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The Earliest Germanic Umlauts and the Gothic Migrations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

William H. Bennett
William H. Bennett*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Extract

In comparative Germanic grammar it is conventionally assumed that IE e eu became respectively PGc. i iu when a high front vowel or glide (i ī j) occurred in the following syllable. Apart from differences of opinion regarding the manner in which this development took place, the grammars show very little disagreement on the subject. Nearly all assign the change to Proto-Germanic (or at least pre-Gothic) times, although Schulze in particular has noted an apparent lack of umlaut in early runic inscriptions and foreign spellings of Germanic names. It is also a conventional assumption that IE i u became respectively PGc. e o when a low or mid vowel () occurred originally in the next syllable, provided that neither i ī j nor a cluster of nasal plus consonant intervened. In this instance, however, some scholars have doubted that the change took place in Proto-Germanic times.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 28 , Issue 3-Part1: July-September , September 1952 , pp. 339 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © 1952 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Hirt, HU 1.§33, speculates whether i-umlaut affected Gothic but accepts the conventional viewpoint as a working hypothesis: ‘Das Gotische aus dem 4. Jh. zeigt im allgemeinen keine Umlautserscheinungen. Auch der i-Umlaut des e ist nicht zu erkennen, da eben jedes e zu i geworden ist. Immerhin kann man ihn in diesem Fall doch voraussetzen.‘ For denials of the conventional assumption see H. Collitz, JEGP 6.253 ff.; A. Kock, Btr. 23.511 ff.; O Bremer, IF 26.148 ff. The chronological and geographical evidence considered below supports all three dissenting opinions, but being strictly factual, does not favor any one to the exclusion of the others.

2 ZfdA 54.173.

3 Hirt, HU 1.§34 Anm. 1 and reff. It is interesting to observe that no reference to a Proto-Germanic umlaut of u to o occurs in the two most recent Gothic grammars, those of F. Mossé (Manuel de la langue gotique; Paris, 1942) and H. Krahe (Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Gotischen; Heidelberg, 1948).

4 Gr. Go. lang. §60.1, §§61–62, §67, §69, §71, §73.

5 Paul, Btr. 6.82 ff.

6 UG §71.