Lesson Three


German Etymologies: Lesson Three

Lesson 3: The Primacy of Consonants
When you're using etymologies to learn new German vocabulary words, you really only need to look at one thing: the consonants. Here are a few examples of German and English words that differ only in their vowels:

German: das Boot der Bär die Perle die Maus die Nase

English: boat bear pearl mouse nose

Pattern: b-t b-r p-r-l m-s n-s

The basic consonant patterns of these words are identical. Unfortunately, it's not very often that the consonants patterns are exactly the same.

Spelling and Pronunciation
Modern languages have all sorts of idiosyncracies--silent letters, letters that can be pronounced in more than one way, sounds that can be represented by more than one spelling. Consider the following table of related words:

German: der Kaffee das Lamm der Elefant mehr

English: coffee lamb elephant more

The "c" in "coffee" is really a "k" sound. The "b" in "lamb" is silent. The consonant cluster "ph" is another way of spelling the "f" sound. The German "h" only serves to make the vowel long.

Sometimes a related word will show up through spelling but not pronunciation-- "die Schule"/"school"--sometimes through pronunciation but not spelling--"die Kuh"/"cow." When looking for consonant correspondences, you need to consider both spelling and pronunciation, and remember that they are often different.

Related Sounds
Consonant sounds are more closely or distantly associated with each other by the way they are formed by the mouth, tongue, and palates. The consonant sounds "p" and "b," for example, are made in virtually the same way--the only difference is that "p" is devoiced (whispered) and "b" is voiced (using the vocal chords).

Pronounce the following groups of sounds out loud, paying careful attention to how your vocal apparatus is forming the sound:

p, b v, f t, d th (thin), th (them) k, g ch, j s, z l, r m, n

The following examples show how these associated sounds correspond in related German and English words:

German: die Birne der Ofen der See die Pflaume

English: the pear the oven the sea the prune

The Second Consonant Shift
Another factor that affects the search for correspondences in consonants is a historical event called the Second Consonant Shift. One of the features that began to separate English and German in the 6th-7th century was a change in the way some words were pronounced. In southern areas, the consonants "p," "t," "k," "d," and "th" underwent a sound shift; in the northern areas, those same sounds remained the way they had been in West Germanic.

Because of the Second Consonant Shift, many similarities between German and English words are obscured. In order to find the hidden similarities, you need to learn the sound changes and be able to predict what the corresponding sound in either German or English will be.

Two of the sound changes are simple:

d > t th > d

German die Tochter tief leiten das Bett German der Bruder das Ding der Daumen

English the daughter deep to lead the bed English the brother the thing the thumb

Three of the sound changes are split:

p > pf (initially, in a double, after a consonant)

p > ff (after a vowel; written f or ff)

German der Apfel der Pflug offen das Schiff

English the apple the plough open the ship

t > ts (initially, in a double, after a consonant; written z or tz)

t > ss (after a vowel; written ß, ss, or s)

German die Zunge setzen essen Fuß

English the tongue to set to eat the foot

k > [kx] (initially, in a double, after a vowel; found only in dialects)

k > [x] (after a consonant; written ch)

German suchen das Buch

English to seek the book

Identifying these consonant correspondences will come easy to you with practice and will help you discover related words you never would have otherwise recognized.

You may want to take a break here to work with these sound changes before you move on with the tutorial. Flip through some vocabulary lists, break the words down to their consonant patterns, make the sound shifts, and see what kinds of correspondences you discover.

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