# Soundshift [b] - [v] from German to English.



## the MASTER

haben - have
Grab - grave
leben - live

What is the explanation for the soundshift * - [v] from German to English?**
(I believe that Dutch has retained the  - hebben? - have)

Interestingly, the same two sounds have merged in the Spanish language. Has the opposite phenomenon occurred?*


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## Frank06

Hi,

In short: it's the result of phenomena described by two 'sound laws' (Grimm's and Verner's) which resulted in what's called grammatischer Wechsel ("grammatical alternation"). Within the conjugation of certain verbs, there were two forms, one with -b- and one with -v-. This is still visible in Dutch, where we have 'he*bb*en', but 'zij/hij hee*f*t' (v > f due to assimilation).

But then German and English (and basically also Dutch) started to "level the paradigm", I mean, they started to take one form as the basis for al the other forms (called paradigmatic leveling): In the particular case of 'haben/have' etc., German took the forms with -b-, English the forms with -v-.
But these three languages still have relics which go back to the pre-leveling period. Gothic hardly has/had.

This wiki article explains it fairly well.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## modus.irrealis

I thought this was primarily due to a High German sound change where under certain circumstances [v] became *. That explains the correspondence for nouns like Grab~grave and adjectives like übel~evil.*


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## Kevin Beach

In my experience, certain voice impediments can cause confusion between *v* and *b*. In the ages before mass communication, I'm sure that all it ever took was a failure to correct a parent's mispronunciation for it to be mimicked by the following generations. Add to that the influence of mis-speaking rulers, such as Philip II of Spain, and an individual idiosyncrasy can become a norm.


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## the MASTER

Kevin Beach said:


> Add to that the influence of mis-speaking rulers, such as Philip II of Spain, and an individual idiosyncrasy can become a norm.


 
I thought that the Philip II story was just an old wive's tale!


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## the MASTER

Frank06 said:


> But these three languages still have relics which go back to the pre-levelling period.


 
I'd be interested to know what some of these relics are ...


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## Kevin Beach

the MASTER said:


> I thought that the Philip II story was just an old wive's tale!


It's certainly a legend. Resources suggest that the lisp has been attributed to other Castillian rulers too. Even if it is a myth, the principle is valid.


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## Sepia

Danish and also the Jutland dialects of Danish have "v" where English has. Even though the Danish spoken in Jutland now is not the direct "ancestor" of the Jutish that mixed with Anglo/Saxon and developed into OE, there still might be a connection there.


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## Frank06

Hi,


modus.irrealis said:


> I thought this was primarily due to a High German sound change where under certain circumstances [v] became *. That explains the correspondence for nouns like Grab~grave and adjectives like übel~evil.*


*
Those "certain circumstances" are explained by Verner's Law.
But, as the artcile explains:



			[o]ther consonant changes on the way from West Germanic to Old High German are included under the heading "High German consonant shift" by some scholars who see the term as a description of the whole context, but are excluded by others who use it to describe the neatness of the three-fold chain shift.
		
Click to expand...


Groetjes,

Frank*


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## modus.irrealis

Frank06 said:


> Those "certain circumstances" are explained by Verner's Law.


No -- like the article explains [v] > * in between vowels and after [l]. I'm not sure what this has to do with Verner's Law which applied to all Germanic languages and took place a long time before this sound change. Verner's Law may be the source of some of these [v] (as in evil from *upelo-) but not all (like grave from the root ghrebh-).




			But, as the artcile explains:
		
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by the quote.*


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## berndf

modus.irrealis said:


> I thought this was primarily due to a High German sound change where under certain circumstances [v] became *. That explains the correspondence for nouns like Grab~grave and adjectives like übel~evil.*


*As Frank pointed out, Dutch has hebben for to have. Low German also has hebben and ick heff. If you have the same pattern in Dutch und Low German this is in itself already suggestive evidence that it can't be due to the High German Sound Shift. BUT the High German ich habe for I have where Dutch and Low German both have /f/ can probably be attributed to the High German Sound Shift.*


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## modus.irrealis

berndf said:


> As Frank pointed out, Dutch has _hebben _for _to have. _Low German also has _hebben_ and _ick heff_. If you have the same pattern in Dutch und Low German this is in itself already suggestive evidence that it can't be due to the High German Sound Shift. BUT the High German _ich ha*b*e_ for _I have_ where Dutch and Low German both have /f/ can probably be attributed to the High German Sound Shift.


I think _have_ has to be dealt with separately from most of the v~b correspondences, most of which still seem to me to be due to a sound change in High German.

For _ich habe_, the * seems to be original, compare Old English hæbbe. I checked an Old High German grammar and the conjugation of haben has b throughout, unlike the Old English conjugation (and unlike the Modern German past), but it seems simpler to me to explain as the result of the [v] (or perhaps more correctly [β]) >  change, although analogical levelling is certainly possible.

The source of the [v] in the English form, though, doesn't seem clear. If you compare Old English habban to Modern English have, the forms that had  now have [v] (e.g. habban > have, ic hæbbe > I have, ye habbað > you have) while the forms that had [v]/[f] now have nothing corresponding to it (e.g. ðu hafast > thou hast, he hafað > he hath, ic hæfde > I had). Was there an analogical levelling to [v] throughout and then loss of [v] before consonants, or was it just a loss of [v] and an unrelated, irregular change of  > [v] in this verb?*


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## berndf

modus.irrealis said:


> I think _have_ has to be dealt with separately from most of the v~b correspondences, most of which still seem to me to be due to a sound change in High German.


Fine. Your other examples would be valid by the HG vs. LG criterion. HG _Grab_ is LG _Graff _and _leben _is LG _leven_.



> For _ich habe_, the * seems to be original, compare Old English hæbbe.*


*You are right, I withdraw the point with "Ich habe" vs. "Ick heff". I don't understand the development of the 1st singular form then.*


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## modus.irrealis

berndf said:


> You are right, I withdraw the point with "Ich habe" vs. "Ick heff". I don't understand the development of the 1st singular form then.


According to my Old English grammar the forms with _bb_ indicate the presence of a former *_j_ since in West Germanic a *_j_ caused gemination of a previous consonant (unless it was _*r_ or followed a long vowel) and in the case of the voiced fricatives, caused them to become stops.


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## berndf

modus.irrealis said:


> According to my Old English grammar the forms with _bb_ indicate the presence of a former *_j_ since in West Germanic a *_j_ caused gemination of a previous consonant (unless it was _*r_ or followed a long vowel) and in the case of the voiced fricatives, caused them to become stops.


I meant, I don't understand how it became _have_ in English and _heff_ in Low German. To take an analogy from biology: That would be co-evolution and as good Darwinians we despise theories of co-evolution.


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