Sound shift

With sound shift certain systematic be sound change called phenomena, the one in the course of development language may occur.

Here are transformed according to certain rules consonants and / or vowels the regular way in other order (reflected, for example, alternation of low-German and English wa t he to high German Wa ss he , low German e t s or ea t s and English ea t too high German e ss en reflect the high German sound shift ).

history

Sound shifts can be observed in the history of many languages. They occur in batches, whereby the new condition can then remain unchanged for centuries. There is no consensus about what triggers such profound shifts in the sound system of a language.

In the history of the German language, the term “Lautverschichtung” is primarily used for two similarly positioned consonant shifts that led from Indo-European via Germanic to German , the first and the second phonetic shift .

Another important sound change, this time a vowel shift, marks the transition from Middle High German to New High German and thus also an important difference to most Low German dialects: the diphthongization of long vowels or the diphthong change.

See also

• Early New English vowel shift

literature

• Werner Besch , Anne Betten , Oskar Reichmann , Stefan Sonderegger (eds.): History of language: a handbook on the history of the German language and its research. (= Handbooks for linguistics and communication studies ; 2) Teilbd. 1st – 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-011257-4 .
• Peter von Polenz : History of the German language. 10th, completely revised edition by Norbert Richard Wolf , de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2009, ISBN 978-3-11-017507-3 .
• Harald Wiese : A journey through time to the origins of our language. How Indo-European Studies explains our words. Logos Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8325-1601-7 .

Web links

Wiktionary: sound shift  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Astrid Stedje: German language yesterday and today. Introduction to language history and linguistics. Fink, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7705-2514-0 , pp. 41, 59.