3. The Discovery of Sanskrit.

It was discovered that Sanskrit, a language of ancient India, was one of the languages of this group. This discovery has led to the above-mentioned hypothesis. This was first suggested in the latter part of the 18^th century. Then it was fully established by the beginning of the 19^th century. Sir William Jones, who served at a Supreme Court justice in India, proposed in his famous paper in 1786 the following: the affinity of Sanskrit to Greek and Latin could be explained by positing a common, earlier source. The extensive literature of India reaches back further that that of any other European languages. It preserves features of the common language which is much older than most of those Greek or Latin or German. It is easy to see the resemblance between brother (English) and bhrāter (Sanskrit) than between brother (English) and frāter (Latin).

Even more important is that Sanskrit preserves an unusually full system of declensions and conjugations. It became clear that the inflections of these languages could be traced to a common origin.

to be

Old English	Gothic	Latin	Greek	Sanskrit
eom (am)	im	sum	eimi	asmi
eart (art)	is	es	ei	asi
is (is)	ist	est	esti	asti
sindon (are)	sijum	sumus	esmen	smas
sindon (are)	sijub	estis	este	stha
sindon (are)	sind	sunt	eisi	santi

The Sanskrit form particularly permit us to see that at one time this verb had the same endings (-me, -si, -ti, -mas, -nti) as were employed in the present tense of other verbs.

to give

Sanskrit	Greek
dádāmi	didōmi
dádāsi	dídōs
dádāti	dídōsi
dadmás	didōmen (dial. didōmes)
datthā	didote
dáda(n)ti	didoāsi (dial.didonti)

The material offered by Sanskrit for comparison with the other languages of the group was thus of the greatest importance.

We should add that Hindu grammarians had already gone far in the analysis of the language, that they had recognized the roots, classified the formative elements, and worked out the rules according to which certain sound-changes occurred. Therefore, we can appreciate the extent to which the discovery of Sanskrit contributed to the recognition and determination of the relation that exist among the languages to which it was alluded.

3. The First Consonant Shift (Grimm's Law).

(This consonant shift is called the first to distinguish it from the second consonant shift, which occurred in High German, i.e. Southern German, dialects in the 5^th-7^th centuries.)

The phenomena stated in the law of the first consonant shift were found out by comparative linguistic early in the 19^th century. Two famous names are to be mentioned in this connection: the Danish scholar Rasmus Christian Rask (1787-1832) and the great German linguist and fairy – tales collector Jacob Ludwig Grimm (1785 – 1863). The earliest statement of the shift was given in the second edition of Grimm's work "German Grammar" ("Deutsche Grammatik"). It was published in 1822. Accordingly, the law is also called Grimm's law.

When we compare words of Germanic languages with the corresponding words of other Indo-European languages, mainly Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Ukrainian and Russian we find correspondence between them.

Correspondences between Indo-European (non-Germanic) and Germanic consonants may be grouped under three categories.

I. Indo-European voiceless stops (p, t, k) correspond to Germanic voiceless fricatives (f, þ, h). [þ < Latin d < Runic ];

II. Indo-European voiced stops (b, d, g,) correspond to Germanic voiceless stops (p, t, k);

III. Indo-European voiced aspirated stops (bh, dh, gh) correspond to Germanic voiced stops without aspiration (b, d, g).

IE > Germanic	IE > Germanic	IE > Germanic
p > f	b > p	bh > b
t >	d > t	dh > d
k > h	g > k	gh > g
I	II	III

Sounds
IE	Germ.	IE	Germanic
p	f	Latin pater Greek patēr Sansrit. pitár	Gothic Fadar English father German Vater
		Latin plēnus Greek plēos Russian полный	Gothic fulls English full German Voll
t	Þ	Latin trēs Greek treis Russian три	Gothic Þreis English three
k	h	Latin noctem Latin octo Greek okto	Gothic nahts Gothic ahtau German acht
b	p	Russian болото	English pool	II
d	t	Latin duo Greek dyo Russian два	Gothic twai English two
		Latin decem Greek dēka Russian десять	Gothic taihum English ten
g	k	Latin grānum	Gothic kaùrn English corn
bh	b	Sanskrit bhrātar Latin fāter Greek phrātor Russian брат	Gothic brōÞar English brother German Bruder
		Sanskrit bharāmi Latin fērō	Gothic baíran English bear
		Greek phērō Russian беру	German ge-bären
dh	d	Sanskrit madhu Russian мед Sanskrit madhyas Latin medius	Old English medu Gothic midjis
gh	g	Latin hostis Russian гость	Gothic gasts German Gast

Not all correspondences stated in Grimm's law are equally clear:

1. We cannot find fully convincing examples to illustrate the correspondence of Indo-European b to German p. For some unknown reason, the consonant p is very rare in native Germanic words. For example, Ukrainian "слабкий", Russian "слабый", Germanic "slepan"; Russian "болото", English "pool". Though the meanings do not fully coincide, the words can be considered satisfactory;

2. Things are more difficult as concerns the last group of correspondence of Indo-European aspirated stops to Germanic voiced stops. Aspirated stops are actually found in Sanskrit. In the other Indo-European (non-Germanic) languages, we either find voiceless fricatives as in Latin and Greek or unaspirated voiced stops (as in Ukrainian and Russian). It is the custom to take Sanskrit as the representative of Indo-European languages, supposing that Sanskrit has preserved the original state of the consonants.

3. A special difficulty is represented by the correspondence of Indo-European gh to Germanic g. In this case, we do not find the corresponding words in Sanskrit. A voiced aspirated stop gh is only reconstructed because of the correspondence between Latin h (hostis) and Germanic g (Gothic gasts).

[hostis –enemy; gast – guest; - both are foreigners – a hostile foreigner - enemy; a friendly foreigner – guest].

The correspondence between Indo-European and Germanic consonants are interpreted in the following way: The Germanic sounds are the result of a development of the original Indo-European sounds, as they existed in the Indo-European ancestor's language.

4. Some special cases. Indo-European t has not been affected by the consonant shift, because it has not changed into þ. It has been preserved as such in Germanic languages when t is preceded by a voiceless fricative (h or s respectively). If t, according to the general law of the shift, had developed into þ. A cluster consisting of two voiceless fricatives would have arisen.

IE	Germanic
Latin noctem Greek nykta	Gothic naht German Naht
Latin octo Greek okto	Gothic ahtau German acht
Latin stare Greek histēmi	Gothic standen English stand