In our first lesson, we learned that many words are the same in German and in English. This should not be so surprising, as both languages are members of the Indo-European family, and, in particular, of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. Not too long ago, we saw that the Anglo-Saxons brought their genes and language from the European continent into England. The English might say, "I am hungry, thirsty, weary, cold, and naked; give me food, drink, a bed, fire, and clothing." If they do, they would be speaking pure Anglo-Saxon.
The words that seem to be essentially the same in both languages, such as we had in the last note, are called cognates (as in recognition). There would be many more, except that many of the pairs have been obscured by the "sound shift". This was studied by Jacob Grimm (he who collected the fairy tales), who found a pattern applies. If you do not wish to remember the pattern by the name Lautverschiebung , you can say "Grimm's Law". The effect of this sound shift is to produce High German and Low German. The latter has the Anglo-Saxon sounds that were carried to England. This sound shift, and the accompanying spelling, disguise the closeness of many German and English words.
To show some of these pairs, we will use the shift between "t" in English and the letters "s", "ss", "z", and "tz", in High German. The following table gives the High German word and the equivalent English word:
| High German | English |
| das | that |
| Wasser | water |
| Fuss | foot |
| heiss | hot |
| zwei | two |
| setzen | set |
| Hass | hate |
| sitzen | sit |
| Herz | heart |
| zehn | ten |
| Witz | wit |
You may ask the question, "Which shifted, the High German or the Low German?" I believe the answer is that the High German shifted, e.g., in High German the "t" of "water" became "ss", leading to "Wasser". But, without saying which changed, here are some more shifts (a very incomplete set):
| High German | Low German |
| b | b (initial), thus Bett and bed |
| b | v (middle), thus haben and have |
| b | f (final), thus Kalb and calf |
Thus, we see that we do not have the nearly perfect cognates of the last lesson, but knowing the rule for the sound shifts, one can see how the words do pair up. Reading "Kalb" and knowing that the "b" of High German is equivalent to the "f" of Low German and English in the final position, we are lead easily to "calf".
(10 May 01)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.