Lecture indo-European Family of languages English as a Germanic Language

IE short vowels G short vowels IE long vowels G long vowels
a (Lat. ager поле) > a (Goth. akrs) i (Lat. svīnus) > i (OE svīn)
o (Lat. hostis гість) > a (Goth. gasts) ū (Lat. m ūs) > ū (OE m ūs)
i (Lat. piscis риба) > i (OE fisc) ō (Lat. pōs) > ō (OE fōt)
(Lat. vir чоловік) > e (OIcl verr) ā (Lat. m āter) > ō (OE m ōdor)
e (Lat. edere їсти) > e (OE etan) Goth. ē (became front)
(Lat. medius середній) > i (OE midd) ē (complex > æ
u (OInd upa на) > u (OE uppe) development) West G., North.G ā (became back)
( Lat. iugum ярмо) > o (OE eok)
West G. æ/ ē (became front)

Thus, we have the opposition of “short – long” vowels in PG completed.

6c.2. In the domain of vowels the most important property of the Germanic languages is Ablaut or Gradation. This is a spontaneous vowel variation mostly inside a root which is common to all Indo-European languages. Germanic Ablaut goes back to some regular changes inherent in IE parent language. This vowel variation became a very important grammatical means especially in the verb system where it is employed for making past verb-forms of strong verbs. The old system of gradation is vividly seen in Gothic:
Goth.: reisan-rais-risum-risans
OE: rīson-rās-rison-risen
ModE: rise-rose-risen
Ablaut is also used in Germanic as a word-forming means: faran їхати– fōr мандрівка, length – long. Other IE languages also possess features of Ablaut: укр. віз – возити – везу.


6c. 3. The term Umlaut was introduced by J.Grimm for marking a regressive assimilation of a vowel which aquires articulation of the following vowel. In Germanic languages there were 2 types of umlaut: i-umlaut, and u-umlaut. The most widely used was the first type.


So, we came to know that English belongs to IE family, Germanic group, Westgermanic branch. All Germanic languages have specific grammatical and phonetic features as compared with other IE languages.