Editing German language (section)

==Consonant shifts==
{{further|High German consonant shift}}

German does not have any [[dental fricative]]s (the category containing English {{vr|th}}). All of the {{vr|th}} sounds, which the English language still has, disappeared on the continent in German with the consonant shifts between the 8th and 10th centuries.<ref>For a history of the changes in German consonants see {{harvp|Cercignani|1979}}.</ref> It is sometimes possible to find parallels between English and German by replacing the English {{vr|th}} with {{vr|d}} in German, e.g. "thank" → {{lang|de|Dank}}, "this" and "that" → {{lang|de|dies}} and {{lang|de|das}}, "[[thou]]" (old 2nd person singular pronoun) → {{lang|de|du}}, "think" → {{lang|de|denken}}, "thirsty" → {{lang|de|durstig}}, etc.

Likewise, the {{vr|gh}} in [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] English words, pronounced in several different ways in modern English (as an {{vr|f}} or not at all), can often be linked to German {{vr|ch}}, e.g. "to laugh" → {{lang|de|lachen}}, "through" → {{lang|de|durch}}, "high" → {{lang|de|hoch}}, "naught" → {{lang|de|nichts}}, "light" → {{lang|de|leicht}} or {{lang|de|Licht}}, "sight" → {{lang|de|Sicht}}, "daughter" → {{lang|de|Tochter}}, "neighbour" → {{lang|de|Nachbar}}. This is due to the fact that English {{vr|gh}} was historically pronounced in the same way as German {{vr|ch}} (as {{IPA|/x/}} and {{IPA|/ç/}} in an allophonic relationship, or potentially as {{IPA|/x/}} in all circumstances as in modern Dutch) with these word pairs originally (up until around the mid to late 16th century) sounding far more similar than they do today.