West Germanic gemination is a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages, around 300 AD. All single consonants except /r/ (original or from earlier /z/) were geminated (doubled) before /j/. The second element of the diphthongs iu and au was still underlyingly /w/ at this time and therefore was still considered a consonant, so it was geminated as well. Similar changes occurred in the history of Old Norse, but was much more limited, applying only to /k/ and /ɡ/.
The change affected only words with a short root vowel followed by a single consonant, as those with long vowels or with more than one consonant following the root vowel never contained /j/ after the ending consonant; /j/ had already been lengthened to /ij/ in these words through a rule known as Sievers' law. Following the gemination, all word stems that ended in /j/ (except those ending in -r) were now heavy. This set the stage for the later loss of /j/ following heavy syllables in the individual West Germanic languages.
This change particularly affected the infinitives of the first conjugation of weak verbs, which ended in /(i)jɑnɑ̃/, and also the short-stemmed ja(n)- and jō(n)-stem nouns and adjectives. By historical times (c. 800-900 AD), all of the West Germanic languages except Old Saxon had dropped the /j/ in these words, but not before it /j/ had triggered i-Mutation, as well as palatalization in Old English and Old Frisian.
Examples:
| Proto-Germanic | Gothic | Old Norse | Old High German | Old Saxon | Old English | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| hugjanaN | hugjan | hyggja | huggen | huggian | hycgan | "to think" (gemination also in ON) |
| bidjanaN | bidjan | biðja | bitten | biddian | biddan | "to ask" |
| hlahjanaN | hlahjan | hlæja (h lost in ON) | lahhan | hlahhian | hlæhhan | "to laugh" |
| wandijanaN | wandjan | venda | wenten | wendian | wendan | "to turn" (no gemination before -ij-) |
| hailijanaN | hailjan | heila | heilen | hēlian | hǣlan | "to heal" (no gemination before -ij-) |
| farjanaN | farjan | ferja | ferien | ferian | ferian | "to carry" (no gemination of r) |
| nazjanaN | nasjan | - | nerien | nerian | nerian | "to heal" (no gemination of r from z) |
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Famous quotes containing the word west:
“To have a place full of delights and nothing but delights, which one does not have to explain and defend to people who have ideas unsympathetic to one, it is to economize the forces which keep one from ending like the wisteria, from committing the unpardonable sin of doing things with difficulty.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)