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 -nþ-. 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
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“Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.”
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