The

Neogrammarians

Contents

I Introduction................................................... .................................1

II Literature review.................................................... .........................2

III Analysis and results................................................................... ......7

IV Conclusion.................................................. .................................9

V Bibliography....................................................... .........................10

I Introduction
During the 19th century a new perception of linguistic study was born in which language
was conceived as an organized system. The comparative studies among languages developed into
more scientific studies in which regularities were sought with the purpose of the reconstruction
of the Proto-Indo-European language; linguistics studies focused now on the language itself and
were now free from philosophical speculation. Probably the most significant linguists during the
19th were the Neogrammarians.
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It is important to understand the influence of Darwinism, and earlier, empiricism and

rationalism brought to the study of sciences. In most sciences hypothesis were exempted from
speculation and observation began to be employed as the only valid method to draw conclusions.
In the subject of linguistics a greater importance is given to the form, its changes and the reason
of these in relation to other languages.
It is also relevant to recognize that most scholars who concentrated on this particular
branch of scientific studies were Germans, or Europeans educated in Germany. That is why some
linguists restrained their studies on the German language. However, an interest on other Indo-
European languages grew gradually.
“Neogrammarian” is the translation of the term “Junggrammatiker” that means “young
grammarian” this does not mean that their theories were “new” (neo-) but that they were
achieved by “young linguists”. The term Neogrammarian is normally applied to all linguists in
this period who claimed sound laws had no exception. Following these criteria the number of
Neogrammarians is much larger than the one usually expected making it more difficult to gather
the objectives of the Neogrammarians. Consequently, sometimes by addressing “the
Neogrammarians” we can be referring to different authors that in fact did not share the same
theories. Moreover, there are four linguists often referred to as the “original group” Karl
Bruggmann (1849-1919), Ausgust Leskien (1840-1916), Hermann Osthoff (1847-1909) and
Berthold Delbrück (1842-1922) that have made a greater difference among most of the
Neogrammarians.
The essay will concentrate will discuss the main points concerning the position of the
Neogrammarians in the history of linguistics, in general, rather than to a specific group. First, I
will analyze the significance of the subject during this period. Then, I will discuss the main ideas
of their most recognized work: “the sound laws”. After that, I will point out some of the critiques
they received. Finally, I will personally analyzed the topic and give my opinion.

II Literature review
When it comes to linguistics studies it is not easy to state who was the first to develop a
linguistic theory. Given that in the process of elaborating linguistic theories is necessary to make
a rigorous study of what has been written before in order to integrate every aspect already
covered and also include the new attributes of our own perception of language.
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As remarked above, the apparition of the Neogrammarians during 19 th century did not
only change the traditional conception of language but also inspired later linguists in their
theories. It is curious though, that despite the fact that many linguists during this period were
called Neogrammarians not much has been written about them. In fact, it is frequently common,
when referring to them, to talk about their sound law and indicate the critiques they received
simultaneously. Whereas, perhaps, when mentioning other linguists, previous or posterior, such
as Humboldt, Jones or Saussure we hear a great amount of their theories but little about their
flaws. But if the Neogrammarians had a considerable impact on the development of later
linguistics, such as in the Structuralism1 and their sound laws opened widely the scientific
approach to language, then why are they not credited as much as other influent linguists like
Saussure?
Jankowsky (1972) wrote a re-evaluation of the Neogrammarians work in which he
studied and contrasted their predecessors and successors; for example, the differences between
Neogrammarism and Neolinguistics:
“The Neolinguists believe in the identity of grammatical and non-grammatical items in
languages, the Neogrammarians do not. The methodological conclusion to be derived
from this difference of outlook motivates the empirical approach to language analysis in
the case of the Neogrammarians, the idealistic approach in the case of the Neolinguists.
(p. 228)
However, the so called “sound law” which has not only been seriously criticized but also
often and unfairly considered their only linguistic contribution, is mention in almost every
historical linguistic book related to this period; this theory aimed to explain the sound rules
through which language changed throughout history.
This attempt began in the early 19th century and it is difficult to find its pioneer since
there were many linguists who explored the subject and that is why there are many different
theories and many different sound laws: Grimm’s law2 shows that the classical voiceless stops
(k,t,p) became voiceless aspirates (h,th,f ) in English and mediae (h,d,f ) in German; Clackson

1Structuralism was an intellectual movement that appeared in the 20th century and it concentrated more on human
sciences such as anthropology and sociology.

2 “Grimm’s law” The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007 on Infoplease.
“http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0821874.html”
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(2007) compared, “Verner’s law shows intervocalic voiceless fricatives become voiced unless
preceded by the accent (a corollary to Grimm’s law); Brugmann’s shows *o >ā in open syllables;
Osthoff’s shows ṽRC > vRC (long vowel before *i *u *r *l *m *n and consonant is shortened)”
(p. 32)
It seems relevant to note that as it was not possible to get an exact recreation of sounds
most of these were guessed; According to Clackson (2007), “it is important to stress that the
reconstructed phonemes are slightly different entities from phonemes of attested languages” (p.
33).
These rules are often questioned by linguists to find out whether they are applicable or
not; this will be discussed later in the analysis of this essay. Some Neogrammarians admitted
certain exceptions like Bopp and Grimm. Schleicher included some as etymological evidence. In
relation to Verner’s law it has been observed, “It showed that a large number of apparent
exceptions to the Germanic sound shift as formulated by Grimm could be systematically stages
of the Indo-European family,” (Robins, 1967, p. 184), also, Verner’s declared that there were no
exceptions in sound rules, the only question was to figure out all them. Furthermore, Osthoff and
Bruggmann commented in a linguistic magazine, “All sound changes, as mechanical processes,
take place according to laws that admit no exceptions” (Robins, 1967, 182-183)
Robins (1967) suggested, “it was now clear that the existence of comparative and
historical linguistics as a science rested on the assumption of regularity of sound change” (p.
183).
It is important to know that not all the Neogrammarians concentrated on the same
languages. For example Osthoff and Brugmann did not consider that a study was valid if that was
only based on classical languages. They sustained that in order to get to a reconstruction of the
language it was necessary to start off by the contemporary languages. This outlook was shared
earlier by Leibniz but also denied by many others especially applied to historical linguistics. This
can maybe lead to problems when trying to apply the laws to different languages. Some even
suggested that it would be possible to practice them in all languages.
Given that they analyzed different languages and carry out different procedures, they also
perceived language in different ways. While Humboldt, Schleicher and later Saussure thought of
language as a vivid organism that grew and decay and that was above the individual, Osthoff and
Brugmann recognized it as an ordered organism that did not exist beyond the individual; and that
linguistic changes were originated from the individuals as speech habits. Furthermore, they
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argued that the same characteristics for the production of language present today existed since
early history.
The original group of Neogrammarians recognized many different types of sound change:
conditioned, unconditioned, regular and sporadic; this last one was later excluded from their
study since it represented a problem as to demonstrate the infallibility of the sound change. They
also identified changes by: assimilation, dissimilation, lenition, fortition, epenthesis, and
metathesis3. Some examples and some problems related to these will be later analyzed.
There were considered to be different types of connections that lead to similarities between
languages (see footnote 3): borrowing; typology; accident; inherited similarities from a common
origin (genetic relationship):
a) Borrowing – words may be freely borrowed, and this may give the superficial
appearance of great similarity between languages.
b) Typology – some languages share similar grammatical traits even if they are widely
separated (e.g. Quechua and Turkish are both Subject Object Verb (SOV) languages.
c) Accident – sporadic similarities, e.g. English /dog/ and Mbabaram (Cape York,
Australia) /dog/, both meaning ‘dog’. Latter is not a loan but a regular development
from earlier /gudaga/.
d) Genetic relationship – similarities have been inherited from a common origin.
The Neogrammarians were mostly interested in the last of these factors because they
searched the origin of the Proto Indo-European-language. As Jankowsky (1972) indicates,
“Leskien, for instance, felt justified to claim that Latvian could be transferred into Lithuanian
with the help of a few sound laws” (p.129). From this it can be deduced that the
Neogrammarians believed in the reconstruction of the language. They considered the spoken
language more valid as to get to reconstruct languages. Paul Hermann, for whom linguistics was
a historical discipline not a natural science, related the individual speaker to origin of language
change and pointed that the idiolect was a much more profitable source than dialects to
reconstruct languages. The idiolect is understood by the way the individual speaks which varies
from individual to individual. In fact, Hermann wished it to be possible to study all idiolects as
he believed than analyzing all these could lead to the reconstruction of the language.

3Jones, M, J (2005) Historical linguistics: Sound change and reconstruction week 2: The Neogrammarian view of
sound change. Retrieved May 30, 2008, from http://kiri.ling.cam.ac.uk/mark/HistLing2.pdf
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This literature review suggests the following questions: could it ever be practicable to
study all idiolects? And if so, would it assure the reconstruction the Proto-Indo-European
language?
While most linguists on the field of historical language relations paid most attention to
the written language, it is remarkable that the Neogrammarians focused on the everyday spoken
language, because as empirical linguists they studied what they considered to be the most
concrete element of language: “the sound”; consequently they worked on the concept of idiolect.
The Neogrammarians asserted that idiolects are the only linguistic realities, whereas languages
(e.g. the English language) are abstract concepts. Nonetheless, they mentioned that the languages
had a real important function which made them essential that was to unify all idiolects so that a
larger geographic area can be able to communicate without greater problems.
The Neogrammarians had, indeed, a very important place in linguistic studies. They
encouraged the approach to linguistic science, they also influenced all contemporaries and of
course they had a significant impact on later linguists. This is not to deny they received a lot of
critiques from their contemporaries, some of them also Neogrammarians, and naturally from
later linguists such as Saussure.
The sound laws have been conceived as easy explanations for unknown linguistic
etymology that abnegated the existence of a spiritual character in the language. The dialectal
approaches the Neogrammarians have been generally disapproved by dialectologists and
geography linguists like Gilliéron, for example, who wrote a book titled: On the sound law;
against the Neogrammarians. Another reason why these criticized the Neogrammarians was
because they believed in the importance of “etymological individuality” while the
Neogrammarians stressed the “phonetic uniformity” which supposed the rejection of the “history
of the word” which was the most important contribution made by the geography linguists: the
argument held was that when a word (linguistic item) was used in a community, it carried
properties which were lost in written language. In a way this can be related to the
Neogrammarians thought since they also thought written language lost many of its peculiarities
in respect to spoken language.
In addition to the geography linguistics, there were the Neolinguists a group of Italian
linguists that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century recognized, as indicated before, the
existence of non-grammatical items in the language. This was a more spiritual conception of
language, whereas the original group of Neogrammarians considered language as a purely
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scientific organism that admitted no supra-individual elements, due to the fact that language
existed only in the speech community.
As to the original group some critics declare that they did not formulated anything new,
but rather all their theories were a revision of previous linguistic studies. It does not seem simply
assure at once what were the principal contributions of the main group, that is why this element
will be discussed in the following part of the analysis.

III Analysis and results

It is very difficult to elaborate linguistic hypothesis. In order to do so a large amount of
research is required. Therefore, the analysis drawn in this essay may even result vague at some
occasions given that my review has scarcely covered the subject of study concerning the
Neogrammarians.
At the begging of my literature review, it was asked whether the Neogrammarians have
been fairly considered in the history of linguistic studies in respect to other very influential
linguists such as Saussure. In my opinion, little has been reviewed about them outside their
context, because it is difficult to find information written in many languages; most of what is
related to the Neogrammarians was written in German; but why? It is a fact that during the 19 th
century Germany was the house for many language scholars and also most studies were made in
the German language. What’s more although many moved abroad, they continued their studies in
German, as well as a considerable number of non-German scholars moved to Germany to study
linguistics. So it could be said Germany concentrated the new perception of language related to
natural and exact sciences.
The question now is why it did not spread as widely, as later linguistic moves, like for
example Structuralism, which had a broader extension around Europe and America. One possible
reason might be that there was a general disbelief towards their work: some objected the
abnegation of unknown non-grammatical elements in the language, like the Neolinguists; others,
like the geography linguists, argued that they denied relevant etymological evidence to the “word
history”. So it could be said that they were not credited as much as they probably should have.
If we take a look at Saussure’s work it is not very complicated to see that much of it is
owed to the Neogrammarians: Saussure’s famous dichotomy of “language and speech” can be
related to Neogrammarians conception of idiolect as the real linguistic item and language as an
abstract item that unified all idiolects; observations of synchronic and diachronic aspects of the
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language had been made by the Neogrammarians before Saussure defined those two terms.
Indeed, his work owes a lot to the insistence of the Neogrammarians in the sound laws.
On the other hand, it can be argued that the Neogrammarians study was only focused on
sounds and the interaction of these by the speaker. If we were to compare Neogrammarism with
Structuralism we would clearly see this last one took in a wider field of study: Structuralism
examined phonology and also “syntax” (functions of words) a subject not explored by
Neogrammarians. So this could be another possibility that explains why the Structuralism
movement had a bigger importance than the Neogrammarian period.
In relation to the sound law, it is very difficult to apply their rules to see whether they
work or not. Many specialists have concluded that they do work but as a result of the big number
of exceptions they could never explain the reconstruction of the Proto-Germanic-language. So
perhaps, if we analyzed some words from different linguistic varieties we could find out these
rules work, but it would take us such a long time to develop a complete reconstruction that
before we can conclude it language would have already change. Let us take as an example
“epenthesis” a sound rule by which a phoneme (vowel or consonant) is added in order to
facilitate the pronunciation of a certain word, for example: in the word “escrito” in Spanish there
is an addition of the vowel “e” because in Latin the word “scrittum”, from which derived the
Spanish, there is no “e” at the beginning; but the English equivalent “script” makes no
addition. And this can be extended to certain words like “escuela”, “schola” “school”. These
rules work by analogy but of course, it would be very hard, if not impossible to practice them all.
And it is important to remember that many exceptions to these rules have been found.
Moreover, the Neogrammarians pointed out the individual caused the origin of the sound
change, therefore studying idiolects would ease to create sound laws and if all idiolects could be
studied, as Hermann hoped, maybe then it would be possible to get to the reconstruction of the
Proto-Germanic language. They also said that language existed only in the individual, and that it
was an ordered organism. If we analyzed this idea carefully, we could find some contradictions.
How? If sound changes are utterly regular then it might be said that the one who produces them
is too utterly regular. If that was true, then not only with the sound laws could we reconstruct
language but we could also anticipate future changes. Unless we give the individual the
possibility of developing new sound changes in their own idiolects, since it is true that the
Neogrammarians suggested that individuals were not conscious about these changes. Then all
new changes would make it impossible to anticipate future changes. But also, if all idiolects were
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studied and all rules were formulated then the way to find the reconstruction along the history of
language should be made from a certain point backwards, not integrate more changes. To mark
such point in the history of language would present a problem because, due to the natural
evolution of language and the capacity individuals have of producing changes through language
habits, we would not know when, precisely, to mark it. And would this not be contradictory? It
seems that there is something missing in this theory, something to explain what the human ability
to “speak” meant for the Neogrammarians. In this sense, if they said that all changes could be
measure then the human being could be conceived as well as an “ordered organism” able to be
“measured and weighted”, which would, mostly likely, discomfort many people since it could be
understood that humans are simplesystems.
In this sense, they denied the existence of language as a spiritual concept. Their work
could be then considered on the whole empirical science, since despite their hypothesis were
neatly formulated and made sense. Verner suggested “all sound changes have a rule, the only
question is to find them” in my opinion, he is suggesting that all regularities can be studied, but
when Hermann says “if only all idiolect could be study” then he is affirming that there is no way
to study all of them. So their work can not be considered as completely empirical since much of
it is based on suppositions.
In relation to whether the original group of Neogrammarian made any new contribution
or not, it is very difficult to know for sure. Almost every science has the problem in determining
who was the first in formulating and develop a theory. In this case, it seems clear that Brugmann
and Osthoff practiced a lot of what their predecessors preached but it is difficult to remark
contributions as their own. However, in general, the Neogrammarians did contribute a lot in the
history of linguistics and we do not need more than a comparison between their work, Saussure’s
and later Bloomfield and Hockett to see the influences they had.

IV Conclusion
It is more than certain that the Neogrammarians had a very important place in the history of
linguistics sciences. The new perspective of language on which they worked opened widely the
scientific approach to linguistics studies. The fact that they practiced a lot of previous theories
and their own is what made them the most empirical linguists in the 19th century. Empirical
sciences took over speculation and deduction during this period and the Neogrammarians
represented this move in linguistics. However, many would agree that they did not accomplish
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their main goal which is in fact the most common searched by linguists: the reconstruction of the
Proto Indo-European language.

V Bibliography
Clackson, J, (2007).
Indo-European linguistics. Cambridge.
“Grimm’s law”
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007 on Infoplease.
“http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0821874.html”
Jankowsky, K. R. (1972).
The Neogrammarians a Re-evaluation of their place in the development of linguistic
science. Georgetown University
Jones, M, J, (2005).
Historical linguistics: sound change and reconstruction week 2: the Neogrammarians
view of change. Retrieved May 30, 2008, from
http://kiri.ling.cam.ac.uk/mark/HistLing2.pdf
Robins, R, H, (1967)
A short History of linguistics. London: Longman