# Indo-European: Patterns for development of þ and ð?



## arn00b

The sounds þ and ð are relatively uncommon in Indo-European languages (compared to t or d, for example).  

They did not exist in PIE, but several languages developed them and some have lost them since.

Grimm's law and Verner's law explain the development of these phonemes in Germanic, but are there any overarching patterns that we can observe as to how these sounds emerged?  

Is there any similarity whatsoever for the development of þ and ð in say Germanic, Iranic, Albanian, Greek and Celtic languages?   I don't mean single root cause or hard and fast rule, I mean - are there any parallel developments?  Is there any overlap in terms of tendencies?  

For example, PIE *bʰudʰ-mn resulted in Albanian _bythë_ and Greek _πυθμήν_ ‎(puthmḗn) and English bottom, so in terms of overlap, there is some, especially when it comes to dʰ.

However, Albanian eth from PIE *eik, we see that *-k is least likely to produce either þ or ð in any other language.  That is unique to Albanian.

But something like *h₁rewdʰ (red) resulted in Ancient Greek ἐρεύθω, ἐρυθρός, Avestan raoiδita, Italic *ruðros, Albanian pruth, Cornish rudh, so we can say that PIE dʰ is statistically more likely to yield a dental fricative in IE languages than k.    But there's more to it than just dʰ > þ/ð. (Obviously, English red is not reð) Every language has its own rules and tendencies (such as the position of the consonant, stress, etc) but when all these rules and tendencies are mapped out, how much overlap is there between the various IE languages in the development of dental fricatives?


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## ahvalj

I don't see any non-trivial pattern.

_đ<*dʰ, þ<*t _— Germanic
_đ<*d, þ<*dʰ _— Greek
_đ<*d/t, þ<*k/*kʲ _— Spanish
_đ<*d/dʰ, þ<*kʲ/t_ — Old Persian
_đ<*d/dʰ, þ<*t _— East Iranic
_đ<*gʲ/gʲʰ, þ<*kʲ _— Albanian
_đ<*d/dʰ, þ<*t_ — Irish
_đ<*d/dʰ, þ<*tt _— Brittonic

When similar, the changes are always independent and often occurring under different circumstances (e. g. Germanic _*t>þ _always except in vicinity of _s, x, f;_ in Iranic only in consonant clusters; in Celtic only between vowels).

P. S. The Greek _þ_ in _πυθμένας_ is the regular outcome of _*dʰ _in most positions; the English _t_ in _bottom_ is the regular outcome of the cluster *_t/d/dʰ+n_ (elsewhere _*dʰ>đ>d,_ cp. Dutch _bodem_), the Albanian _bythë_ "backside, buttocks" is not related to the Greek and English words (_Orel VE · 1998 · Albanian etymological dictionary: _44).

Likewise, _þ_ in the Greek _ερυθρός_ is the regular outcome of _*dʰ,_ the Avestan _δ_ arose in Late Avesta from _d_ (which in its turn could have originated from _*d_ and _*dʰ_) between vowels, the Common Italic _*þ_ came, as in later Greek, from _*dʰ,_ but this sound may be attested only in Sicel (Greek _λίτρα,_ _Αἴτνη_ vs. Latin _lībra,_ Greek _αἴθω: _here _τ_ may substitute _þ,_ a consonant absent in Greek at the time of borrowing), elsewhere it became _f_ (Umbrian _rufru_) or _d/b_ (Latin _aedēs, lībra, rubrum_), the Insular Celtic _đ,_ as in Late Avestan, arose from _*d_ between vowels. I couldn't find the Albanian word you cite.


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## fdb

ahvalj said:


> _đ<*d, þ<*dʰ _— Greek



The realisation of Greek ϑ as IPA [ϑ] does not happen until well into the Christian era. The realisation of δ as [δ] happens about a thousand years later. These shifts are not simultaneous and thus not really comparable.


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## ahvalj

Of course, yet we have the advantage of knowing this. Imagine that Greek, like Albanian, were attested since the Middle Ages.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> Of course, yet we have the advantage of knowing this. Imagine that Greek, like Albanian, were attested since the Middle Ages.


Yet your description of the development of _þ _in Greek is misleading since it developed out of _tʰ _and not out of_ dʰ. _Where _tʰ_ in turn developed from is a different matter.


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## ahvalj

I intentionally contrasted the PIE prototypes and their outcomes in various languages. I think it is in line with the thread topic.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> I intentionally contrasted the PIE prototypes and their outcomes in various languages. I think it is in line with the thread topic.


Fair enough.

Your description of Germanic is not quite right:


ahvalj said:


> _đ<*dʰ, þ<*t _— Germanic


_*dʰ _developed into _d, _not into_ đ. _The latter developed in languages that have it as a separate phoneme (mainly English) out of _þ _of which it originally was an allophonic variant.


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## ahvalj

_Ð_ has become _d_ in all positions in the attested forms of West Germanic.


In Gothic, the letter _d_ meant [đ], at least between vowels, as can be seen by the alternation _d : þ, _where the voiceless variant arises word-finally:

_staþ_ "place" — _stadis_ "of place" (cp. _guþ_ "god" — _guþis_ "of god")
_qiþiþ_ "he says" — _qiþid-uh_ "and he says" (cp. _qaþ_ "I/he said" — _qaþ-uh_ "and I/he said")
_þaþ_ "where to" — _þadei_ "where to"

The same is found for _b _[ƀ] _: f:

af_ "off" — _ab-u_ "and off"
_hlaifs_ "bread" — _hlaibis_ "of bread"
_þiufs_ "thieve" — _þiubis_ "of thieve"
_grof_ "I/he digged" — _grobun_ "they digged" (cp. _hof_ "I/he lifted" — _hofun_ "they lifted") < _*grebʰ- : *kāp-
skof _"I/he shaved" — _skobun_ "they shaved"
(in the 6th class of the strong verbs the _o : o_ in both Sg. and Du./Pl. testifies the original root stress and hence no Vernerian alternation as in other classes where the Du./Pl. has the zero grade: _staig — stigun, baug — bugun, band — bundun_)

And _z : s:
ƕas_ "who" — _ƕazuh_ "each" (cp. _was_ "I/he was" — _was-uh_ "and I/he was" preserving the etymological _s_)
_is_ "who" — _izei_ "which"
_jus_ "you" — _juz-ei_ "you who"
_þans_ "them" — _þanzuh_ "them" (Acc. Pl.)
_riqis_ "darkness" — _riqizis_ "of darkness"
_anþaris_ "of other" — _anþariz-uh_ "and of other"

_G_ doesn't participate in this alternation, perhaps because the original Germanic _*x_ had become  in Ulfila's speech: one would expect the letter _x_ (as in _Xristus_), but for some reasons it wasn't applied for Gothic words.


_Ð_ is still partly alive in Icelandic (cp. _kallaði, kallaðir, kallaði, kölluðum, kölluðuð, kölluðu_ "I/thou/he/we/you/they called" — kalla - Wiktionary).


It is often assumed (for the sake of simplicity) that the original Germanic outcomes of that Indo-European series were _*ƀ, *đ, *ǥ_ and _*ǥʷ _(parallel to _*f, *þ, *x_ and _*xʷ_), which later tended to become stops. So far this has happened only in High German, whereas Flemish and parts of Low German still lack _g_ and preserve instead the original Common Germanic _ǥ _(when not unvoiced). This uncertainty actually explains why I decided not to provide the intermediate stages in my original reply: as I have written, we know some steps for Greek and Iranic, but many other languages are simply attested too late.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> This uncertainty actually explains why I decided not to provide the intermediate stages in my original reply


And that was the inconsistency I pointed out. In Greek you displayed the final outcome and in Germanic an uncertain intermediary step.


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## ahvalj

Since the theoretical part of #2 has caused concerns, I'll try to decipher it a bit.

Indo-European languages have two major sources of _þ_ and _đ: _

(1) lenition (weakening) of _t_ and _d_ or special variants of _t_ and _d _(Germanic, Greek, Iranic, Celtic, Italic, Romance)

(2) transformation of _ʦ_ and _ʣ _or similar sounds, which in their turn arise during assibilation of _kʲ_ and _gʲ_ or as results of various iotations (Old Persian, Albanian, Spanish).

There are cases when both ways are found in the same language, e. g. modern Spanish has acquired its _đ_ from the Latin intervocalic _d_ (_nudo_) and _t (vida), _but its _þ_ comes from the medieval Spanish _ʦ_ (_cazar, _cp. Portuguese _caçar_) and _ʣ_ (_hacer, _cp. Portuguese _fazer_). Old Persian ϑ comes from PIE *_kʲ_, _t_ (before consonants and sonorants) and _*t_ + laryngeal.

What I would like to emphasize once again is that (1) both ways are trivial, found across world languages (e. g. Biblical Hebrew had the lenition of stops between vowels similar to the one that later operated in Old Irish) and (2) the sounds _þ_ and _đ_ arose and disappeared several times in different branches (e. g. Italic had _*dʰ>*tʰ>*þ_ that later disappeared in Latin, but Latin's descendant Spanish reacquired _þ_ at least 25 centuries later from a completely different source; English lost the original Germanic _đ_ but a few centuries later reacquired this sound by voicing some of its _þ _as berndf has pointed out).


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> So far this has happened only in High German, whereas Flemish and parts of Low German still lack _g_ and preserve instead the original Common Germanic _ǥ _(when not unvoiced).


Upper German, not High German, to be precise. Middle German has [g] only word initially in Southern dialects and in Northern dialects not even there. Devoiced /g/ still is a fricative and not stop ([x] in words like "Tag" and [ç] in words like "Burg").


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## ahvalj

berndf said:


> Upper German, not High German, to be precise. Middle German has [g] only word initially in Southern dialects and in Northern dialects not even there. Devoiced /g/ still is a fricative and not stop ([x] in words like "Tag" and [ç] in words like "Burg").


And, as a sidenote, why Upper German but Old High German?


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> e. g. Biblical Hebrew had the lenition of stops between vowels similar to the one that later operated in Old Irish


That's news to me. Do you have examples?

I only know spirantization, without lenition, in *post*-Biblical Hebrew under Aramaic influence.

I also can't see a lenition process at work in the development of _þ _in Greek. The process there is spirantization of an aspirated stop, a process that sounds quite obvious but interestingly not very common.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> And, as a sidenote, why Upper German but Old High German?


Old High German contrasts with Old Saxon and refers to all dialects that have undergone at least some steps of the second Germanic sound shift.

Many text books concentrate on Upper German varieties of Old and Middle High German. This is mainly due to the fact that Upper German dominated literary and court language. To make the confusion complete, the medieval meaning of the word _Hochdeutsch_ was what is today called _Upper German (Oberdeutsch). Hochdeutsch _acquired its modern meaning in _Early Modern High German _where Middle German dialects got stronger influence on the literary and official language (Luther, _Sächsische Kanzleisprache_).


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## ahvalj

berndf said:


> That's news to me. Do you have examples?
> 
> I only know spirantization, without lenition, in *post*-Biblical Hebrew under Aramaic influence.
> 
> I also can't see a lenition process at work in the development of _þ _in Greek. The process there is spirantization of an aspirated stop, a process that sounds quite obvious but interestingly not very common.


I admit I have stepped into the alien dark waters of phonology here. Perhaps I don't understand the difference between lenition of a plain consonant and spirantization of an aspirated stop: to me both are two instances of the same process, which may be wrong.

In the Celtic studies, the entire chain of changes of intervocalic consonants (stops, spirants and sonorants) is called lenition (Old Irish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia & Brittonic languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). When we find _-tt->-þ-,_ _-t->-d-, -d->-đ- _(as in Brittonic), _-tt->-t-, _-_t->-d- _or_ -t->-d->-đ-_ or _-t->-d->-đ->-∅-_ (as in Western Romance) or _-tt->-t-, -t->-þ-, -dd->-d- _&_ -d->-đ-_ (as in Irish and Hebrew), which step should be called lenition itself?

For the later Hebrew voiceless spirants we have the Greek transcription (in what I called Biblical Hebrew) as _φ, θ, χ_ _(Σοφονίας, Νάθαν, Ζαχαρίας)_ suggesting an aspirated stage. Is this different from the proper Greek development _θ_ [tʰ]>[þ]?

If we distinguish between lenition _sensu stricto_ and spirantization of aspirated stops, my above example with Old Persian will involve all the three possible ways to acquire _þ:_

(1) from _*ʦ (<*kʲ): viϑ- _"house" vs. Sanskrit _viś-_ "dwelling place" vs. Old Church Slavonic _vьsь_ "village"
(2) through lenition of _*t _before consonants: _ϑuvām_ vs. Sanskrit _tvām_ "you" _(*tu̯>þu̯)_
(3) from _*tʰ_ (<*_t_ + laryngeal): _yaϑā_ vs. Sanskrit _yathā _"in that manner".​


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## berndf

OK, I understand what you mean. You are using the term lenition to include spirantization. That is fine. Many people do that.

I am sometimes carried away by the way the terms _lenis/fortis_ are used in German. In German, even more than in other Germanic languages, the concept of "voicing" is not always accurate the describe pairs like _d/t _or_ s/z _and we call these oppositions _lenis/fortis_ or _weich/hart _(as e.g. in _terminal devoicing=Auslautverhärtung_).


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> In the Celtic studies, the entire chain of changes of intervocalic consonants (stops, spirants and sonorants) is called lenition (Old Irish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia & Brittonic languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). When we find _-tt->-þ-,_ _-t->-d-, -d->-đ- _(as in Brittonic),



At least in Welsh grammar, the term _lenition_ tends to be reserved for the changes _t_ > _d_ and _d_ > _ð_, though it may sometimes be used more generally. The Welsh term for these changes (voicing of stops and spirantization of voiced stops) is _treiglad meddal_ "soft mutation", whereas the spirantization of original geminates is called _treiglad llaes _"aspirate mutation".

(To be exact, _treiglad_ mainly refers to alternations that are still active in the language -- _tŷ_ "house" vs. _ei *th*ŷ _"her house", etc. -- rather than the historical sound changes from which these alternations arose. Still, as far as I know _lenition_ is not the main term for *_tt_ > _θ_ in either sense.)


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## ahvalj

Concerning the scope of the term "lenition" in insular Celtic:
_
Lewis H, Pedersen H · 1989 · A concise comparative Celtic grammar:_ 127


> XVI. Lenition.
> § 217. In Celtic practically all non-syllabic sounds between two vowels and in certain other positions had a pronunciation different from that which they normally had; in those circumstances they were lenited. In initial positions, too, … they were lenited before a syllabic or nonsyllabic vowel, before IE. _p_ … or before a sonant … if the preceding word originally ended in a vowel and was in close grammatical connection with its following word.



_[Routledge language family descriptions] · 2010 · The Celtic languages: _61 [Irish]


> Lenition (‘softening’, from Lat. _lenis _‘soft’) as a historical process means the reduction in the energy employed in the articulation of obstruent sounds and in consequence their fricativization: _t_, _k_, _b_, _d_, _g _> _θ_, _x_, _β_, _ð_, ɣ. The opposition unlenited vs. lenited was at first allophonic, but became phonemic with the losses of final and medial syllables (apocope and syncope).



ibidem: 128 [Welsh]


> Phonetically, the sound changes leading to soft and aspirate mutation are lenitions, that is, weakening of articulation. These lenitions are of one of two types: either changes involving relaxation of the vocal folds (voicing) or changes involving weakening of the manner of articulation from stop to fricative (spirantization).



The authors of the above citations use "lenition" in the broader sense. The author of the following piece uses the narrower definition. 

ibidem: 436 [Breton]


> Breton is typical of Celtic languages in having initial consonantal mutations. These are originally phonetic changes. Breton officially has four of them: _lenition _(‘soft’; note the term as a nominal derivation of lenis, i.e. fortis consonants becoming lenis), the _spirant _mutation (or _spirantization _or ‘fricative’), _provection _(‘strong’ or ‘reinforcing’ or fortis), and the _mixed _mutation (part of _lenition _+ part of _provection _– _léniprovection_, as termed by various writers).


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