Ingvaeonic Nasal Spirant Law

In Historical Linguistics , the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (also called the ''' Anglo-Frisian ''' or '''North Sea Germanic nasal spirant law''') is a description of a Philological development in some dialects of West Germanic , which is attested in Old English , Old Frisian , and Old Saxon . By this sound change, in the combination Vowel + Nasal + Fricative , the nasal disappeared, with Compensatory Lengthening of the vowel. ("Spirant" is an older term for "fricative".) The sequences in question are original ''-ns-'', ''-mf-'', and ''-nþ-''.

Compare the first person plural pronoun ''us'' in various old Germanic languages:

Old English ''ūs''

Old Frisian ''ūs''

Old Saxon ''ūs''

Old High German ''uns''

Middle Dutch ''ons''

Gothic ''uns''

Gothic represents East Germanic , and its correspondence to German and Dutch shows it has the more original form. The /n/ has disappeared in English, Frisian and Old Saxon, with Compensatory Lengthening of the /u/.

Likewise:

Germanic ''---tanþ-'' becomes English ''tooth'' (cf. Dutch ''tand'', German ''Zahn'').

Germanic ''---anþara-'' becomes English ''other'' (cf. German & Dutch ''ander-'' {Link without Title} ).

Germanic ''---fimf'' becomes English ''five'', Dutch ''vijf'' (cf. German ''fünf'').

Germanic ''---samft-'' becomes English ''soft'', Dutch ''zacht'' {Link without Title} (cf. German ''sanft'').

Germanic ''---gans-'' becomes English ''goose'' (cf. Dutch ''gans'', German ''Gans'').

Note that Dutch is inconsistent, following the law in some words but not others; this must be understood in terms of the standard language drawing from a variety of dialects, only some of which were affected by the sound change. Similarly, certain North German dialects retain Old Saxon forms, with the result that a very few words in Modern Standard German have this shift: alongside ''sanft'' German also has ''sacht'', both meaning "soft", "gentle".

One consequence of this is that English has very few words ending in ''-nth''; those which do exist must be more recent than the productive period of the Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law:

''month'' - in Old English this was ''monaþ'' (cf. German ''Monat''); the intervening vowel made the law inoperable.

''tenth'' - a neologism in Middle English . Germanic ''---tehunþ-'' did originally follow the law, producing Old English ''tēoþa'' (Modern English ''tithe''), but the force of analogy to the cardinal number ''ten'' caused Middle English to recreate the regular ordinal.

''plinth'' - a Greek loan-word in Modern English ().

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Ingvaeonic Nasal Spirant Law