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Moreover, there wasn't just one or a few shifts: they happen all the time and there were plenty of them. Apparently a big discovery in etymology (in 19th centu
by aasasd 6y ago
Moreover, there wasn't just one or a few shifts: they happen all the time and there were plenty of them. Apparently a big discovery in etymology (in 19th century iirc, and I forget the guy's name) was that words mostly don't change pronunciation individually, but the same parts in different words change in the same way. Which allows to track those changes over time and thus backtrack how modern words should've sounded in the past.
This is why folk etymology usually misses the mark—since it focuses on single similar words that in fact often turn out to be unrelated. Also afaik spelling is irrelevant for etymology, at least until the very recent times.
- QuesnayJr 6y agoIs this Grimm's Law, by Jacob Grimm of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" fame?
- aasasd 6y agoSure sounds like it. Though I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't forget Grimm's name like that (the tales are childhood's staple where I am)—so maybe Rasmus Rask or Karl Verner was instead mentioned when I heard of the general concept being attributed at all. Which, rather weirdly, was only one time in a lecture by Andrey Zaliznyak on Youtube, even though I heard of how shifts work before and after that—you'd think such an important discovery would at least more often bear the name of its author.
- ahazred8ta 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law#See_also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law#See_also There were a lot of sound shifts.
- bradrn 6y agoThe very same! He wrote a whole series of books about German — a history of German, a grammar of German, a dictionary of German, and, yes, a collection of old German stories.