of Latin, but which greatly affected the relations of the sounds which we find existing in Latin to those which we find in parallel words in the kindred languages. For example we find (1) Lat. māter : Eng. mother
(2) Lat. tentus : Gr. τατός, Sans. tatás ‘stretched’ all clearly related also to Gr. τείνω ‘I stretch,’ and Lat. tenor ‘stretch, continuance.’
Similar correspondences occur in a host of other words.
§ 58. The first correspondence becomes clear as soon as we know something of the phonetic changes which happened in early, that is, pro-ethnic[1] Germanic which are called Grimm and Verner’s Law. The second group of words has been shaped by changes caused by Accent in the Indo-European parent language. Both these sets of changes are easy to understand and throw a great light on the history of all the descendant languages. Grimm and Verner’s Law also depends partly upon the Indo-European Accent; and as it affected the Germanic languages only, it will be best to state it first.
Grimm and Verner’s Law in pro-ethnic Germanic
§ 59. In the Germanic branch before any of the Germanic languages that we know (§ 8) had split off from the rest, all the Plosives and Aspirates which had been inherited from the parent Indo-European language suffered phonetic changes which are often called ‘the Sound-shift.’ These were first formulated in 1822 by the German scholar Jacob Grimm who made the
- ↑ See § 3
