'' universally finds its way into standard German (though with relatively many exceptions, partly due to Low and Central German influence). The other two occur in standard German only in original geminates, e.g. , vs. Dutch , "rib, bridge". For single consonants, ''b'' > ''p'' and ''g'' > ''k'' are restricted to High Alemannic German in Switzerland, and south Bavarian dialects in Austria.

This phase has been dated as early as the 4th century, though this is highly debated. The first certain examples of the shift are from the (, oldest extant manuscript after 650), a Latin text of the Lombards. Lombard personal names show > , having , , for , , . According to most scholars, the pre-Old High German runic inscriptions of show no convincing trace of the consonant shift.

This shift probably began in the 8th or 9th century, after the first and second phases ceased to be productive; otherwise the resulting voiceless plosives would have shifted further to fricatives and affricates.

In those words in which an Indo-European voiceless plosive became voiced as a result of Verner's law, phase three of the High German shift returns this to its original value (*t > d > t):
: PIE *'
: > early Proto-Germanic (t > /θ/ by the first Germanic consonant shift)
: > late Proto-Germanic (/θ/ > /ð/ by Verner's law)
: > West-Germanic * (/ð/ > d by West Germanic sound change)
: > Old High German (d > t by the second Germanic consonant shift)

Examples:
: OE : OHG (English ''do'', Dutch , Low German , German )
: OE : OHG (English ''mother'', Dutch , Low German , German )
: OE : OHG (English ''red'', Dutch , Low German , German )
: OE : OHG or (English ''bid'', Dutch , Low German , German , Bavarian )

The combination was shifted to only in some varieties of OHG. Written OHG normally has shifted (e.g. "to bind"), but in Middle High German and modern standard German the unshifted pronunciation prevails (cf. ). (Although in OHG both and "to find" are encountered, these represent earlier forms and , respectively; note the corresponding alternation in Old Saxon and . In this case, corresponds to original Proto-Germanic while * is a later, specifically West Germanic, form, created by analogy with the Verner's law alternant , as in Proto-Germanic "they found", "found".)

Noteworthy exceptions are modern , and , for which however Middle High German preferred , , . (As all of these three words end in , the modern unvoiced pronunciation might be caused by analogy with , whose stems from original Germanic unshifted before .) In other cases, modern is due to the later loss of a vowel (e.g. from OHG ) or borrowing (e.g. from Low German).

It is possible that ''pizza'' is an early Italian borrowing of OHG (Bavarian dialect) , a shifted variant of (German , 'bite, snack').

Other changes

Other consonant changes on the way from West Germanic to Old High German are included under the heading "High German consonant shift" by some scholars who see the term as a description of the whole context, but are excluded by others who use it to describe the neatness of the threefold chain shift. Although it might be possible to see > , > and > as a similar group of three, both the chronology and the differing phonetic conditions under which these changes occur speak against such a grouping.

> (phase 4)

What is sometimes known as the fourth phase shifted the dental fricatives to plosives. This shift occurred late enough that unshifted forms are to be found in the earliest Old High German texts, and thus it can be dated to the 9th or 10th century. This shift spread much further north than the others, eventually reaching all continental West Germanic languages (hence excluding only English). It is therefore not uniquely High German; it is nonetheless often grouped together with the other shifts, as it did spread from the same area. The shift took several centuries to spread north, appearing in Dutch only during the 12th century, and in Frisian and Low German not for another century or two after that.

In early Old High German, as in Old Dutch and Old Saxon, the voiceless and voiced dental fricatives and stood in allophonic relationship (as did , and , ), with in final position and used initially and medially. The sound then became , while became . In Old Frisian, the voiceless fricatives were only voiced medially, and remained voiceless initially except in some pronouns and determiners, much as in Old and Modern English. Thus, modern Frisian varieties have word-initially in most words, and medially.

: early OHG > classical OHG (English ''that'', Icelandic : Dutch , German , West Frisian )
: early OHG > classical OHG (English ''think'' : Dutch , German , West Frisian )
: early OHG > classical OHG (English ''thane'' : Dutch , German "warrior", West Frisian )
: early OHG > classical OHG (English ''thirsty'' : Dutch , German , West Frisian , Swedish )
: early OHG / > classical OHG (English ''brother'', Icelandic : Dutch , German , West Frisian )
: early OHG > classical OHG (English ''mouth'', Old Norse : Dutch , German )
: early OHG / > classical OHG , (English ''thou'', Icelandic : Low German , German , West Frisian )

In dialects affected by phase 4 but not by the dental variety of phase 3 (Central German, Low 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 in Middle Dutch.

A peculiar development took place in stems which had the onsets and in OHG. They were merged in MHG and subsequently shifted to in Upper German and in Central German. Modern German has in , , , , but in , , , . The stems with the Upper German development appear to have undergone the High German consonant shift several times, e.g. ("to force") < MHG < OHG < Germanic .

In 1955, Otto Höfler suggested that a change analogous to the fourth phase of the High German consonant shift may have taken place in Gothic (East Germanic) as early as the 3rd century AD, and he hypothesised that it may have spread from Gothic to High German as a result of the Visigothic migrations westward (c. 375–500 AD). This has not found wide acceptance; the modern consensus is that Höfler misinterpreted some sound substitutions of Romanic languages as Germanic, and that East Germanic shows no sign of the second consonant shift.

Most dialects of Norwegian and Swedish show a shift that is much like the one in Frisian, with > and > . This shift reached Swedish only around the 16th century or so, as the Gustav Vasa Bible of 1541 still shows the dental fricatives (spelled ). This shift may be part of the same development as in the West Germanic languages, or it may have occurred independently. Danish – geographically between West Germanic and Swedish/Norwegian areas – would have had to experienced this shift first, before it could have spread further northwards. However, Danish does not form a dialect continuum with the West Germanic languages, and the shift occurred only word-initially in it, while it retains medially. On the other hand, Danish exhibits widespread lenition phenomena, including shifts from plosives to fricatives and further to approximants word-medially, so it is conceivable that these changes counteracted the earlier hardening of the dental fricatives that had reached Danish from the south (thus initially > , followed by lenition > ), but only after these changes had propagated further north to the remaining Scandinavian dialects.

/β/ > /b/

West Germanic *ƀ (presumably pronounced ), which was an allophone of used in medial position, shifted to (Upper German) Old High German between two vowels, and also after . Unshifted languages retained a fricative, which became between vowels and in coda position.

:OE : OHG , (obs. English †''lief'', Dutch , Low German : German )
:OE : MHG (English ''haven'', Dutch , Low German ; for German , see below)
:OE : OHG (English ''half'', Dutch , Low German : German )
:OE : OHG , (English ''liver'', Dutch , Low German : German )
:OE : OHG (English ''self'', Dutch , Low German : German )
:OE : OHG (English ''salve'', Dutch , Low German : German )

In strong verbs such as German 'heave' and 'give', the shift contributed to eliminating the forms in German, but a full account of these verbs is complicated by the effects of ' by which and appear in alternation in different parts of the same verb in the early forms of the languages. In the case of weak verbs such as 'have' (compare Dutch ) and 'live' (Dutch ), the consonant differences have an unrelated origin, being a result of the West Germanic gemination and a subsequent process of levelling.

This shift also is only partly completed in Central German, with Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian retaining a fricative pronunciation. For example: Colognian , Luxembourgish , meaning "he lives".

>

The Proto-Germanic voiced dental fricative , which was an allophone of in certain positions, became a plosive in all positions throughout the West Germanic languages. Thus, it affected High German, Low German, Dutch, Frisian and Old English alike. It did not spread to Old Norse, which retained the original fricative. Because of its much wider spread, it must have occurred very early, during Northwest Germanic times, perhaps around the 2nd century.

English has partially reversed this shift through the change > , for example in ''father'', ''mother'', ''gather'' and ''together''. In dialects with th-stopping, either disappears and merges with or becomes a dental plosive that contrasts with the alveolar .

In phase 3 of the High German consonant shift, this was shifted to , as described above.

>

The West Germanic voiced velar fricative shifted to in Upper German dialects of Old High German in all positions. This change is believed to be early and complete by the 8th century at the latest. Since the existence of a was necessary for the south German shift > , this must at least predate phase 3 of the core High German consonant shift.

The same change occurred independently in Anglo-Frisian (c. 10th century for Old English, as suggested by changing patterns of alliteration), except when preceding or following a front vowel where it had earlier undergone Anglo-Frisian palatalisation and ended up as . Southern Dutch has retained the original , despite the fact it is spelled with , rendering it indistinguishable in writing from its counterparts in other languages. In Northern Dutch, all instances of initial have merged with the voiceless due to the lack of minimal pairs (in dialects that strongly distinguish between the two sounds, word-initial appears only in loanwords).

: Southern Dutch , Northern Dutch : German , English ''good''
: Southern Dutch , Northern Dutch : German : English ''yester''day , West Frisian

The shift is only partly complete in Central German. Most Central German dialects have fricative pronunciation for between vowels () and in coda position (). Ripuarian has word-initially, e.g. Colognian "good".

In standard German, fricative is found in coda position in unstressed ( "blessed" but feminine ). One will still very frequently hear fricative in coda position in other cases as well in standard German as pronounced by people from northern and central Germany. For example, and are often pronounced (with a short vowel as in Dutch ''dag'' , cf. Standard German ) and . Compare German phonology. This pronunciation reaches as far south as Franconia, thus into Upper German areas.

>

High German experienced the shift > in all positions, and > before another consonant in initial position (original may in fact have been apical , as OHG and MHG distinguish it from the reflex > , spelled ⟨z⟩ or ⟨ȥ⟩ and presumed to be laminal ):

: German , script
: German , flask
: German (), spin
: German (), street
: German , sleep
: German , smith
: German , snow
: German , swan

Likewise usually became :

: German , perch or bass (Dutch )
: German , cherry (Dutch )

In the cluster , this change was not reflected in spelling and the modern standard pronunciation, which is partly based on Low German accents, uses . Therefore, is in Modern Standard German, though virtually all High German dialects have in this word.

The > shift occurred in most West Germanic dialects but notably not in Dutch, which instead had > , while West Frisian retains in all positions. The two other changes did not reach any further than Limburgish (eastern dialects only) and some southern dialects of Low German:
: East Limburgish , ,
: Dutch , , (although note that Dutch is usually apical).

Terminal devoicing

Other changes include a general tendency towards terminal devoicing in German and Dutch, and to a far more limited extent in English. Thus, in German and Dutch, , and (German), (Dutch) at the end of a word are pronounced identically to , and (German), (Dutch). The in German (day) is pronounced as in English ''tack'', not as in English ''tag''. However, this change is not High German in origin but is generally thought to have originated in Frankish, as the earliest evidence for the change appears in Old Dutch texts at a time when there was still no sign of devoicing at all in Old High German or Old Saxon.

Nevertheless, the original voiced consonants are usually represented in modern German and Dutch spelling. This is because related inflected forms, such as the plural , have the voiced form, since here the plosive is not terminal. As a result of these inflected forms, native speakers remain aware of the underlying voiced phoneme, and spell accordingly. However, in Middle High German, these sounds were spelled differently: singular , plural .

Chronology

Since the High German consonant shift took place before the beginning of writing of Old High German in the 8th century, the dating of the various phases is an uncertain business. The estimates quoted here are mostly taken from the (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 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 > German ), while others are not (e.g., Latin > German ) 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 medieval 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 can easily be established by the observation that, for example, ''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''. By contrast, as the form for "give" is attested in Old Bavarian, showing both > > and > > , it follows that > and > must predate phase 3.

Alternative chronologies have been proposed. According to a theory by the controversial German linguist Theo Vennemann, the consonant shift occurred much earlier and was already completed in the early 1st century BC. On this basis, he subdivides the Germanic languages into High Germanic and Low Germanic. Few other linguists share this view.

Geographical distribution

Roughly, the changes resulting from phase 1 affected Upper and Central German, as did the dental element of phase 2 (''t-'' > ''z-''). The other elements of phase 2 and all of phase 3 impacted only Upper German, while those changes from phase 4 affected the entire German and Dutch-speaking region (the West Germanic dialect continuum). The generally accepted boundary between Central and Low German, the – 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 – 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 – line lies further north than the – line in western Germany, coincides with it in central Germany, and lies further south at its eastern end, although both demonstrate the same shift /k/ > /x/.

Rhenish fan

The subdivision of West Central German into a series of dialects, according to the differing extent of the phase 1 shifts, is particularly pronounced. It is known as the Rhenish fan (german: Rheinischer Fächer, links=no, nl, Rijnlandse waaier, links=no) because on the map of dialect boundaries, the lines form a fan shape.Rheinischer Fächer – Karte des Landschaftsverband Rheinland
Here, no fewer than eight isoglosses run roughly West to East and partially merge into a simpler system of boundaries in East Central German. The table on the right lists the isoglosses (bold) and the main resulting dialects (italics), arranged from north to south.

Lombardic

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 Italy, which is preserved in runic fragments of the late 6th and early 7th centuries. However, 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.

If, as some scholars believe, Lombardic was an East Germanic language and not part of the German language dialect continuum, it is possible that parallel shifts took place independently in German and Lombardic. However, extant words in Lombardic show clear relations to the Bavarian language. Therefore, Werner Betz and others prefer to treat Lombardic as an Old High German variety. There were close connections between Lombards and Proto-Bavarians. For example, the Lombards settled in Tullner Feld — about west of Vienna — until 568, but it is evident that not all Lombards went to Italy after that time; the rest seem to have become part of the then newly formed Bavarian groups.

According to Jonas of Bobbio (before 650) in Lombardy, when Columbanus came to the Alemanni at Lake Constance shortly after 600, he made ("barrels", English ''cup'', German ) burst. This shows that in the time of Columban the shift from ''p'' to ''f'' had occurred neither in Alemannic nor in Lombardic. But the (643; surviving manuscript after 650) attests the forms ('throwing a corpse out of the grave', German and ), ('a horse', OHG , 'throws the rider off'), and many similar shifted examples. So it is best to see the consonant shift as a common Lombardic—Bavarian—Alemannic shift between 620 and 640, when these tribes had plenty of contact.

Sample texts

As an example of the effects of the shift one may compare the following texts from the later Middle Ages, on the left a Middle Low German citation from the (1220), which does not show the shift, and on the right the equivalent text from the Middle High German ' (1274), which shows the shifted consonants; both are standard legal texts of the period.

Unshifted forms in modern Standard German

The High German consonant shift – at least as far as the core group of changes is concerned – is an example of an exceptionless sound change and was frequently cited as such by the Neogrammarians. Modern standard German is a compromise form between East Central German and northern Upper German, mainly based on the former but with the consonant pattern of the latter. However, individual words from all German dialects and varieties have found their way into the standard. When a German word contains unshifted consonants, it is often a loanword from either Low German or, less often, Central German. Either the shifted form has become obsolete, as in:

: "harbor", from Low German (15th century), replacing Middle High German ;
: "lease", from West Central German, replacing Middle High German ;

or the two forms are retained as doublets, as in:

: "coat of arms", from Low German, alongside High German "weapon";
: "to fight", from either Low German or Central German, alongside High German "to knock".

Other examples of unshifted words from Low German include:

: "oat" (vs. Swiss, Austrian ); "lip" (vs. "animal lip"); "water level"; "pimple"

However, the majority of unshifted words in German are loaned from Latin, Romance, English or Slavic:

: "pair, couple" (← Medieval Latin ), "whip" (← Old Sorbian/Czech ).

Other ostensible irregularities in the sound shift, which we may notice in modern Standard German, are usually clarified by checking the etymology of an individual word. Possible reasons include the following:

* Onomatopoeia (cf. German ~ English ''to babble'', which were probably formed individually in each language);
* Later developments ''after'' the High German sound shift, especially the elimination of some unstressed vowels. For example, Dutch and German ("church") seem to indicate an irregular shift ''-rk-'' > ''-rch-'' (compare regular German ). However, stems from OHG (Greek ) with a vowel after (which makes the shift perfectly regular). Similarly, the shifted form ("milk") was or in OHG, but the unshifted ("to milk") never had a vowel after .
* Certain irregular variations between voiced and unvoiced consonants, especially and , in Middle High German (active several centuries after the shift). Thereby OHG became modern ("thousand"), as if it had been shifted ''twice''. Contrariwise, and more often, the shift was apparently undone in some words: PG > OHG > back again to modern ("vapor, haze"). In this latter case, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether re-voicing was a native Middle High German development or from Low German influence. (Often, both factors have collaborated to establish the voiced variant.)

See also

* Glottalic theory
* Low Dietsch dialects
* The Tuscan , a similar evolution differentiating the Tuscan dialects from Standard Italian.

References

Sources

* The sample texts have been copied over from on the German Wikipedia.
* Dates of sound shifts are taken from the (p. 63).
*
* (revised Elmar Seebold), (The Etymological Dictionary of the German Language), 24th edition, 2002.
* (Middle High German Grammar), 23rd ed, Tübingen 1989, 114–22.
* , ''The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony'', Milano, Cisalpino, 1979.
* , Paris, 1997.
* Robert S. P. Beekes, , Utrecht, 1990.
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:High German Consonant Shift
Indo-European linguistics
History of the German language
Old High German
Sound laws