Osthoff's law is an Indo-European

sound law In historical linguistics, a sound change is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic cha ...

which states that long vowels shorten when followed by a

resonant Resonance is a phenomenon that occurs when an object or system is subjected to an external force or vibration whose frequency matches a resonant frequency (or resonance frequency) of the system, defined as a frequency that generates a maximu ...

(

Proto-Indo-European language Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Eu ...

(PIE) *''m'', *''n'', *''l'', *''r'', *''y'', *''w''), followed in turn by another consonant (i.e. in a closed syllable environment). It is named after German

Indo-Europeanist Indo-European studies () is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical p ...

Hermann Osthoff Hermann Osthoff (18 April 1847 – 7 May 1909) was a German linguist. He was involved in Indo-European studies and the Neogrammarian school. He is known for formulating Osthoff's law and published widely on Indo-European word-formation and m ...

, who first formulated it.

Overview

The law operated in most of the Proto-Indo-European daughter languages, with notable exceptions being the Indo-Iranian and Tocharian branches in which the difference between long and short PIE diphthongs was clearly preserved. Compare: * PIE '' *dyēws'' "skyling, sky god" >

Vedic Sanskrit Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is the most ancient known precursor to Sanskrit, a language in the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is atteste ...

''dyā́us'', but

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

, with an ordinary diphthong. The term ''Osthoff's law'' is usually properly applied to the described phenomenon in Ancient Greek, which itself was an independent innovation from similar developments occurring in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and other Indo-European languages. However, the term is often used loosely as a cover term referring to all shortening of long diphthongs in closed syllables. Osthoff's law is, in some version, valid for Greek, Latin, and Celtic but not for Indo-Iranian and Tocharian.

Germanic

Osthoff's law also probably applied in Germanic, although there is very little evidence to support or refute that claim. Some examples might be: * "meat" > * "young" >

Balto-Slavic

The traditional school of Balto-Slavic linguistics posits compensatory lengthening of liquid diphthongs before laryngeals. Following this, long vowels become acuted, and the long vowels subsequently shorten again due to Osthoff's law, leaving an acuted liquid diphthong. For example: * PIE "birch" > PBSl. *''bḗrźas'' > > Lithuanian , Serbo-Croatian (by liquid metathesis). Some linguists, most notably

Kortlandt Kortlandt is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Adriaan Kortlandt Adriaan Kortlandt (25 January 1918, Rotterdam – 18 October 2009, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Ethology, ethologist. He has been described together with Vernon Reyno ...

and Derksen, reject the idea of compensatory lengthening before laryngeals, instead positing that the acute reflects laryngeals directly. Moreover, they reject Osthoff's law for Proto-Balto-Slavic, and reconstruct long vowels intact, but only if they are inherited from Proto-Indo-European. One particular case that may reflect an inherited long vowel is , which is reflected in all descendants without an acute. It appears in Lithuanian as , with reflecting a Balto-Slavic long vowel, as opposed to .

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