Jacob Grimm was a German philologist who, working alongside his brother Wilhelm, established the comparative method as a rigorous tool for reconstructing the history of the Germanic languages. His Deutsche Grammatik set out what became known as Grimm's Law, a systematic set of consonant shifts distinguishing the Germanic branch of Indo-European from its sister branches, giving the comparative method one of its first and most famous demonstrations that sound change is regular rather than arbitrary. He and Wilhelm are also widely known outside linguistics as collectors of the fairy tales that bear their name, work that grew from the same philological interest in the German language's oldest recoverable forms.
Facts
RoleLinguist, Formulator Of Grimm's Law 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Deutsche GrammatikJacob Grimm
Source Deutsche GrammatikJacob Grimm
Wilhelm Grimm, Linguists Brothers and joint compilers of the Deutsches Worterbuch, begun in 1838.
Source Deutsches WorterbuchJacob Grimm And Wilhelm Grimm
Influenced
Verner's law resolved the exceptions Grimm's law left unexplained.
Source Wikipedia: Grimm's Law
Influenced By
Rask's 1818 consonant correspondences preceded and underlay Jacob Grimm's 1822 formal statement of what became known as Grimm's Law.
Source Wikipedia: Rasmus Rask
Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nationality, Jacob Grimm entity pageQuote, Nationality, Jacob Grimm entity page
Jacob Grimm was a German philologist who, working alongside his brother Wilhelm, established the comparative method as a rigorous tool for reconstructing the history of the Germanic languages.
Deutsche Grammatik
Jacob Grimm, 1822- Associated With: German
- Associated With: Indo-European
Wikipedia: Rasmus Rask
Deutsches Worterbuch
Jacob Grimm And Wilhelm Grimm, 1838Associated With: Wilhelm Grimm, Lead sectionQuote, Associated With: Wilhelm Grimm, Lead section
The Deutsches Worterbuch was begun by the Brothers Grimm in 1838.
Wikipedia: Grimm's Law
Wikimedia FoundationInfluenced: Karl Verner, Exceptions and refinements sectionQuote, Influenced: Karl Verner, Exceptions and refinements section
These exceptions defied linguists for several decades, until Danish linguist Karl Verner explained them in Verner's law.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Grimm's Law?
A systematic set of consonant shifts distinguishing Germanic languages from other Indo-European branches, one of the first proofs that sound change is regular.
The name given to the systematic set of consonant shifts, set out in Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Grammatik, that distinguishes the Germanic branch of Indo-European from its sister branches. It gave the comparative method one of its first and most famous demonstrations that sound change is regular rather than arbitrary, and Grimm developed it working alongside his brother Wilhelm, the same partnership that produced their better-known fairy tale collections.
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