Sanskrit. Zend. Greek. Latin. Oscan and Umbrian. Gothic. English. Modern High German. Lithuanian. Church Slavonic. Gaulish. Old Irish. Old Welsh.
K ś (ç) ç κ c k h, g h, g h, g sz s c c, ch c
Kw } k, ch, p k, ch, p κ, π, τ qu, c, v p hv, f(p), h wh, f w, f k, p k, p p c, ch p
(K²)}
G j, sh z, sh γ g g k k, ch k, ch ż z g g g
Gw } g, j, k g, j, zh, k β, γ[189] [g]v, b b kv qu, c qu, k g g b? b, m? b, m?
(G²)}
G H h z χ h, g h g g, y g z z g g g
G Hw } [g] h g, j, zh χ, φ v, gv, g ? g, v? g, w? g, w? g g b? b b
(G H²)}
T t t τ t t th, d d, th d, t t t t t, th t
D d d δ d, l d t t z, ss, sz d d d d d
D H [d] h d θ f, d, b[190] f d d t, th d d d d d
P p p π p p f, b f, b f, b p p ... ... ...[191]
B b b? β b b p? p? pf?, f? b b b b, m b, m
B H h b φ f, b f b b b b b b b, m b, m
N G ṅ ñ γ ng ng ng ng ng ng -n ng ng ng
N n n ν n n n n n n n, -n n n n
M m m μ m m m m m m m, -n m m, b m, b
R r, l r ρ, λ r, l r, l r, l r, l r, l r, l r, l r, l r, l r, l
Y y y y, ζ, δ j j j y j j j j ... j, ddj, dd
V v v ϝ, υ, ῾ v v v w w v v v f, b gu, u
S s h, s σ, ῾ s, r s, r, z s, z s, r s, r s s, ch s s h
A a a ε ĕ e e — — e e — — —
A² â, a — ο ŏ, ĕ — — — — o, à o — — —
A³ a, i, u, î, û — α, ο a, o — a — — a a — — —
 â â ᾱ, ω ā, ō — — — — — — — — —
I i i ῑ i i i — — i i — — —
U u u ῠ u, o, i u u, au — — u u, o, ŭ — — —

Some of the changes of sound recorded in the above table are as old as the undivided Aryan speech itself. They go back to the dialects that existed in the earliest period of which our materials allow us to know. Instead of clinging, with Fick, to a genealogical tree, and deriving the Aryan languages of Europe and Asia from two parent-stems, Western and Eastern Aryan, and these again from a single Ursprache or primitive speech, it is better to follow J. Schmidt in tracing the later languages to co-existent dialects, which by the loss or absorption of intermediate dialects and the migration of the speakers became more and more distinct and divergent one from the other. It is, of course, quite possible that the speakers of the most western of these dialects moved across the Ural range into Europe in a compact body, and there settled for a while in a district westward of a line drawn from Königsberg to the Crimea, where the beech grew, and that it was from this second home of the Aryan race that the waves of European emigrants successively broke off. Certainly Professor Fick seems to have shown the common possession of certain phonetic peculiarities, such as the vowel e, by the Western as distinguished from the Eastern Aryans, and the Eastern or Indic branch of the family clearly once formed a single whole which subsequently divided into Iranian and Hindu. Unfortunately the position of Armenian and the allied dialects is still a matter of doubt; and there are scholars who would regard them as a link between the European and the Asiatic sections of the Aryan group. But Fick labours hard, and apparently with success, to prove that the Aryan dialects of Asia Minor, such as we know them from glosses and inscriptions, belonged to the European, not the Asiatic section, while Armenian, on the other side, is an Iranian tongue. Fick’s conclusion is confirmed by the evidence of the cuneiform inscriptions. Up to the eighth century B.C. Armenia was still inhabited by tribes who spoke non-Aryan languages, and it was only a century previously that the Medes had first forced their way into the country regarded by the agglutinative Accadians as the cradle of their race, but which was afterwards to be the seat of the Aryan Medes. Eastward of the Halys there was nothing Aryan until long after the occupation of Armenia by the new-comers.

We have certain proof that the series of changes which resulted in the formation of High German took place subsequently to the overthrow of the Roman Empire. Latin words for instance like (via) strata or campus, adopted by the Teutons during the era of their wars with Rome, are found in both Low and High German in the very forms which the application of Grimm’s law would require them to have were they native words. Thus strata, Low German strata, our street, becomes straza in Old High German, campus, our camp, similarly becomes kamph, kampf. The Hessians were called Catti in Roman times, and though now High Germans, had the same ancestors as the Batavi, from whom the modern Dutch draw their descent, while the Malbergian glosses show the language of the Franks to have been Low German, although the Franconians of to-day, who are descended from the same stock as the Suabians and Ripuarians, speak High German. Here, at any rate, we have an instance of a series of varieties finally resulting in a new language in historical times.

It must not be supposed that all the changes of pronunciation that serve to distinguish one branch of the Aryan stock from another took place simultaneously. On the contrary, they were slow and gradual; first one and then another new fashion in sounding words sprang up and became general: when once the new pronunciation had, from any cause, taken a firm hold of the community, analogy caused every word to be submitted to its influence, unless special reasons, such as accent, stood in the way, until in course of time the process of shifting the sounds was completed. An instructive illustration of this shifting of sounds has lately been going on almost under our eyes. In the Samoan Islands of the Pacific only fifteen years ago k was an unknown sound except in one small island of the group, where it replaced t. Since then it has practically disappeared from all of them, and t has taken its place. What makes the rapidity of the change the more extraordinary is that the speakers of the language live on separate islands, and that intercourse between them is less intimate now, according to Mr. Whitmee, than it was in the days of heathenism. And yet in spite of books and schools, in spite of education and every effort to check it, the change has come about. The natives will ridicule the foreigner who pronounces in the new fashion, they will themselves take pains to sound the k when reading aloud or making a set speech, but in conversation it has ceased to be heard. The tendency to put k for t seems to be irresistible; it is in the air, like an epidemic, and the spelling, so recently introduced, no longer represents the common pronunciation of the people.[192]

We must be on our guard against thinking that the sounds represented by the same letter of the alphabet in different languages are really identical. We have seen of what numberless variations each sound that we utter is capable, and it does not follow that because the Sanskrit cha and the English church are written with the same palatal ch, that therefore they are to be pronounced alike. And what is true of the consonants is still more true of the vowels. There is much to show that the European scale of three short vowels—ă, ĕ, ŏ—is more primitive than the Indic single vowel ă, in which three distinct vowel-sounds of the parent-speech have coalesced, but we cannot infer from this that the three vowel-sounds of the parent-speech were actually ă, ĕ, and ŏ. Indeed, when we remember that the Greek ἕκατον (for ἕν-καντον) corresponds to the Latin centum, while ferentis is represented by φέροντος, it is quite clear that the Latin ĕ must have developed out of one or more sounds which were distinct from it. In dealing with the hypothetical Parent-Aryan it is best, with Brugman, to symbolize these three primitive vowels as a¹, a², and a³.[193] It is possible that some at least of the earlier sounds out of which more than one articulate sound have afterwards developed, were of a vague indeterminate character, not properly-formed vowel utterances. Professor Max Müller[194] quotes authorities to prove that in the Sandwich Islands k and t are undistinguished, and that “it takes months of patient labour to teach a Hawaian youth the difference between k and t, g and d, l and r.”[195] The confusion between k and t, however, has already been explained by the similar fact observed in Samoan where the sound has actually changed within the last fifteen years, a distinctly-articulated k becoming an equally distinctly-articulated t. But even in English we find people saying a cleast instead of at least, while at Paris and elsewhere the lower classes say amikié for amitié, charkier for charretier, crapu for trapu.[196] So in the old Paris argot j’équions stood for j’étais, and in Canada the uneducated part of the population says mékier for métier, moikié for moitié. Bleek, again, writes of the Setshuana dialects: “One is justified to consider r in these dialects as a sort of floating letter, and rather intermediate between l and r, than a decided r sound.”[197] To these instances of confusion between two consonants which Professor Max Müller believes to be “a characteristic of the lower stages of human speech,” may be added the fluctuation between two forms of the same sound in the North German dialects, where no distinction is made between surd and sonant mediæ, as well as in many of the Armenian dialects.[198] But we must bear in mind that this childlike inability to distinguish between sounds may be due to two very different causes. It may be a result either of the sound being formed at the neutral point, as it were, intermediate between two distinct sounds, or of the ear being unable to discriminate between different articulations. The latter cause is analogous to colour-blindness, and has most to do with the imperfections of childish utterance or the substitution of r for l so often heard; the other cause is of a purely phonetic character, and takes us back to the time when man was gradually fashioning the elements of articulate speech. This infantile state of language had probably been long left behind by the cultivated speakers of the Parent-Aryan; indeed, the very existence of the three vowels marked a₁, a₂, and a₃, would imply that such was the fact. If there was any confusion in the pronunciation of their words it would have to be ascribed rather to sound-blindness than to imperfection of utterance.

The regular action of Grimm’s law may be interfered with by the influence of other laws, just as in physical science the regular action of the law of attraction may be interfered with from time to time. Foremost among these disturbing agencies is the accent. K. Verner has shown[199] that the position of the accent has occasioned that apparent disregard of Grimm’s law in the Teutonic languages which has produced mutter and vater (O. H. G. muotar and fatar) by the side of bruder (O. H. G. brôpar), sieben (Goth. sibun) by the side of fünf (Anglo-Saxon fîf), schwieger (O. H. G. swigar = ἑκυρὰ, so-cru-s) by the side of heil (Greek καλός), or such a curious change in the conjugation of the same verb as the Anglo-Saxon lîðe,“I sail,” but liden, “sailed.” The same cause has brought about the varying representation of an original ſ now by s, and now by z or r. In the Veda, bhrâtar is accented on the first syllable, like the Greek φράτηρ, mâtár and pitár on the last, again like the Greek μητήρ and πατήρ. Sieben answers to the Vedic saptán, the Greek ἑπτά, whereas fünf is the Vedic pánchan and Greek πέντε. Schwieger similarly goes back to the Vedic ´swa´srû´, Greek ἑκυρά, just as the O. H. G. snura from snuza goes back to the Vedic snushâ´, Greek νυός, in contradistinction to nase, nose, the Vedic nâ´sa, the Lithuanian nósis. If we turn to the verb, we find that in Anglo-Saxon, whereas the present lîðe, “(I) sail,” corresponds with a Vedic bhédâmi, and the singular of the past tense lâð with a Vedic bibhéda, the plural of the preterite lidon corresponds with a Vedic bibhidús.[200]

There are other influences besides that of the accent which may change and mar the face of words. Although every change takes place in strict accordance with phonetic laws, and is consequently capable of explanation, the occurrence of the changes is more or less sporadic and arbitrary. That is to say, they may act upon one word and not upon its neighbour. In should or would, for instance, l has been assimilated to d, but in fold and cold it still maintains its existence. Such changes may be either independent or dependent on the action of surrounding sounds. The diversification of the Teutonic a into e and o, or the transition of the Latin ĭ and ŭ into Romanic e and o are instances of independent change. So, too, the modern English pronunciation of the vowels with passive lips, and the consequent loss of the intermediate vowels ü and ö, is another example of the same facts. Wherever, indeed, these intermediate vowel-sounds exist, we may feel sure that the lips take an active part in articulation. In all these cases the change happens in the formation of the sound, uninfluenced by the neighbourhood of other sounds. The extension of a simple vowel into a diphthong may also be brought under this head, though the presence of the circumflex accent seems to have much to do with it. On the other hand, changes in the dentals, the passage of z into r and r into l, or the transition from a guttural to a palatal and a dental, are all examples of purely independent change. When we find an Aryan kw (k²) and gw becoming ch and j in Sanskrit or τ in Greek, we merely see the gradual forward movement of the tongue, which is moved with less exertion towards its tip than towards its root. The change of Aryan kw and gw into p and b in Greek (as in πίσυρες and βίος[201]) is held by Sievers to be due to a sudden “leap” in the articulation, k and g partially assimilating the second part of each compound into p and b, and then falling away altogether.

Most of the changes recorded in Grimm’s law may be brought under the head of independent change. No doubt the transition of g, d, b, into k, t, and p in German is partially dependent upon the accent, but the growth of an aspirate out of a tenuis, as exemplified in the Irish pronunciation of English, is probably due to nothing but an increase in the energy and duration with which our breath is expired. The want of the stress accent brings about the shortening and loss of final vowels, the tonic accent, on the other hand, tending to lengthen them.

The changes caused by the action of one sound upon another may be divided into those which are due to assimilation, and those that are not. In either case the time occupied in pronouncing the changed sound remains the same as it was before; it is only in cases of independent change that it may differ. Assimilation is effected in one of two ways. The relative positions of the vocal organs needed for the pronunciation of two sounds may be made to approximate, as in the reduction of ai (a + i) to e, or the time that elapses between the pronunciation of two sounds may be reduced or destroyed altogether, as when supmus becomes summus. Where the change is not due to assimilation, it will be found to depend on an alteration in the time needed for the formation of two or more sounds.