Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law facts for kids

The main Germanic groups around AD 1. The red area shows the Ingvaeonic languages, where this sound change happened.      North Germanic      North Sea Germanic, or Ingvaeonic      Weser-Rhine Germanic, or Istvaeonic      Elbe Germanic, or Irminonic      East Germanic

The Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law is a special rule about how sounds changed in some old Germanic languages. It's also called the Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic nasal spirant law. This rule affected languages spoken near the North Sea, like Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon. It also affected Old Dutch a little bit.

This law describes a change in how certain sounds were pronounced. It's a key part of how these languages developed over time.

How Sounds Changed

This sound change happened when a vowel (like 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u') was followed by a nasal sound (like 'n' or 'm') and then a fricative sound (like 's' or 'f'). A "spirant" is just an older word for a fricative sound.

Here's what happened:

• The nasal sound (like 'n' or 'm') often disappeared.
• When the nasal sound disappeared, the vowel before it sometimes became longer. It also became a bit "nasalized," meaning some air went through the nose when saying it.
• This nasalized vowel eventually lost its nasal sound in many coastal languages.
• In some cases, a long 'a' sound (like in "father") changed to a long 'o' sound (like in "go").

For example, in Old Saxon, the nasal sound often came back later in many words. So, a word like fĩːf ('five') became fiːf. But a word like mũːθ ('mouth') became mʊnd.

A similar change happened much earlier in all Germanic languages. This earlier change also made nasal sounds disappear, making vowels longer and nasalized. But the Ingvaeonic law caused different vowel changes in some cases.

Examples of the Change

Let's look at some examples to see how this law worked. We can compare words in different old Germanic languages.

The Word "Us"

The word "us" is a good example. See how it changed in some languages:

You can see that in Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon, the 'n' sound disappeared. The 'u' sound then became longer. Languages like Gothic, Old High German, and Old Dutch kept the 'n' sound. This shows the Ingvaeonic law at work in the "Ingvaeonic" languages. It did not affect High German, East Germanic, or North Germanic languages.

Other Word Examples

Here are more words that show the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law:

• The old word for "tooth" was *tanþs.

* In English, it became tooth. * In North Frisian, it became tôs or toss. * But in German, it's Zahn, and in Dutch, it's tand. These languages kept the 'n' sound.

• The old word for "other" was *anþeraz.

* In English, it became other. * In Old Saxon, it became ōðar or āthar. * But in German and Dutch, it's ander.

• The old word for "goose" was *gans.

* In English, it became goose. * In West Frisian, it became goes or guos. * But in Dutch, it's gans, and in German, it's Gans.

• The old word for "five" was *fimf.

* In English, it became five. * In West Frisian, it became fiif. * But in German, it's fünf.

• The old word for "soft" was *samftō.

* In English, it became soft. * In West Frisian, it became sêft. * But in German, it's sanft.

How it Affected English

English words that came from Old English usually show the results of this sound change. Because of this, English has very few words that end in -nth. If a word ends in -nth today, it usually means it came into English after this sound law stopped being active.

Here are some examples:

• Month: This word comes from Old English monaþ. The 'n' and 'th' sounds were separated by a vowel, so the law didn't apply here.
• Tenth: The original Germanic word for "tenth" was affected by the law. It became Old English teogoþa or tēoþa (which is where the word tithe comes from). But later, because of the word ten, people started saying tenth again, putting the 'n' back in.
• Plinth: This word is a loanword, meaning it was borrowed from another language. It came from Greek.
• Amaranth: This word was also borrowed from Greek.

Other rare combinations like -nf- or -ns- in English words also have special reasons:

• Answer: This word originally had an extra sound in the middle in Old English (andswaru).
• Unfair: The "un-" part is a prefix that can be added to many words, so it's not affected by this old sound law.

How it Affected Dutch

Dutch is a mix of different dialects. Some Dutch dialects, especially those near the coast, show the Ingvaeonic sound change. Other dialects, like Brabantian, do not.

For example, Dutch vijf ("five") shows the change, while German fünf does not. Also, Dutch zacht ("soft") shows the change, but German sanft does not. Coastal dialects of Dutch have more examples of this change. For instance, the standard Dutch word for "mouth" is mond, but in some coastal dialects, it's mui.

How it Affected German

The Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law also affected some Central Franconian dialects of High German. This shows that the law wasn't only limited to the Ingvaeonic languages. For example, in Luxembourgish, "us" is eis, and "goose" was once Gaus.

Modern Standard German is based on eastern dialects, which were not affected by this sound change. However, Standard German has borrowed some words from Low German (which is an Ingvaeonic language) that do show the change. For example, Süden ("south") replaced an older German word, and sacht ("soft, gentle") is used alongside the native German word sanft.

Some High and Highest Alemannic German dialects also have a similar sound change. For example, in these dialects, "us" is üüs (compared to Standard German uns), and "five" is füüf (compared to Standard German fünf).

Sources

• Markey, Thomas L. Germanic dialect grouping and the position of Ingvæonic.(Inst. f. Sprachwissenschaft d. Univ. Innsbruck, 1976.) ISBN: 3-85124-529-6