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
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