English and German are both Germanic languages. They have a common ancestral language, Proto-Germanic. As a result, it's not surprising that there are many similarities between them. In a number of words an English t corresponds to a German z.
Here are examples of English words with a t and German words with a z:
heart Herz
heat Hitze
salt Salz
ten Zehn
time Zeit
toe Zeh
tongue Zunge
twenty Zwanzig
two Zwei
wheat Weizen
The number of words in which an English t corresponds to a German z indicates that the two languages are related. In Proto-Germanic these words were the same. Historical linguists believe that the German z of these words developed from the t which is still preserved in English.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Featured Post
Finding the Proto-Form
Related languages have a number of words which are similar to one another. In the branch of linguistics known as historical linguistics, the...
-
The opera Turandot features an Asian princess who many men wish to marry. However, if they wish to do so, they must answer three riddles c...
-
Most English compound nouns are endocentric. This means that the central meaning of the compound is carried by the head. The head of English...
-
All English sentences can be classified as canonical and non-canonical clauses. Canonical clauses are the most basic sentences we can constr...
No comments:
Post a Comment