Distinct Language Group
Grimm's law was a profound sound change that affected all of the stops inherited from Indo-European. The Germanic languages also share common innovations in grammar as well as in phonology, Half of the noun cases featured in what are commonly regarded as the more conservative languages such as Sanskrit, Lithuanian or Slavic languages are missing from Germanic. (However, other Indo-European languages attested much earlier than the Germanic languages, such as Hittite, also have a reduced inventory of noun cases. It is not certain whether Germanic and Hittite have lost them, or whether they never shared in their acquisition.) The Germanic verb has also been extensively remodelled, showing fewer grammatical moods, and markedly fewer inflections for the passive voice.
Read more about this topic: Germanic Substrate Hypothesis
Famous quotes containing the words distinct, language and/or group:
“Nobody of any real culture, for instance, ever talks nowadays about the beauty of sunset. Sunsets are quite old fashioned.... To admire them is a distinct sign of provincialism of temperament. Upon the other hand they go on.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A little group of wilful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)