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A History of English: Volume I: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (A Linguistic History of English) (v. 1)

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When Oxford University Press launched their multi-volume "A Linguistic History of English", they started from the very beginning. This first volume, written by Don Ringe, is titled FROM PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN TO PROTO-GERMANIC, and covers over its four hundred pages two reconstructable ancestors of English. While the series as a whole may interest a different crowd or crowds, this first volume is a major event for Indo-Europeanists. Ringe presents a complete view of Proto-Indo-European according to the current consensus of scholars, surpassing the other, more dated handbooks on the market.

Ringe has been greatly inspired by the work of the late Warren Cowgill, and in many respects his view of Proto-Indo-European is like that of Sihler in his New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin. Ringe believes Anatolian split off early, and the other early IE families are descended from a "North IE" branch, which he focuses on in this work. This allows him to present the verb system as it is easily reconstructible from the bulk of the early IE languages without having to complicate the issue with the very different Anatolian verb. The entire first half of the book is dedicated to a contemporary reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European. All the recently discovered etymologies are here, such as the verb "to listen" being a compound "(s)he is sharp-eared".

In the second half, Ringe exhaustively describes how PIE changed over time into Proto-Germanic, describing the major sound laws and seismic shifts in the verbal system. The new inflectional classes that arose are given in detail. Finally, Ringe takes a synchronic look at Proto-Germanic, comparing its phonological inventory to that of other languages, and conjecturing what allophones each phoneme may have had. I do wish there were more on the Proto-Germanic lexicon than the page and a half here, and this is my only real complaint about the book.

Ringe has maintained correspondence with today's other eminent Indo-Europeanists, and his book includes a number of ideas which, though hitherto unavailable in print, have been floating around in e-mails for some time. Also, though Ringe generally sticks to the consensus view in his reconstructions, he occasionally expresses his own opinions on matters, and these are often thought-provoking. For example, for the ancestor of English "bear (animal)", Ringe would posit PIE *gwer "wild animal" (cf. Gr. ther, Latin ferus) instead of the usual conjecture that it is from a tabooistic circumlocution meaning "the brown one".

If you are new to comparative Indo-European linguistics, this work will probably be hard going. I'd recommend Lehmann's Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics for a friendly introduction. And those looking for a history of English that includes Proto-Indo-European, but not to the level of detail that Ringe gives, try Roger Lass' concise Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion. Nonetheless, if you have experience in the field of IE linguistics and like to keep up with the most recent developments, Ringe's book is something you must seek out.

Ringe, professor of linguistics at U Penn., has achieved in the 300 pages of main text a welcome, lucid and compact examination (considering the complexities of the subject) of the development of Proto-Germanic (PG) from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The first volume in the projected Linguistic History of English, Ringe's work launches the series quite effectively. Significantly influenced by the work of the late Warren Cowgill of Yale, Ringe offers a synthesis of contemporary understandings and well-supported reconstructions, notably in the areas of PIE and PG accent, nominal inflection and ablaut, verbal aspect, and details of some 40 phonological changes underlying these (particularly the eventual elimination of laryngeals) in the emergence of PG. More precisely, Ringe distinguishes between PIE proper, which includes Anatolian, principally represented by Hittite, and (North) Indo-European, which includes the outlier Tocharian. The general linguistics audience is well served by this book in seeking to identify the consensus views on PIE and PG. Where Ringe suggests any steps away from the mainstream, he explains his thinking with carefully reasoned and well-supported speculation; for me these instances constitute some of the most intriguing parts of his book. While acknowledging the lack of a current etymological dictionary of PIE, Ringe supplies a base PIE vocabulary of several hundred items with which to illustrate this diachronic study. Roughly the first quarter of the book treats PIE, leaving the remaining three-quarters to address PG specifically. In his introduction Ringe notes he presupposes a fair amount of prior linguistic knowledge "in order to keep the work within reasonable bounds": a basic grounding in modern linguistics, a general knowledge of phonology, morphology and traditional historical linguistics, and some familiarity with at least one older PIE language. He also notes that due to space constraints he does not "cite full evidence for the standard reconstructions offered here," directing interested readers to other texts which can supply ample documentation. Not surprisingly, a respect for established phonological law underpins his text and its examples: "since investigation of historically documented languages shows that sound change is overwhelmingly regular in statistical terms, it is a serious breach of the uniformitarian principle not to assume the same for prehistory." A somewhat less expensive paperback is due to be published early in 09. Till then, your neighborhood university or interlibrary loan is your best friend, unless you specialize in PIE studies and decide this is a must-have. Rein in that hopeless book lust till you're sure.

"Therefore, something must be wrong with the Germanic Consonant Shift. That wrong thing cannot possibly be sought at the Germanic end because the phonetic equation (Lat `pater'= Goth. Fadar, Lat tria=Goth prija, Lat. Card=Goth hairt etc. etc.) that led to the conception of Grimm's Law in the first place are unimpeachable. We have to conduct our investigation at the Proto-Aryan (P-A) end (Gessman 1990, p. 6)."

"It can be safely assumed that these migrating tribes did not represent large armies who overwhelmed the original inhabitants by the sheer force of their numbers but were smallish bands who conquered their new homes by their superiority in battle. Those original inhabitants--undoubtedly greatly superior in numbers--saw themselves forced to learn the respective languages (or still dialects of the Aryan conquerors. It is difficult to see how one can doubt that these substrata modified the newly acquired languages, and it stands to reason to assume that influences from vastly different substrata were one of the main causes for the conspicuous differentiation of the Aryan languages in even their most ancient known forms (Gessman 1990, p. 10)."

"Whichever the development may have been, we can see one thing clearly. Grimm's Law, the `Germanic Consonant Shift," has evaporated. The Proto-Aryan basis on which it had been predicated has vanished (Gessman 1990, p.12)."

Gessman, A. M. (1990). Grimm's law: fact of myth. Language Quarterly, 28:3-4, pp. 2-16.

"We (Caflisch) can agree with G (Gessman 1990) that the aspirated segments cannot be found in other branches, but that Dravidian languages even today in central and southern India have them; and some of these, e.g. Kannada, have retroflexed T-series [t, d, n], etc. After all, perhaps the vaunted romanticism of the Leipzig linguists should have included retroflex ion in their scheme for the I.E. segment inventory, but they did not. Connected with G's eight point (6) is the discussion relevant to possible vs. impossible phonological paradigmata.
The ninth point suggests a * P. I.E. (= G's "Proto-Aryan") pharyngeal series in the segment matrix; however I (Caflisch) claim a glottal zed series proposed also by other scholars such as A. R. Bomhard (1977), P. Hopper (1977), T. V. Gamkreldize (1975), and L. Hammerich (1967). One reason for glottalization is rather simple: it can apply only to voiceless segments which will mean that we can conveniently ||p|| on both physiological and typological grounds.
Also assumed under the rubric of this ninth point is G's long-held opinion that the substratum contamination (I prefer to call it cross-contamination or bilateral contamination) between *P. I.E. and *P. S. (Proto-Semitic) was most assuredly in force. In this connection Levin (1971) ought to be consulted and taken seriously. Could Hittite have been a quasi "buffer" culture between *I.E. (Hittite, despite G's claims about its amalgam status, continues to be recognized as *I.E. in structure.) and Semitic? After, all, Slavs were used by the Roman empire as a buffer culture (a "shock strip") between the latter and the threatening eastern nomadic tribes (Caflisch 1990, p. 19)."
"I (Caflisch) agree with G that, most assuredly. Languages are very easily contaminated through contacts, and even half-hearted acculturation (a kind of "passive acculturation" where speakers lack full motivation to assimilate within a cultural base) within G's substratum and superstratum complexes allows for it to lesser degree (Caflisch 1990, p.21)."
"In summarizing Gessman's article, I (Caflisch) point to several ideas which are indeed crucial to his arguments. Fist G, makes the bold claim against the interpretation of any cycle in Grimm's Law, without dismissing the actual linear changes that have occurred. G's longstanding theory of superstrata, adstrata, and substrata in language contacts and their subsequent tendencies toward contamination phenomena is indeed well taken here (Caflisch 1990, p. 24)."

Caflisch, J., Sr. (1990). Grimm's law revisited: a case for natural, typological phonology. Language Quarterly, 28 (3-4), pp. 17-28).