High German consonant shift

The High German languages are subdivided into Upper German (green) and Central German (cyan), and are distinguished from Low German (yellow) and the Low Franconian languages. The main isoglosses – the Benrath and Speyer lines – are marked in black. This map shows the modern boundaries of the languages after 1945.

In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases. It probably began between the 3rd and 5th centuries and was almost complete before the earliest written records in Old High German were produced in the 8th century. The shift distinguishes High German from other West Germanic languages, which did not experience the shift. The degree that the shift was experienced within High German distinguishes Central from Upper German dialects, as well as dialects within both Central and Upper German.

General description

In most accounts, the High German consonant shift includes two related changes:

1. The shift of the Proto-West Germanic voiceless stop consonants /t/, /p/, and /k/ to either fricatives (/s/, /f/, /x/) or affricates (/ts/, /pf/, /kx/) depending on their position in the word (Tenuesverschiebung). No shift takes place after a fricative (/st/, /xt/, /sp/, etc. all remain unchanged);
2. the shift of the pre-Old High German voiced stop consonants /d/, /b/, and /g/ (Proto-West Germanic /ð/, /β/, and /ɣ/) to the voiceless stop consonants /t/, /p/, and /k/ (Medienverschiebung)

All High German dialects have experienced at least part of the shift of voiceless stops to fricatives/affricates. The shift of voiceless stops to fricatives/affricates has traditionally been used to distinguish different German dialects: Upper German dialects experienced the greatest degree of shift, whereas Central German dialects only experienced a partial shift (other West Germanic languages experienced no shift). Only southern dialects experience the shift of voiced to voiceless stops, with the shift of /d/ to /t/ found in Upper German and in some Central German dialects, while the shift of /b/ to /p/ and /g/ to /k/ is only found consistently in (Old) Bavarian.

Another change, the shift of /þ/ to /d/, is sometimes seen as related to the High German consonant shift; however, it also comes to encompass other continental West Germanic languages. Braune and Reiffenstein discount a connection entirely.

Modern standard German is based mostly on East Central German dialects and thus features many but not all of the shifted forms.

Overview table

The effects of the shift are most obvious for the non-specialist when comparing Modern German lexemes containing shifted consonants with their Modern English or Dutch unshifted equivalents. The following overview table is arranged according to the original Proto-Indo-European (PIE) phonemes. The pairs of words used to illustrate sound shifts are cognates; they need not be semantic equivalents.

PIE > Germanic G=Grimm's Law V=Verner's Law	High German shift
	Germanic > OHG	Modern examples	Unshifted cognates	Geographical extent	Standard German	Luxem- bourgish	Standard Dutch
G: /b/ > /p/	/p/ > /ff/	German schlafen German Schiff	English sleep English ship	Upper and Central German	Yes	Yes	No
	/p/ > /p͡f/	German Pflug German Apfel German scharf	English plough English apple English sharp	Upper German	Yes	No	No
G: /d/ > /t/	/t/ > /t͡s/ > /ss/	German essen German das German aus	English eat English that English out	Upper and Central German	Yes	Yes	No
	/t/ > /tːs/ > /t͡s/	German Zwei German Zehe	English two English toe	Upper and Central German	Yes	Yes	No
G: /ɡ/ > /k/	/k/ > /x/ or /ç/	German machen German ich	English make Dutch ik	Upper and Central German	Yes	Yes	No
	/k/ > /k͡x/	Bavarian Kchind Swiss Chäs	German Kind German Käse	Southernmost Austro-Bavarian and High Alemannic	No	No	No
G: (/bʱ/ >) [β] V: (/p/ > /ɸ/ >) [β]	[β] > /b/ > /p/	Bavarian Perg Bavarian pist German Rippe	German Berg "hill" German bist "(you) are" English rib	Parts of Bavarian/Alemannic; other Upper German only for geminates	Partial	Partial	No
G: (/dʱ/ >) [ð] V: (/t/ > /θ/ >) [ð]	[ð] > /d/ > /t/	German Tag German Mitte German Vater German gut	English day English middle Dutch vader Luxembourgish gudd	Upper German	Yes	No	No
G: (/ɡʱ/ >) [ɣ] V: (/k/ > /x/ >) [ɣ]	[ɣ] > /ɡ/ > /k/	Bavarian Kot German Brücke	German Gott, English God English bridge, Dutch brug	Parts of Bavarian/Alemannic; other Upper German only for geminates	Partial	Partial	No

Notes:

Core group

Phase 1

The first phase, which affected the whole High German area, affected the voiceless plosives /p/, /t/ and /k/ in intervocalic and word-final position. These became geminated (long) fricatives, except in word-final position, where they were shortened and merged with the existing single consonants. Geminate plosives in words like *appul "apple" or *katta "cat" were not affected, nor were plosives preceded by another consonant like in *skarp "sharp" or *hert "heart". These remained unshifted until the second phase.

• /p/ > /ff/ (> /f/ finally)
• /t/ > ⟨zz⟩ (> ⟨z⟩ finally)
• /k/ > /xx/ (> /x/ finally)

/p/ presumably went through an intermediate bilabial stage /ɸ/, although no distinction between /ɸ/ and /f/ was made in writing. It can be assumed that the two sounds merged early on.

The letter ⟨z⟩ stands for a voiceless fricative that is distinct somehow from ⟨s⟩. The exact nature of the distinction is unknown; possibly ⟨s⟩ was apical [s̺] while ⟨z⟩ was laminal [s̻] (a similar distinction exists in Basque and formerly in Old Spanish). It remained distinct from /s/ throughout Old High German and most of the Middle High German period, and was not affected by the late Old High German voicing of prevocalic /s/ to /z/.

In many West Central German dialects, the words dat, wat, et ("that, what, it") did not shift to das, was, es, even though t was shifted in other words. It is not quite clear why these exceptions occurred.

Examples:

Old English slǣpan: Old High German slāfan (English sleep /sliːp/, Dutch slapen [ˈslaːpə(n)]: German schlafen [ˈʃlaːfn̩])

OE strǣt : OHG strāzza (English street /striːt/, Dutch straat [straːt] : German Straße [ˈʃtʁaːsə])

OE rīce : OHG rīhhi (English rich /rɪtʃ/, Dutch rijk [rɛi̯k] : German Reich [ʁaɪ̯ç])

Phase 2

In the second phase, which was completed by the 8th century, the same sounds became affricates in three environments: in word-initial position; when geminated; and after a liquid (/l/ or /r/) or nasal (/m/ or /n/).

/p/ > /p͡f/ (also written ⟨ph⟩ in OHG)

/t/ > /t͡s/ (written ⟨z⟩ or ⟨tz⟩)

/k/ > /k͡x/ (written ⟨ch⟩ in OHG).

Examples:

OE æppel : OHG apful, afful (English apple, Dutch appel, Low German Appel : German Apfel)

OE scearp : OHG scarpf, scarf (English sharp, Dutch scherp, Low German scharp : German scharf)

OE catt : OHG kazza (English cat, Dutch kat, Low German Katt : German Katze)

OE tam : OHG zam (English tame, Dutch tam, Low German tamm : German zahm)

OE liccian : OHG leckōn (English lick, Dutch likken, Low German licken, German lecken : High Alemannic lekchen, (sch)lecke/(sch)läcke /ˈʃlɛkxə, ˈʃlækxə/)

OE weorc : OHG werc, werah (English work, Dutch werk, Low German Wark, German Werk : High Alemannic Werch/Wärch)

The shift did not take place where the plosive was preceded by a fricative, i.e. in the combinations /sp, st, sk, ft, ht/. /t/ also remained unshifted in the combination /tr/.

OE spearwa : OHG sparo (English sparrow, Dutch spreeuw, German Sperling)

OE mæst : OHG mast (English mast, Dutch mast, Low German Mast, German Mast(baum))

OE niht : OHG naht (English night, Dutch nacht, Low German Nacht, German Nacht)

OE trēowe : OHG (gi)triuwi (English true, Dutch (ge)trouw, Low German trü, German treu.)

Following /r/ also prevented the shift of /t/ in words which end in -ter in modern Standard German, e.g. bitter, Winter. These stems had /tr/ in OHG inflected forms (bittr-, wintr-).

For the subsequent change of /sk/ > /ʃ/, written ⟨sch⟩, see below.

These affricates (especially /p͡f/) have simplified into fricatives in some dialects. /p͡f/ was simplified to /f/ in a number of circumstances. In Yiddish and some German dialects, this occurred in initial positions, e.g., Dutch paard: German Pferd : Yiddish פֿערד ferd 'horse'. In modern standard German, the pronunciation /f/ for word-initial ⟨pf⟩ is also a very common feature of northern and central German accents (i.e. in regions where /p͡f/ does not occur in the native dialects; compare German phonology).

There was an even stronger tendency to simplify /p͡f/ after /r/ and /l/. This simplification is also reflected in modern standard German, e.g. werfen 'to throw' ← OHG werfan ← werpfan, helfen 'to help' ← OHG helfan ← helpfan. Only one standard word with /rp͡f/ remains: Karpfen 'carp' ← OHG karpfo.

• The shift of /t/ > /t͡s/ occurs throughout the High German area, and is reflected in Modern Standard German.
• The shift of /p/ > /p͡f/ occurs throughout Upper German, but there is wide variation in Central German dialects. In West Central German dialects, initial p and the clusters -pp- and -mp- are unaffected by the shift (cf. Luxembourgish Päerd ~ Standard German Pferd); in Ripuarian, the clusters rp and lp also remain unaffected, while in Moselle Franconian and Rhine Franconian, they have become rf and lf (e.g. Ripuarian Dorp ~ Moselle/Rhine Franconian Dorf). In East Central German, the clusters -pp- and -mp- remained untouched. The shift /p/ > /p͡f/ is reflected in standard German, but there are many exceptions to it, i.e. forms adopted with Central or Low German consonantism (Krüppel, Pacht, Schuppen, Tümpel etc.). Moreover, this affricate is infrequent in word-initial position: fewer than 40 word stems with pf- are used in contemporary standard German, mostly early borrowings from Latin. This rarity is partly due to the fact that word-initial *p- was virtually absent in Proto-Germanic. Note, however, that the Upper German dialects have many more such words and that they have used pf- productively, which is not the case in standard German.
• The shift of /k/ > /k͡x/ is today geographically highly restricted and seen only in the southernmost Upper German dialects. In mediaeval times, it was much more widespread (almost throughout Upper German), but was later "undone" from the north southward. Tyrolese, the Southern Austro-Bavarian dialect of Tyrol, is the only dialect in which the affricate /k͡x/ has been preserved in all positions, e.g. Cimbrian khòan [ˈk͡xoːən] 'not any' (cf. German kein). In High Alemannic, only the geminate is preserved as an affricate, whereas in the other positions, /kx/ has been simplified to /x/, e.g. High Alemannic chleubä 'to adhere, stick' (cf. German kleben). Initial /k͡x/ does occur to a certain extent in modern High Alemannic in place of any k in loanwords, e.g. [k͡xariˈb̥ik͡x] 'Caribbean' (?), and /k͡x/ occurs where ge- + [x], e.g. Gchnorz [k͡xno(ː)rt͡s] 'laborious work', from the verb chnorze.

Phase 3

The third phase, which had the most limited geographical range, saw the voiced plosives become voiceless.

b > p

d > t

g > k

Of these, only the dental shift d > t universally finds its way into standard German (though with relatively many exceptions, partly due to Low and Central German influence). The other two occur in standard German only in original geminates, e.g. Rippe, Brücke vs. Dutch rib, brug "rib, bridge". For single consonants, b > p and g > k are restricted to High Alemannic German in Switzerland, and south Bavarian dialects in Austria.

This phase has been dated as early as the 4th century, though this is debated. The first certain examples of the shift are from the Edictum Rothari (c. 643, oldest extant manuscript after 650), a Latin text of the Lombards. Lombard personal names show b > /p/, having pert, perg, prand for bert, berg, brand. According to most scholars, the pre-Old High German runic inscriptions of c. 600 show no convincing trace of the consonant shift.

This shift probably began in the 8th or 9th century, after the first and second phases ceased to be productive; otherwise the resulting voiceless plosives would have shifted further to fricatives and affricates.

In words in which an Indo-European voiceless plosive became voiced as a result of Verner's law, phase three of the High German shift returns this to its original value (*t > d > t):

PIE *meh₂tḗr

> early Proto-Germanic *māþḗr (t > /θ/ by the first Germanic consonant shift)

> late Proto-Germanic *mōđēr (/θ/ > /ð/ by Verner's law)

> West-Germanic *mōdar (/ð/ > d by West Germanic sound change)

> Old High German muotar (d > t by the second Germanic consonant shift)

Examples:

OE dōn : OHG tuon (English do, Dutch doen, Low German doon, German tun)

OE mōdor : OHG muotar (English mother, Dutch moeder, Low German Modder, Mudder, German Mutter)

OE rēad : OHG rōt (English red, Dutch rood, Low German root, German rot)

OE biddan : OHG bitten or pitten (English bid, Dutch bieden, Low German bidden, German bitten, Bavarian pitten)

The combination -nd- was shifted to -nt- only in some varieties of OHG. Written OHG normally has shifted -nt- (e.g. bintan "to bind"), but in Middle High German and modern standard German the unshifted pronunciation /nd/ prevails (cf. binden). (Although in OHG both fintan and findan "to find" are encountered, these represent earlier forms *findan and *finþan, respectively; note the corresponding alternation in Old Saxon findan and fīþan. In this case, *finþan corresponds to original Proto-Germanic *finþaną while *findan is a later, specifically West Germanic, form, created by analogy with the Verner's law alternant *fund-, as in Proto-Germanic *fundun "they found", *fundanaz "found".)

Noteworthy exceptions are modern hinter, munter and unter, for which Middle High German preferred hinder, munder, under. (As all of these three words end in -nter, the modern unvoiced pronunciation might be caused by analogy with Winter, whose -t- stems from original Germanic /t/ unshifted before /r/.) In other cases, modern -nt- is due to the later loss of a vowel (e.g. Ente from OHG enita) or borrowing (e.g. Kante from Low German).

Chronology

There is no agreement about the time period in which the High German consonantal shift took place. Its completion is usually dated to just before the earliest attestations of Old High German. The change affects geminate consonants, indicating that West Germanic gemination predated it; this is usually dated to the 5th century CE. Additionally, Latin loanwords adopted into the language prior to the 6th century display the shift, whereas those adopted from the 8th century onward do not. The relative chronology of the different changes remains poorly understood. It is usually argued to have begun with /t/, then moved to /p/, then to /k/.

Geographical distribution

Dialects and isoglosses of the Rhenish fan (Arranged from north to south: dialects in dark fields, isoglosses in light fields)
Isogloss	North	South
North Low Franconian / Low Saxon
Uerdingen line (Uerdingen)	ik	ich
South Low Franconian
Benrath line (Boundary: Low German — Central German)	maken	machen
Ripuarian Franconian (Aachen, Cologne, Bonn)
(State border NRW–RP) (Eifel-Schranke)	Dorp	Dorf
Northern Moselle Franconian (Luxembourgish, Trier)
	op	auf
Southern Moselle Franconian (Koblenz, Saarland)
Bacharach line (Bacharach) (Hunsrück-Schranke)	dat	das
Rhenish Franconian (Pfälzisch, Frankfurt)
Speyer line (Speyer) (Boundary: Central German — Upper German)	Appel	Apfel
Upper German
The Rhenish fan: 1 North Low Franconian, 2 South Low Franconian, 3 Ripuarian Franconian, 4 & 5 Moselle Franconian, 6 Rhenish Franconian

Roughly, the changes resulting from phase 1 affected Upper and Central German, as did the dental element of phase 2 (t- > z-). The other elements of phase 2 and all of phase 3 impacted only Upper German, while those changes from phase 4 affected the entire German and Dutch-speaking region (the West Germanic dialect continuum). The generally accepted boundary between Central and Low German, the maken–machen line, is sometimes called the Benrath line, as it passes through the Düsseldorf suburb of Benrath, while the main boundary between Central and Upper German, the Appel–Apfel line can be called the Speyer line, as it passes near the town of Speyer, 200 kilometers farther south.

A precise description of the geographical extent of the changes is far more complex. Not only do the individual sound shifts within a phase vary in their distribution (phase 3, for example, partly affects the whole of Upper German and partly only the southernmost dialects within Upper German), but there are even slight variations from word to word in the distribution of the same consonant shift. For example, the ik–ich line lies further north than the maken–machen line in western Germany, coincides with it in central Germany, and lies further south at its eastern end, although both demonstrate the same shift /k/ > /x/.

Rhenish fan

Main article: Rhenish fan

The subdivision of West Central German into a series of dialects, according to the differing extent of the phase 1 shifts, is particularly pronounced. It is known as the Rhenish fan (German: Rheinischer Fächer, Dutch: Rijnlandse waaier) because on the map of dialect boundaries, the lines form a fan shape. Here, no fewer than eight isoglosses run roughly West to East and partially merge into a simpler system of boundaries in East Central German. The table on the right lists the isoglosses (bold) and the main resulting dialects (italics), arranged from north to south.

Sample texts

As an example of the effects of the shift one may compare the following texts from the later Middle Ages, on the left a Middle Low German citation from the Sachsenspiegel (1220), which does not show the shift, and on the right the equivalent text from the Middle High German Deutschenspiegel (1274), which shows the shifted consonants; both are standard legal texts of the period.

Sachsenspiegel (II,45,3)	Deutschenspiegel (Landrecht 283)
De man is ok vormunde sines wives, to hant alse se eme getruwet is. Dat wif is ok des mannes notinne to hant alse se in sin bedde trit, na des mannes dode is se ledich van des mannes rechte.	Der man ist auch vormunt sînes wîbes zehant als si im getriuwet ist. Daz wîp ist auch des mannes genôzinne zehant als si an sîn bette trit nâch des mannes rechte.
First lines identical: "The man is also guardian of his wife / as soon as she is married to him. / The wife is also the man's companion / as soon as she goes to his bed". Last line of the Sachsenspiegel is "After the man's death, she is free of the man's rights"; that of the Deutschenspiegel "according to a man's rights".

Unshifted forms in modern Standard German

At least as far as the core group of changes is concerned, the High German consonant shift is an example of an exceptionless sound change and was frequently cited as such by the Neogrammarians. Modern standard German is a compromise form between East Central German and northern Upper German, mainly based on the former but with the consonant pattern of the latter. But individual words from all German dialects and varieties have found their way into the standard. When a German word contains unshifted consonants, it is often a loanword from either Low German or, less often, Central German. Either the shifted form has become obsolete, as in:

Hafen "harbor", from Low German (15th century), replacing Middle High German habe(ne);

Pacht "lease", from West Central German, replacing Middle High German pfaht;

or the two forms are retained as doublets, as in:

Wappen "coat of arms", from Low German, alongside High German Waffe "weapon";

sich kloppen "to fight", from either Low German or Central German, alongside High German klopfen "to knock".

Other examples of unshifted words from Low German include:

Hafer "oat" (vs. Swiss, Austrian Haber); Lippe "lip" (vs. Lefze "animal lip"); Pegel "water level"; Pickel "pimple"

But the majority of unshifted words in German are loaned from Latin, Romance, English or Slavic:

Paar "pair, couple" (← Medieval Latin pār), Peitsche "whip" (← Old Sorbian/Czech bič).

Other ostensible irregularities in the sound shift, which we may notice in modern Standard German, are usually clarified by checking the etymology of an individual word. Possible reasons include the following:

• Onomatopoeia (cf. German babbeln ~ English to babble, which were probably formed individually in each language);
• Later developments after the High German sound shift, especially the elimination of some unstressed vowels. For example, Dutch kerk and German Kirche ("church") seem to indicate an irregular shift -rk- > -rch- (compare regular German Mark, stark, Werk). However, Kirche stems from OHG kirihha (Greek κυριακόν kuriakón) with a vowel after /r/ (which makes the shift perfectly regular). Similarly, the shifted form Milch ("milk") was miluh or milih in OHG, but the unshifted melken ("to milk") never had a vowel after /l/.
• Certain irregular variations between voiced and unvoiced consonants, especially [d] and [t], in Middle High German (active several centuries after the shift). Thereby OHG dūsunt became modern tausend ("thousand"), as if it had been shifted twice. Contrariwise, and more often, the shift was apparently undone in some words: PG *dunstaz > OHG tunst > back again to modern Dunst ("vapor, haze"). In this latter case, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether re-voicing was a native Middle High German development or from Low German influence. (Often, both factors have collaborated to establish the voiced variant.)

See also

• Glottalic theory
• The Tuscan gorgia, a similar evolution differentiating the Tuscan dialects from Standard Italian.

Sources

• The sample texts have been copied over from Lautverschiebung on the German Wikipedia.
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• Pickl, Simon (2023). "(High) German". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.939.
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• von Polenz, Peter (2020). Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (11 ed.). de Gruyter.
• Waterman, John C. (1991) [1966]. A History of the German Language (Revised edition 1976 ed.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press Inc. (by arrangement with University of Washington Press). p. 284. ISBN 0-88133-590-8.
• Young, Christopher; Gloning, Thomas (2004). A History of German Through Texts. Routledge.
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• Fausto Cercignani, The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony, Milano, Cisalpino, 1979.
• Philippe Marcq & Thérèse Robin, Linguistique historique de l'allemand, Paris, 1997.
• Robert S. P. Beekes, Vergelijkende taalwetenschap, Utrecht, 1990.
• Schwerdt, Judith (2000). Die 2. Lautverschiebung: Wege zu ihrer Erforschung. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. ISBN 3-8253-1018-3.