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 phonological development in some dialects of West Germanic, which is attested in Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon. In this sound change, in certain combinations vowel + nasal + fricative, the nasal disappeared, with compensatory lengthening of the vowel. ("Spirant" is an older term for "fricative".) The sequences in question are -ns-, -mf-, and -nĂ¾-. The sequence -nh- had undergone a similar change in late Proto-Germanic several hundred years earlier, so this is not unique to the Ingvaeonic languages.

Read more about Ingvaeonic Nasal Spirant Law:  Examples, English, Dutch, German

Famous quotes containing the word law:

    Here, lads, we live by the law of the taiga. But even here people manage to live. D’you know who are the ones the camps finish off? Those who lick other men’s left-overs, those who set store by the doctors, and those who peach on their mates.
    Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)