See also: Germanic a-mutation and i-mutation. pronounced as /notice/The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel (fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to pronounced as /link/ (raising) when the following syllable contains pronounced as //i//, pronounced as //iː//, or pronounced as /link/.
It took place separately in various Germanic languages starting around 450 or 500 CE and affected all of the early languages[1] except Gothic.[2] An example of the resulting vowel alternation is the English plural foot ~ feet (from Proto-Germanic Germanic languages: *fōts, pl. Germanic languages: *fōtiz). Germanic umlaut, as covered in this article, does not include other historical vowel phenomena that operated in the history of the Germanic languages such as Germanic a-mutation and the various language-specific processes of u-mutation, nor the earlier Indo-European ablaut (vowel gradation), which is observable in the conjugation of Germanic strong verbs such as sing/sang/sung.
While Germanic umlaut has had important consequences for all modern Germanic languages, its effects are particularly apparent in German, because vowels resulting from umlaut are generally spelled with a specific set of letters: (ä), (ö), and (ü), usually pronounced /ɛ/ (formerly /æ/), /ø/, and /y/. Umlaut is a form of assimilation or vowel harmony, the process by which one speech sound is altered to make it more like another adjacent sound. If a word has two vowels with one far back in the mouth and the other far forward, more effort is required to pronounce the word than if the vowels were closer together; therefore, one possible linguistic development is for these two vowels to be drawn closer together.
Germanic umlaut is a specific historical example of this process that took place in the unattested earliest stages of Old English and Old Norse and apparently later in Old High German, and some other old Germanic languages. The precise developments varied from one language to another, but the general trend was this:
The fronted variant caused by umlaut was originally allophonic (a variant sound automatically predictable from context), but it later became phonemic when the context was lost but the variant sound remained. The following examples show how, when final English, Old (ca.450-1100);: -i was lost, the variant sound English, Old (ca.450-1100);: -ȳ- became a new phoneme in Old English:[5]
| Original form | Germanic languages: *mūs | Germanic languages: *mūsiz | Germanic languages: *fō(t)s | Germanic languages: *fōtiz | ||
| Loss of final -z | Germanic languages: *mūsi | Germanic languages: *fōt | Germanic languages: *fōti | |||
| Germanic umlaut | Pre-Old English | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: *mȳsi | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: *fø̄ti | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mūs | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mȳs | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fōt | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fø̄t | |||
| Unrounding of ø̄ (> ē) | Most Old English dialects | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fēt | ||||
| Unrounding of ȳ (> ī) | English, Middle (1100-1500);: mīs | |||||
| pronounced as //maʊs// ("mouse") | pronounced as //maɪs// ("mice") | pronounced as //fʊt// ("foot") | pronounced as //fiːt// ("feet") |
The following table surveys how Proto-Germanic vowels which later underwent i-umlaut generally appear in modern languages—though there are many exceptions to these patterns owing to other sound changes and chance variations. The table gives two West Germanic examples (English and German) and two North Germanic examples (Swedish, from the east, and Icelandic, from the west). Spellings are marked by pointy brackets (⟨...⟩) and pronunciation, given in the international phonetic alphabet, in slashes (/.../).
| example word | usual modern reflex after i-umlaut | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | German | Swedish | Icelandic | |||
| ɑ | Germanic languages: *manniz ('people') | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/ (men) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (German: Männer) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (Swedish: män) | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/ (Icelandic: menn) | |
| ɑː | Germanic languages: *gansiz ('geese'), which became Germanic languages: *gą̄si in North Germanic and North Sea Germanic, though not in German | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /i/ (geese) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (German: Gänse) | ⟨ä⟩, /ɛ/ (Swedish: gäss) | ⟨æ⟩, /aɪ/ (Icelandic: gæs) | |
| o | no single example in all languages[6] | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/(Germanic languages: *obisu > eaves) | ⟨ö⟩, /ø/(Germanic languages: *oli > German: Öl) | ⟨ö⟩, /ø/(Germanic languages: *hnotiz > Swedish: nötter) | ⟨e⟩, /ɛ/(Germanic languages: *komiz > Icelandic: kemur) | |
| ɔː | Germanic languages: *fōtiz ('feet') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /i/ (feet) | ⟨ü⟩, /y/ (German: Füße) | ⟨ö⟩, /ø/ (Swedish: fötter) | ⟨æ⟩, /aɪ/ (Icelandic: fætur) | |
| u | Germanic languages: *fullijaną ('fill') | ⟨i⟩, /ɪ/ (fill) | ⟨ü⟩, /y/ (German: füllen) | ⟨y⟩, /y/ (Swedish: fylla) | ⟨y⟩, /ɪ/ (Icelandic: fylla) | |
| uː | Germanic languages: *lūsiz ('lice') | ⟨i⟩, /aɪ/ (lice) | ⟨eu, äu⟩, /ɔʏ̯/ (German: Läuse) | ⟨ö⟩, /ø/ (Swedish: löss) | ⟨ý⟩, /i/ (Icelandic: lýs) | |
| ɑu | Germanic languages: *hauzjaną ('hear') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /i/ (hear) | ⟨ö⟩, /ø/ (German: hören) | ⟨ö⟩, /ø/ (Swedish: höra) | ⟨ey⟩, /ɛɪ/ (Icelandic: heyra) | |
| ɑi | Germanic languages: *hailijaną ('heal') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /i/ (heal) | ⟨ei⟩, /aɪ̯/ (German: heilen) | ⟨e⟩, /e/ (Swedish: hela) | ⟨ei⟩, /ɛɪ/ (Icelandic: heila) | |
| eu, iu | Germanic languages: *steurjaną ('steer') | ⟨ea⟩, ⟨ee⟩, /i/ (steer) | ⟨eu⟩, /ɔʏ̯/ (German: steuern) | ⟨y⟩, /y/ (Swedish: styra) | ⟨ý⟩, /i/ (Icelandic: stýra) | |
See also: Umlaut (diacritic) and Å. German orthography is generally consistent in its representation of i-umlaut. The umlaut diacritic, consisting of two dots above the vowel, is used for the fronted vowels, making the historical process much more visible in the modern language than is the case in English: (a) – (ä), (o) – (ö), (u) – (ü), (au) – (äu). This is a neat solution when pairs of words with and without umlaut mutation are compared, as in umlauted plurals like German: Mutter – German: Mütter ("mother" – "mothers").
However, in a small number of words, a vowel affected by i-umlaut is not marked with the umlaut diacritic because its origin is not obvious. Either there is no unumlauted equivalent or they are not recognized as a pair because the meanings have drifted apart. The adjective German: fertig ("ready, finished"; originally "ready to go") contains an umlaut mutation, but it is spelled with (e) rather than (ä) as its relationship to German: Fahrt ("journey") has, for most speakers of the language, been lost from sight. Likewise, German: alt ("old") has the comparative German: älter ("older"), but the noun from this is spelled German: Eltern ("parents"). German: Aufwand ("effort") has the verb German: aufwenden ("to spend, to dedicate") and the adjective German: aufwendig ("requiring effort") though the 1996 spelling reform now permits the alternative spelling German: aufwändig (but not German: *aufwänden).[7] For German: denken, see below.
Some words have umlaut diacritics that do not mark a vowel produced by the sound change of umlaut. This includes loanwords such as German: Känguru from English kangaroo, and German: Büro from French French: bureau. Here the diacritic is a purely phonological marker, indicating that the English and French sounds (or at least, the approximation of them used in German) are identical to the native German umlauted sounds. Similarly, Big Mac was originally spelt German: Big Mäc in German.[8] In borrowings from Latin and Greek, Latin (ae), (oe), or Greek (αι) German: ai, (οι) German: oi, are rendered in German as German: ä and German: ö respectively (German: Ägypten, "Egypt", or German: Ökonomie, "economy"). However, Latin (y) and Greek (υ) are written German: y in German instead of German: ü (German: Psychologie). There are also several non-borrowed words where the vowels ö and ü have not arisen through historical umlaut, but due to rounding of an earlier unrounded front vowel (possibly from the labial/labialized consonants German: w/f/sch occurring on both sides), such as German: fünf ("five"; from Middle High German German, Middle High (ca.1050-1500);: vinf), German: zwölf ("twelve"; from German, Middle High (ca.1050-1500);: zwelf), and German: schöpfen ("create"; from German, Middle High (ca.1050-1500);: schepfen).
When German words (names in particular) are written in the basic Latin alphabet, umlauts are usually substituted with (ae), (oe) and (ue) to differentiate them from simple (a), (o), and (u).[9]
The German phonological umlaut is present in the Old High German period and continues to develop in Middle High German. From the Middle High German, it was sometimes denoted in written German by adding an (e) to the affected vowel, either after the vowel or, in the small form, above it. This can still be seen in some names: Goethe, Goebbels, Staedtler.[10]
In blackletter handwriting, as used in German manuscripts of the later Middle Ages and also in many printed texts of the early modern period, the superscript (e) still had a form that would now be recognisable as an (e), but in manuscript writing, umlauted vowels could be indicated by two dots since the late medieval period.
Unusual umlaut designs are sometimes also created for graphic design purposes, such as to fit an umlaut into tightly-spaced lines of text.[11] This may include umlauts placed vertically or inside the body of the letter.[12] [13] [14]
Although umlaut was not a grammatical process, umlauted vowels often serve to distinguish grammatical forms (and thus show similarities to ablaut when viewed synchronically), as can be seen in the English word man. In ancient Germanic, it and some other words had the plural suffix Germanic languages: -iz, with the same vowel as the singular. As it contained an Germanic languages: i, this suffix caused fronting of the vowel and, when the suffix later disappeared, the mutated vowel remained as the only plural marker: men. In English, such plurals are rare: man, woman, tooth, goose, foot, mouse, louse, brother (archaic or specialized plural in brethren), and cow (poetic and dialectal plural in kine). This effect also can be found in a few fossilized diminutive forms, such as kitten from cat, kernel from corn, and the feminine vixen from fox. Umlaut is conspicuous when it occurs in one of such a pair of forms, but there are many mutated words without an unmutated parallel form. Germanic actively derived causative weak verbs from ordinary strong verbs by applying a suffix, which later caused umlaut, to a past tense form. Some of these survived into modern English as doublets of verbs, including fell and set versus fall and sit. Umlaut could occur in borrowings as well if a stressed vowel was coloured by a subsequent front vowel, such as German German: Köln, "Cologne", from Latin Latin: Colonia, or German: Käse, "cheese", from Latin Latin: caseus.
| Germanic | German | English | Dutch | Swedish | Faroese | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germanic languages: *fallaną – Germanic languages: *fallijaną | German: fallen – German: fällen | to fall – to fell | Dutch; Flemish: vallen – Dutch; Flemish: vellen | Swedish: falla – Swedish: fälla | Faroese: falla – Faroese: fella | |
| Germanic languages: *fōts – Germanic languages: *fōtiz | German: Fuß – German: Füße | foot – feet | Dutch; Flemish: voet – Dutch; Flemish: voeten (no umlaut) | Swedish: fot – Swedish: fötter | Faroese: fótur – Faroese: føtur | |
| Germanic languages: *aldaz – Germanic languages: *alþizô – Germanic languages: *alþistaz | German: alt – German: älter – German: am ältesten | old – elder – eldest | Dutch; Flemish: oud – Dutch; Flemish: ouder – Dutch; Flemish: oudst (no umlaut) | Swedish: gammal – Swedish: äldre – Swedish: äldst (irregular) | Faroese: gamal – Faroese: eldri – Faroese: elstur (irregular) | |
| Germanic languages: *fullaz – Germanic languages: *fullijaną | German: voll – German: füllen | full – fill | Dutch; Flemish: vol – Dutch; Flemish: vullen | Swedish: full – Swedish: fylla | Faroese: fullur – Faroese: fylla | |
| Germanic languages: *langaz – Germanic languages: *langīn/*langiþō | German: lang – German: Länge | long – length | Dutch; Flemish: lang – Dutch; Flemish: lengte | Swedish: lång – Swedish: längd | Faroese: langur – Faroese: longd | |
| Germanic languages: *lūs – Germanic languages: *lūsiz | German: Laus – German: Läuse | louse – lice | Dutch; Flemish: luis – Dutch; Flemish: luizen (no umlaut) | Swedish: lus – Swedish: löss | Faroese: lús – Faroese: lýs |
Some interesting examples of umlaut involve vowel distinctions in Germanic verbs. Although these are often subsumed under the heading "ablaut" in tables of Germanic irregular verbs, they are a separate phenomenon.
A variety of umlaut occurs in the second and third person singular forms of the present tense of some Germanic strong verbs. For example, German German: fangen ("to catch") has the present tense German: ich fange, du fängst, er fängt. The verb German: geben ("give") has the present tense German: ich gebe, du gibst, er gibt, but the shift German: e→German: i would not be a normal result of umlaut in German. There are, in fact, two distinct phenomena at play here; the first is indeed umlaut as it is best known, but the second is older and occurred already in Proto-Germanic itself. In both cases, a following Germanic languages: i triggered a vowel change, but in Proto-Germanic, it affected only Germanic languages: e. The effect on back vowels did not occur until hundreds of years later, after the Germanic languages had already begun to split up: Germanic languages: *fą̄haną, Germanic languages: *fą̄hidi with no umlaut of Germanic languages: a, but Germanic languages: *gebaną, Germanic languages: *gibidi with umlaut of Germanic languages: e.
The German word German: Rückumlaut ("reverse umlaut"), sometimes known in English as "unmutation",[15] is a term given to the vowel distinction between present and preterite forms of certain Germanic weak verbs. These verbs exhibit the dental suffix used to form the preterite of weak verbs, and also exhibit what appears to be the vowel gradation characteristic of strong verbs. Examples in English are think/thought, bring/brought, tell/told, sell/sold. The phenomenon can also be observed in some German verbs including German: brennen/brannte ("burn/burnt"), German: kennen/kannte ("know/knew"), and a handful of others. In some dialects, particularly of western Germany, the phenomenon is preserved in many more forms (for example Luxembourgish Luxembourgish; Letzeburgesch: stellen/gestallt, "to put", and Limburgish Limburgan; Limburger; Limburgish: tèlle/talj/getaldj, "to tell, count"). The cause lies with the insertion of the semivowel pronounced as //j// between the verb stem and inflectional ending.[16] This pronounced as //j// triggers umlaut, as explained above. In short-stem verbs, the pronounced as //j// is present in both the present and preterite. In long-stem verbs however, the pronounced as //j// fell out of the preterite. Thus, while short-stem verbs exhibit umlaut in all tenses, long-stem verbs only do so in the present. When the German philologist Jacob Grimm first attempted to explain the phenomenon, he assumed that the lack of umlaut in the preterite resulted from the reversal of umlaut. In actuality, umlaut never occurred in the first place. Nevertheless, the term "Rückumlaut" makes some sense since the verb exhibits a shift from an umlauted vowel in the basic form (the infinitive) to a plain vowel in the respective inflections.
In German, some verbs that display a back vowel in the past tense undergo umlaut in the subjunctive mood: German: singen/sang (ind.) → German: sänge (subj.) ("sing/sang"); German: fechten/focht (ind.) → German: föchte (subj.) ("fence/fenced"). Again, this is due to the presence of a following German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: i in the optative verb endings in the Old High German period.
Although umlauts operated the same way in all the West Germanic languages, the exact words in which it took place and the outcomes of the process differ between the languages. Of particular note is the loss of word-final Germanic languages: -i after heavy syllables. In the more southern languages (Old High German, Old Dutch, Old Saxon), forms that lost Germanic languages: -i often show no umlaut, but in the more northern languages (Old English, Old Frisian), the forms do. Compare Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ġiest "guest", which shows umlaut, and Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: gast, which does not, both from Proto-Germanic Germanic languages: *gastiz. That may mean that there was dialectal variation in the timing and spread of the two changes, with final loss happening before umlaut in the south but after umlaut in the north. On the other hand, umlaut may have still been partly allophonic, and the loss of the conditioning sound may have triggered an "un-umlauting" of the preceding vowel. Nevertheless, medial Germanic languages: -ij- consistently triggers umlaut although its subsequent loss is universal in West Germanic except for Old Saxon and early Old High German.
I-mutation generally affected Old English vowels as follows in each of the main dialects.[17] It led to the introduction into Old English of the new sounds pronounced as //y(ː)//, pronounced as //ø(ː)// (which, in most varieties, soon turned into pronounced as //e(ː)//), and a sound written in Early West Saxon manuscripts as (ie) but whose phonetic value is debated.
| Original | i-mutated | Examples and notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Saxon | Anglian | Kentish | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: a | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: æ, e | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: æ, e > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: bacan "to bake", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: bæcþ "(he/she) bakes". English, Old (ca.450-1100);: a > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e particularly before nasal consonants: English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mann "person", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: menn "people" | ||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ā | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ǣ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: lār "teaching" (cf. "lore"), English, Old (ca.450-1100);: lǣran "to teach" | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: æ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: þæc "covering" (cf. "thatch"), English, Old (ca.450-1100);: þeccan "to cover" | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: i | not clearly attested due to earlier Germanic Germanic languages: e > Germanic languages: i before Germanic languages: i, Germanic languages: j | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: o | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ø > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e | Latin Latin: olium, Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: øle > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ele. | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ō | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ø̄ > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ē | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fōt "foot", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fø̄t > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fēt "feet". | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: u | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: y | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: y > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: murnan "to mourn", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: myrnþ "(he/she) mourns" | ||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ū | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ȳ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ȳ > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ē | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mūs "mouse", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mȳs "mice" | ||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ie > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: y | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: e | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eald "old", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ieldra, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eldra "older" (cf. "elder") | ||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēa | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īe > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ȳ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ē | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: nēah "near" (cf. "nigh"), English, Old (ca.450-1100);: nīehst "nearest" (cf. "next") | ||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo | examples are rare due to earlier Germanic Germanic languages: e > Germanic languages: i before Germanic languages: i, Germanic languages: j. English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io became English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo in most later varieties of Old English | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo | examples are rare due to earlier Germanic Germanic languages: e > Germanic languages: i before Germanic languages: i, Germanic languages: j. English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo became English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo in most later varieties of Old English | |||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ie > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: y | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: *fiohtan "to fight", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: fieht "(he/she) fights". English, Old (ca.450-1100);: io became English, Old (ca.450-1100);: eo in most later varieties of Old English, giving alternations like English, Old (ca.450-1100);: beornan "to burn", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: biernþ "(he/she) burns" | ||
| English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īe > English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ȳ | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo, English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo | English, Old (ca.450-1100);: līoht "light", English, Old (ca.450-1100);: līehtan "illuminate". English, Old (ca.450-1100);: īo became English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ēo in most later varieties of Old English, giving alternations like English, Old (ca.450-1100);: sēoþan "to boil" (cf. "seethe"), English, Old (ca.450-1100);: sīeþþ "(he/she) boils" | ||
I-mutation is particularly visible in the inflectional and derivational morphology of Old English since it affected so many of the Old English vowels. Of 16 basic vowels and diphthongs in Old English, only the four vowels English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ǣ, ē, i, ī were unaffected by i-mutation. Although i-mutation was originally triggered by an pronounced as //i(ː)// or pronounced as //j// in the syllable following the affected vowel, by the time of the surviving Old English texts, the pronounced as //i(ː)// or pronounced as //j// had generally changed (usually to pronounced as //e//) or been lost entirely, with the result that i-mutation generally appears as a morphological process that affects a certain (seemingly arbitrary) set of forms. These are most common forms affected:
A few hundred years after i-umlaut began, another similar change called double umlaut occurred. It was triggered by an pronounced as //i// or pronounced as //j// in the third or fourth syllable of a word and mutated all previous vowels but worked only when the vowel directly preceding the pronounced as //i// or pronounced as //j// was pronounced as //u//. This pronounced as //u// typically appears as (e) in Old English or is deleted:
As shown by the examples, affected words typically had pronounced as //u// in the second syllable and pronounced as //a// in the first syllable. The pronounced as //æ// developed too late to break to English, Old (ca.450-1100);: ea or to trigger palatalization of a preceding velar.
I-mutation is visible in Old High German (OHG), c. 800 CE, only on short pronounced as //a//, which was mutated to pronounced as //e// (the so-called "primary umlaut"), although in certain phonological environments the mutation fails to occur. By then, it had already become partly phonologized, since some of the conditioning pronounced as //i// and pronounced as //j// sounds had been deleted or modified. The later history of German, however, shows that pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //u//, as well as long vowels and diphthongs, and the remaining instances of pronounced as //a// that had not been umlauted already, were also affected (the so-called "secondary umlaut"); starting in Middle High German, the remaining conditioning environments disappear and pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //u// appear as pronounced as //ø// and pronounced as //y// in the appropriate environments.
That has led to a controversy over when and how i-mutation appeared on these vowels. Some (for example, Herbert Penzl)[18] have suggested that the vowels must have been modified without being indicated for lack of proper symbols and/or because the difference was still partly allophonic. Others (such as Joseph Voyles)[19] have suggested that the i-mutation of pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //u// was entirely analogical and pointed to the lack of i-mutation of these vowels in certain places where it would be expected, in contrast to the consistent mutation of pronounced as //a//. Perhaps the answer is somewhere in between - i-mutation of pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //u// was indeed phonetic, occurring late in OHG, but later spread analogically to the environments where the conditioning had already disappeared by OHG (this is where failure of i-mutation is most likely). It must also be kept in mind that it is an issue of relative chronology: already early in the history of attested OHG, some umlauting factors are known to have disappeared (such as word-internal pronounced as //j// after geminates and clusters), and depending on the age of OHG umlaut, that could explain some cases where expected umlaut is missing. The whole question should now be reconsidered in the light of Fausto Cercignani's suggestion that the Old High German umlaut phenomena produced phonemic changes before the factors that triggered them off changed or disappeared, because the umlaut allophones gradually shifted to such a degree that they became distinctive in the phonological system of the language and contrastive at a lexical level.[20]
However, sporadic place-name attestations demonstrate the presence of the secondary umlaut already for the early 9th century, which makes it likely that all types of umlaut were indeed already present in Old High German, even if they were not indicated in the spelling. Presumably, they arose already in the early 8th century.[21] Ottar Grønvik, also in view of spellings of the type (ei), (ui), and (oi) in the early attestations, affirms the old epenthesis theory, which views the origin of the umlaut vowels in the insertion of pronounced as //j// after back vowels, not only in West, but also in North Germanic.[22] Fausto Cercignani prefers the assimilation theory and presents a history of the OHG umlauted vowels up to the present day.[23]
In modern German, umlaut as a marker of the plural of nouns is a regular feature of the language, and although umlaut generally is no longer a productive force in German, new plurals of this type can be created by analogy. Likewise, umlaut marks the comparative of many adjectives and other kinds of inflected and derived forms. Borrowed words have acquired umlaut as in German: Chöre 'choirs' or German: europäisch 'European.' Umlaut seems to be totally productive in connection with diminutive suffix German: -chen, as in German: Skandäl-chen 'little scandal.'
Because of the grammatical importance of such pairs, the German umlaut diacritic was developed, making the phenomenon very visible. The result in German is that the vowels written as (a), (o), and (u) become (ä), (ö), and (ü), and the diphthong (au) pronounced as //aʊ// becomes (äu) pronounced as //ɔʏ//: German: Mann pronounced as /de/ "man" vs. German: Männer pronounced as /de/ "men," German: Fuß pronounced as /de/ "foot" vs. German: Füße pronounced as /de/ "feet," German: Maus pronounced as /de/ "mouse" vs. German: Mäuse pronounced as /de/ "mice."
In various dialects, the umlaut became even more important as a morphological marker of the plural after the apocope of final schwa (German: -e); that rounded front vowels have become unrounded in many dialects does not prevent them from serving as markers of the plural given that they remain distinct from their non-umlauted counterparts (just like in English foot – feet, mouse – mice). The example German: Gast "guest" vs. German: Gäst(e) "guests" served as the model for analogical pairs like German: Tag "day" vs. German: Täg(e) "days" (vs. standard German: Tage) and German: Arm "arm" vs. German: Ärm(e) "arms" (vs. standard German: Arme). Even plural forms like German: Fisch(e) "fish," which had never had a front rounded vowel in the first place, were interpreted as such (i.e., as if from Middle High German **German, Middle High (ca.1050-1500);: füsche) and led to singular forms like German: Fusch pronounced as /de/, which are attested in some dialects.
In Old Saxon, umlaut is much less apparent than in Old Norse. The only vowel that is regularly fronted before an pronounced as //i// or pronounced as //j// is short pronounced as //a//: gast – gesti, slahan – slehis. It must have had a greater effect than the orthography shows since all later dialects have a regular umlaut of both long and short vowels.
Late Old Dutch saw a merger of pronounced as //u// and pronounced as //o//, causing their umlauted results to merge as well, giving pronounced as //ʏ//. The lengthening in open syllables in early Middle Dutch then lengthened and lowered this short pronounced as //ʏ// to long pronounced as //øː// (spelled (eu)) in some words. This is parallel to the lowering of pronounced as //i// in open syllables to pronounced as //eː//, as in Dutch; Flemish: schip ("ship") – Dutch; Flemish: schepen ("ships").
In general, the effects of the Germanic umlaut in plural formation are limited.[24] One of the defining phonological features of Dutch, is the general absence of the I-mutation or secondary umlaut when dealing with long vowels. Unlike English and German, Dutch does not palatalize the long vowels, which are notably absent from the language.[25] Thus, for example, where modern German has German: fühlen pronounced as //ˈfyːlən// and English has feel pronounced as //fiːl// (from Proto-Germanic Germanic languages: fōlijaną), standard Dutch retains a back vowel in the stem in Dutch; Flemish: voelen pronounced as //ˈvulə(n)//. Thus, only two of the original Germanic vowels were affected by umlaut at all in Dutch: pronounced as //a//, which became pronounced as //ɛ//, and pronounced as //u//, which became pronounced as //ʏ// (spelled (u)). As a result of this relatively sparse occurrence of umlaut, standard Dutch does not use umlaut as a grammatical marker. An exception is the noun Dutch; Flemish: stad "city" which has the irregular umlauted plural Dutch; Flemish: steden.
Later developments in Middle Dutch show that long vowels and diphthongs were not affected by umlaut in the more western dialects, including those in western Brabant and Holland that were most influential for standard Dutch. However in what is traditionally called the Cologne Expansion (the spread of certain West German features in the south-easternmost Dutch dialects during the High Medieval period) the more eastern and southeastern dialects of Dutch, including easternmost Brabantian and all of Limburgish have umlaut of long vowels (or in case of Limburgish, all rounded back vowels), however.[26] Consequently, these dialects also make grammatical use of umlaut to form plurals and diminutives, much as most other modern Germanic languages do. Compare Dutch; Flemish: vulen pronounced as //vylə(n)// and Dutch; Flemish: menneke "little man" from Dutch; Flemish: man.
See also: Old Norse morphology.
The situation in Old Norse is complicated as there are two forms of i-mutation. Of these two, only one is phonologized. I-mutation in Old Norse is phonological:
I-mutation is not phonological if the vowel of a long syllable is i-mutated by a syncopated i. I-mutation does not occur in short syllables.
| Original | Mutated | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norse, Old: a | Norse, Old: e (Norse, Old: ę) | Norse, Old: fagr (fair) / Norse, Old: fegrstr (fairest) | |
| Norse, Old: au | Norse, Old: ey | Norse, Old: lauss (loose) / Norse, Old: leysa (to loosen) | |
| Norse, Old: á | Norse, Old: æ | Norse, Old: [[Æsir|Áss / Æsir]] | |
| Norse, Old: o | Norse, Old: ø | Norse, Old: koma (to come) / Norse, Old: kømr (comes) | |
| Norse, Old: ó | Norse, Old: œ | Norse, Old: róa (to row) / Norse, Old: rœr (rows) | |
| Norse, Old: u | Norse, Old: y | Norse, Old: upp (up) / Norse, Old: yppa (to lift up) | |
| Norse, Old: ú | Norse, Old: ý | Norse, Old: fúll (foul) / Norse, Old: fýla (filth) | |
| Norse, Old: jú | Norse, Old: ljúga (to lie) / Norse, Old: lýgr (lies) | ||
| Norse, Old: ǫ | Norse, Old: ø | Norse, Old: sǫkk (sank) / Norse, Old: søkkva (to sink) |