John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1165

We have been discussing the sound shift between High German and English.  This shift leads to differences in pronunciation and in spelling.  In order not to swamp you in your studies, I’ll just mention a few other sound shifts.  This is not a complete set.

High German English
ch
Buch
Milch
machen 		k
book
milk
make
d
Bad
Ding
dick 		th
bath
thing
thick
f
Feuer 		f (initial)
fire
f
Helfen
offen
reif 		p (other)
help
open
ripe
t
Gott
gut
tief 		d
God
good
deep


High German English
a
alt
lang
Nase 		o
old
long
nose
a
klar
Jahr
Bart
nah 		ea
clear
year
beard
near
u
rund
jung
Suppe
Gruppe 		ou
round
young
soup
group


  1. Der Steward bringt Kaffee, Tee und eine kalte Platte mit Brot, Butter and Käse.
  2. Die Disteln auf der Heide haben sharfe Dornen.
  3. Die meisten Touristen fahren ins Ausland und schreiben Postkarten an ihre Familien.

Before we get overconfident, we should be aware that a few words have shifted their meaning.

The German "das Bein" means the leg, but the cognate, or the word suggested by the German letters, is "bone".
"die Blume" means the flower, but the cognate is "bloom".  "eitel" means vain but the suggestion in English is "idle".

Here are a few more false friends:

"die Hose" means trousers, but the cognate is "hose".
"Baum" means tree, but the cognate is "beam".

So, if the cognate of a German word does not make sense, better use the dictionary.

Here are a few German words to practice on (no translation services or dictionaries until you absolutely give up):

Katze
rot
laut
Wort
Donner
drei
Feder

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.