Preface
While reading the book “the Burgundians” in Dutch, I looked up their etymologies of various words I encountered, some words such as “smeken” I realised could be “germanified” into “schmeicheln” not a perfect example since “ln” is a diminutive/iterative marker (a cognate to the len verb marker in Dutch), but nevertheless is related to the Middle High German verb “smeichen”.
The Dutch language is, at its core, a Low Franconian Hollandic dialect with influences from Brabantian and Frisian.
In the case of German, although during the Old High German period there existed a variety of dialects, the core of the German spoken today is the Meißen chancellory dialect. Most of the features in German are Central German; some features, such as the /pf/ sound, are Upper German features.
The Low Franconian dialects, save some dialects of Limburgish (which were affected by the Keulse expansie or Colognian expansion), were not affected by the second consonant shift and as a result still retain many of the Proto West Germanic consonants along with English, Frisian, Low German, etc.
I am stating this because in order to understand how words can be “germanified” or “dutchified”, we have to understand why both languages are the way they are. A large part of what differentiates High German from Dutch (and other low West Germanic languages) is the consonant sounds. There are various frameworks for understanding this, however I will focus mainly on the Uerdinger line. There are other isoglosses, such as the Bernrather line, BUT here‘s the thing, the Dutch language, as opposed to other low Franconian dialects such as Düsseldorfer Platt and Limburgish, exhibits all features of a dialect unaffected by the consonant shift.
Historical course of the Uerdingen and Karlsruher Line till 1945
Credit to (MicBy67)
The diagram above illustrates two lines, the line above is the Uerdingen line which cuts across North Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium, in the regions above the line, /k/ (not as a root initial) is pronounced, however below the line the k becomes /χ/, /ɕ/,/ç/, /ʃ/ in some dialects. The second line below, the Karlsruher line, divides the Upper Franconian dialects from the Alemannic and Bavarian dialects.
The Consonants
| German | Dutch | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Pf /pf/ | P /p/ | Pfanne – Pan, Pferd – Paard |
| F /f/ | P /p/ | greifen – grijpen, auf – op |
| Sch /ʃ/ (1) | S /s/ | schlafen – slapen, schleifen – slijpen |
| Sch /ʃ/ (2) | Z /z/ | Schwach – zwak |
| Sch /ʃ/ (3) | Sch /sx/ | Schiff – Schip |
| Ch /x/ | K /k/ | Ich – ik, machen – maken |
| G /g/ | G /ɣ/ | Gut – Goed |
| ß /s/ | T /t/ | Heißen – heten, beißen – bijten |
| T /t/ | D /d/ | Tag – dag, Teil – deel, Tal – dal |
| B /b/ | V /f/ | geben- geven, heben – heffen |
| ft /ft/ | cht /xt/ | Luft- Lucht, Kraft – Kracht |
| Z /ts/ | T /t/ | Zehn – Tien, Herzog – Hertog, |
| F /f/ | V /v/ | finden – vinden, Fleisch – vlees |
| W /v/ | W /ʋ/ (Root initial) | Wo – Waar, war – was |
Notes
Pf, F, Ch /x/, ß, T, Z /ts/, B (to an extent) are the result of the 2nd High German Consonant shift.
The change from /v/ → /b/ can be attributed to the 2nd High German Consonant shift and the Germanic spirant law, causing some forms of verbs with “b” to have some forms that contain /v/ or /f/ instead, e.g., *habjaną – *haftaz, haben – Haft.
The first two Sch sounds are a result of s̠ becoming /ʃ/ before consonants in Middle High German.
Sch /ʃ/ (1) occurs before consonants.
Sch /ʃ/ (2) occurs before w.
The /x/ and /k/sounds are not root initial, an example is the word for church in German “Kirche”, which corresponds to the Dutch word “Kerk”. Notice how in German it is not “Chirche”, nevertheless, in Alemannic German, root initial /x/ is common, e.g., “Chilche”.
The cht sound is due to velarisation in Middle Dutch.
The V sound is due to the f at the beginning of a word becoming voiced in Middle Dutch (Voicing).
For the ɣ sound, Dutch retains the original Germanic fricative allophone.
In the case of d in words like denken, the dental fricative loss and dental stopping took place
/þ/→/d/
/ð/→/d/
Or /t/ in some cases, e.g., toch,
The loss of the dental fricatives happened in both Dutch and German, but English still preserves them.
Hence why English “think” Or “there” are not denken or “daar” or “da” like in German and Dutch, as English retains the original sounds.
Vowels
The second step is the vowels
| German | Dutch | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| /aɪ̯/ | /e:/ | Bein – been, Stein – steen |
| /aɪ̯/ | /ɛi̯/ | scheinen – schijnen, gleichen – gelijken, schreiben- schrijven |
| /aʊ̯/ | /œy̯/, /o:/ | Haus – Huis, laufen – lopen, Traum – Droom |
| /ɔʏ̯/ | /œy̯/, /i/, /iu̯/, /u:/, /y:/ | heulen – huilen, Leute – Lieden, neu – nieuw, Feuer – vuur, teuer – duur (ɔʏ̯ɐ – yːr) |
The first /aɪ̯/ is the original West Germanic sound, which German has kept.
In Old Dutch, the Germanic/aɪ̯/ became a /e:/, hence why Heim = heem, or Bein = been.
The second /aɪ̯/ is a result of the diphthongisation that took place in Early New High German, similar to that of the great vowel shift in English, where /i:/ gradually became /aɪ/. In the case of Dutch, the /ɛi̯/ (in this case) sound is derived from the Old and Middle Dutch/iː/ sound.
The aʊ̯ sound is also a result of the diphthongisation that took place in Early New High German. The /œy̯/ sound in Dutch evolved from Middle Dutch /uː/.
The ɔʏ̯ sound is another effect of the diphthongisation that took place in Early New High German.
The Early New High German Diphthongisation
Illustration done by the Universität Zürich
More sounds
| German | Dutch | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| al | Ou | Kalt – koud, halten – houden |
| Ont | Ent | Ontwikkeling – Entwicklung |
| Ung | Ing | Zeichnung – tekening |
The ou sound is a result of l becoming vocalised in Middle Dutch
Additional examples
Diminuitive
| German | Dutch | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Chen/lein | tje (there are many variations, e.g., je, pje, kje, etc.) | Häuschen – huisje, Autochen – autootje |
Also
| German | Dutch | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| ehen | aaien | wehen waaien, drehen draaien |
This is not the case for stehen or staan, as the original West Germanic word was *stān.
Additional words and notes
Schmeicheln – smeken
messen – meten
schmeißen – smijten
Tuch – Doek
reiben – wrijven
eiche- eke
Dorf – dorp
Leben – leven
Notes
1. I also noticed that the schwa /ə/ sometimes appears between the letters “K” or “G” (velar plosives) and “L” in Dutch, etymology is also important here.
gleichen – gelijken
gleiten – glijden
In the first example, the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word is *galīkōną and for the second it‘s glīdaną. It appears that Dutch is more conservative in this aspect (where the Proto-Germanic “ga” becomes ge”).
2. The future is formed with werden in German and zullen in Dutch. In older forms of German, like Old High German, an older form of sollen could also be used (Agnes, 2024) to form the periphrastic tense.
3. In some cases, Dutch has a variant of the word in Low German or even English, but lacks a version in High German, which could be due to the word no longer existing in modern High German.
4. Also, Dutch has a high amount of French borrowings, borrowings which may not have a variant in High German (German also has numerous French borrowings) or which may sound completely different. In some cases, Dutch also has borrowings from older versions of High German.
5. Moreover, there are also sounds here that I have not covered or that may be somewhat impossible to cover. An example is the Dutch sound /ø/, which has several variants in German /yː/, /eː/, /uː/, /ʊ/.
6. Even when deciphered, the words may have different meanings, similar to false friends.
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