English and German are two Germanic languages and therefore share many of the same characteristics, which include the words themselves. Many of these words are cognates, words in related languages that have a common ancestor. However, High German underwent some consonant shifts (van der Wal and Quak 90), which affected the following sounds: /p/, /t/, and /k/ as well as /b/, /d/, /g/.
The Front Sounds
The Front Sounds are pronounced in the front part of the mouth, more specifically with both lips (bilabial) or with one set of teeth touching the opposite lip (labiodental). The sounds discussed here are /p/, /b/, /f/ and /v/.
Let's start with the English sound /p/, which in German can be one of two different sounds, depending on where the sound lies. If /p/ is at the beginning of the word, it is /pf/ in German.
(Note: For each Old English and German cognate pair in each chart, there is also a sound file. Clicking either word in the pair will open the sound file with both cognates; the Old English word comes first then the German cognate.)
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| path | pæð | Pfad |
| penny | pening | Pfennig |
| pound | pund | Pfund |
| pepper | pipor | Pfeffer |
However, if the sound /p/ occurs in the middle or at the end of the word, the German sound will be /f/ (sometimes spelled <ff>).
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| pepper | pipor | Pfeffer |
| leap | hlēapan | laufen |
| up | up | auf |
| deep | dēop | tief |
The English sound [v], when occurring between vowels, is very often /b/ in German.
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| give | giefan | geben |
| seven | seofon | sieben |
| thieves | þēofas | Diebe |
The sound [v], however, showed up as an [f] at the ends of words such as thief (OE þēof) and actually fits into the previous chart; the /b/ in the German word Dieb is pronounced [p]. This plural ending in Old English had a full vowel (þēofas), and the /f/ was pronounced as [v] between the vowels. Nowadays it is even written as <v>, e.g. thief-thieves, even though the vowel in the plural ending was dropped. Other English words that exhibit this "change" include leaf (plural leaves) and life (plural lives).
The Middle Sounds
The Middle Sounds are those pronounced at, between or near the teeth and are called dental and alveolar consonants. This guide will discuss /t/, /d/, /θ/ and /ð/. The last two sounds are represetned in English writing by <th>.
Let's start with the sound /t/ in English, which much like /p/ can assume one of two forms in German depending on the placement of the sound in the word. /t/ at the beginning of a word or after a consonant corresponds to /ts/ in German, which is represented usually by the letter <z> or sometimes by <tz>. Double /t/ in Old English also corresponds to /ts/ in German.
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| two | twā, twēgen1 | zwei |
| timber | timbor | Zimmer |
| salt | sealt | Salz |
| heart | heorte | Herz |
| sit | sittan | sitzen |
1The number 'two' in Old English had endings for gender and case. There were even more forms but due to a lack of space they are not provided.
If a single /t/ occurs in the middle of a word, it is a hard /s/ in High German.
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| bite | bītan | beissen |
| eat | etan | essen |
| 'meet' (measure) |
metan | messen |
The final sound in this group is the "th" sound, represented in IPA by both /θ/ and /ð/. (English uses the same letter combination for both sounds, e.g., thick and this, respectively.) German, as well as all of the other the Germanic languages, had this sound, but most of the languages lost it along the way. In the case of German the "th" sound became /d/, which by the Middle High German period was pronounced [t] at the end of a word.
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| think | þencean | denken |
| three | þrīe | drei |
| this | þis | dies- |
| thou (you sing.) |
þū | du |
| leather | leðer | Leder |
| path | pæð | Pfad |
The Back Sounds
The back (velar and palatal) sounds, which include /k/, /x/ and /ç/, are harder to generalize as both languages have undergone changes in which sounds were simply lost. However, one correspondence that can be highlighted is that of English /k/ to German [x] or [ç]. (The German sound depends on the vowel that precedes this sound: After [a], [o] and [u], the sound is [x], e.g. Bach, after all other vowels and the consonants /r/ and /l/ the sound is [ç], e.g. Brecht.)
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| make | macian | machen |
| break | brecan | brechen |
| book | bōc | Buch |
Back in the day, English actually had the sound /x/, represented by <h>. It occurred especially before word-final /t/ and showed up in some of the mixed weak past participles. The sound eventually disappeared from most dialects of English.
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| brought | brōht | gebracht |
| thought | þōht | gedacht |
| right | riht | recht |
Finally, the back sound /g/ in English became /w/ before [o]. However, as vowels in endings were neutralized, i.e. became "uh", and then were dropped, the [ow] combination was realized as the diphthong [ou]. Words such as throw and blow are not included as the original stem vowel was <ā>: þrāwan and blāwan. The pronunciation of these vowels shifted at a later time, during a large-scale change called the "Great Vowel Shift" (external link).
| English | Old English | German |
|---|---|---|
| flown | flogen | geflogen |
| bow | boga2 | Bogen |
2Interestingly, the same development is happening in Faroese, a language akin to Icelandic. The <g> in the Faroese word boga is pronounced [w]; the spelling has yet to catch up with this change.
(Information from van der Wal and Quak 90f. with some cognates provided by Chantrell and CMR)
Exercises and Activities
(Exercises open in a new window)
Previous: Home || Next: Present Tense
