Chronology and history of Germanic Consonant Shift

[petegray]

> Prokosch, in his Comparative Germanic Grammar (Secs 16-24), lays out
> a linguistic and historical chronology of the Germanic Consonant shift,
> stating (. 56) that "it began several centuries B.C. and ended about 500
> A.D."  ... Where could I find current discussion of this and the more
> general chronology of early Germanic?

There has been some discussion of this earlier in one of the language
lists - about a year ago, I think.   You might be able to find it on the
'net somewhere.

Some confusion might be around because the Germanic sound changes a re a
complex of different phenomena, not all of which were completed before the
different languages separated.   Some of the later changes were still being
worked out (e.g in Middle Frankish) as late as the 10th century AD.

As for the first sound shift, I'm not up to date with the most recent stuff,
but I quote the following from the dtv-Atlas:

   "For the date of the 1st sound shift, we can use the word Hanf, which
comes from the Greek word kannabis.  This word is a loan word out of
Scythian, which did not enter Greek till the 5th century BC.  In Germanic we
meet the word in its shifted form *hanap-.  Since Germanic could not have
borrowed this word very early, we can assert that at this time the rules *k
> h and *b > p were still in force.  But it does not tell us how long this
rule had existed.  That it no longer was in force in the 3rd and 2nd
centuries before Christ can be concluded from loan words from Latin, none of
which have shifted forms.  (The first contact of Germans with Romans as in
this period.)"

Walker-Chambers supports this.  He says:  "It is estimated that the First
Sound Shift was completed by c 500BC;  but we only know that it was finished
before the Germanic peoples established contact with the Romans in the1st
century BC, since none of the words borrowed from Latin were affected by
it."

Hope that helps.

Peter