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Jacob Grimm, famous for the fairy tales he collected with his brother Wilhelm, showed in 1822 that consonants in the Germanic languages, such as English and German, had changed in regular patterns. That is why Latin 'pater' matches English 'father'; the rule is known as Grimm's Law.

Deutsche Grammatik, 1822

LanguageHistory

The story behind the card

Grimm's Law describes a set of sound shifts that took place in prehistoric times, before the Germanic languages split apart. Where Latin, Greek and Sanskrit kept an older p, t or k, Germanic turned it into f, th or h: compare Latin pater, tres and cornu with English father, three and horn. The Danish scholar Rasmus Rask had noticed many of these correspondences in 1818; Grimm set them out as a system in the second edition of his Deutsche Grammatik. It showed that sound change follows rules, which became a founding idea of historical linguistics.

Türkçe oku
Kardeşi Wilhelm'le derlediği masallarla tanınan Jacob Grimm, 1822'de İngilizce ve Almanca gibi Germen dillerindeki ünsüzlerin düzenli kurallara göre değiştiğini gösterdi. Latince pater ile İngilizce father arasındaki benzerlik bundandır; bu kural Grimm Yasası diye anılır.
Deutsche Grammatik, 1822

Grimm Yasası, Germen dilleri henüz birbirinden ayrılmadan, tarih öncesi çağlarda gerçekleşen bir dizi ses değişimini anlatır. Latince, Yunanca ve Sanskritçe eski p, t ve k seslerini korurken Germen dillerinde bunlar f, th ve h'ye dönüştü: Latince pater, tres ve cornu ile İngilizce father, three ve horn bunu gösterir. Danimarkalı dilbilimci Rasmus Rask bu karşılıkların çoğunu 1818'de fark etmişti; Grimm onları Deutsche Grammatik'in ikinci baskısında bir sistem olarak ortaya koydu. Böylece ses değişiminin kurallara bağlı olduğu anlaşıldı; bu düşünce tarihsel dilbilimin temel taşlarından biri oldu.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Grimm's law
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