Thank you! This post got very low engagement. Maybe because I released it the same day as the FdB subscriber writing post or maybe people are just tired of this topic.
I’m currently writing a post on German translation, so this was perfectly timed for me! Thinking about the sound shifts, and the ways in which they make intuitive sense, is an interesting way to think about translation. When you try to find words in the translated language that evoke the same sounds as the original text, especially in poetry, I think you probably often end up following some of these consonant shifts without thinking about it.
The p -> f thing is interesting, because High German did it twice. You have the Grimm's law mentioned this article, followed by the Old High Germanic consonant shift
English sleep, Dutch slapen, German schlafen
English leap, Dutch lopen, German laufen (all with different meanings, but the same root)
English up, Dutch op, German auf
And then the half-way ones like Pferd (Dutch paard) and apfel.
I don’t think people are tired of this topic at all, but I do cop to reading a bunch of the linked essays in Freddie’s post before I got to yours. But that was only because I was saving the best for last!
This was fascinating, Klaus! Grimm’s law may be the explanation for why whenever I fly KLM and they make the announcements in Dutch, they sound to me like English being slightly garbled by a faulty loudspeaker. What I’m hearing as garbling is actually the consonants that haven’t shifted all the way to English.
I also like your point that spoken English is almost entirely Germanic, which makes me think of John McWhorter’s observation that while English has formal and informal written registers, formal spoken English is very rare. I wonder whether formal spoken English is more Latinate, like the written version?
I actually think it's the Dutch who changed, not us. Take these three words: what, three, and good
In Proto-Germanic, that's *hwat,*thrijiz ,*gōda
So, obviously, English has changed quite a lot from the original Proto-Germanic. Still, though, you would have heard the same "w", "th", and "g" sounds in 500 BE that you hear in English today. In modern Dutch, that "w" sits halfway between an English "w" and "v", the "th" is a "d", and the "g" is a fricative rather than a stop. English grammar and vocabulary have changed more than any other Germanic languages, but our consonant sounds (outside the bend-your-tongue backward "r") remain closer to the original ones.
I like the analogy of the rock layers in the sentences!
Thank you! This post got very low engagement. Maybe because I released it the same day as the FdB subscriber writing post or maybe people are just tired of this topic.
I’m currently writing a post on German translation, so this was perfectly timed for me! Thinking about the sound shifts, and the ways in which they make intuitive sense, is an interesting way to think about translation. When you try to find words in the translated language that evoke the same sounds as the original text, especially in poetry, I think you probably often end up following some of these consonant shifts without thinking about it.
The p -> f thing is interesting, because High German did it twice. You have the Grimm's law mentioned this article, followed by the Old High Germanic consonant shift
English sleep, Dutch slapen, German schlafen
English leap, Dutch lopen, German laufen (all with different meanings, but the same root)
English up, Dutch op, German auf
And then the half-way ones like Pferd (Dutch paard) and apfel.
I don’t think people are tired of this topic at all, but I do cop to reading a bunch of the linked essays in Freddie’s post before I got to yours. But that was only because I was saving the best for last!
This was fascinating, Klaus! Grimm’s law may be the explanation for why whenever I fly KLM and they make the announcements in Dutch, they sound to me like English being slightly garbled by a faulty loudspeaker. What I’m hearing as garbling is actually the consonants that haven’t shifted all the way to English.
I also like your point that spoken English is almost entirely Germanic, which makes me think of John McWhorter’s observation that while English has formal and informal written registers, formal spoken English is very rare. I wonder whether formal spoken English is more Latinate, like the written version?
I actually think it's the Dutch who changed, not us. Take these three words: what, three, and good
In Proto-Germanic, that's *hwat,*thrijiz ,*gōda
So, obviously, English has changed quite a lot from the original Proto-Germanic. Still, though, you would have heard the same "w", "th", and "g" sounds in 500 BE that you hear in English today. In modern Dutch, that "w" sits halfway between an English "w" and "v", the "th" is a "d", and the "g" is a fricative rather than a stop. English grammar and vocabulary have changed more than any other Germanic languages, but our consonant sounds (outside the bend-your-tongue backward "r") remain closer to the original ones.