West Germanic Gemination
Encyclopedia
West Germanic gemination is a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages
West Germanic languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...

, around 300 AD. All single consonants except /r/ (original or from earlier /z/) were geminated
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....

 (doubled) before /j/. The second element of the diphthongs iu and au was still underlyingly /w/ at this time and therefore was still considered a consonant, so it was geminated as well. Similar changes occurred in the history of Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

, but was much more limited, applying only to /k/ and /ɡ/.

The change affected only words with a short root vowel followed by a single consonant, as those with long vowels or with more than one consonant following the root vowel never contained /j/ after the ending consonant; /j/ had already been lengthened to /ij/ in these words through a rule known as Sievers' law
Sievers' law
Sievers' law in Indo-European linguistics accounts for the pronunciation of a consonant cluster with a glide before a vowel as it was affected by the phonetics of the preceding syllable. Specifically it refers to the alternation between and , and possibly and , in Indo-European languages...

. Following the gemination, all word stems that ended in /j/ (except those ending in -r) were now heavy
Syllable weight
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of the line....

. This set the stage for the later loss of /j/ following heavy syllables in the individual West Germanic languages.

This change particularly affected the infinitives of the first conjugation of weak verbs
Germanic weak verb
In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...

, which ended in /(i)jɑnɑ̃/, and also the short-stemmed ja(n)- and jō(n)-stem nouns and adjectives. By historical times (c. 800-900 AD), all of the West Germanic languages except Old Saxon
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...

 had dropped the /j/ in these words, but not before it /j/ had triggered i-Mutation
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...

, as well as palatalization
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....

 in Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

 and Old Frisian
Old Frisian
Old Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Weser on the European North Sea coast. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland also spoke Old Frisian but no medieval texts of this area are known...

.

Examples:
Proto-Germanic Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...

Old Norse Old High German
Old High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...

Old Saxon
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...

Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...

hugjanaN hugjan hyggja huggen huggian hycgan "to think" (gemination also in ON)
bidjanaN bidjan biðja bitten biddian biddan "to ask"
hlahjanaN hlahjan hlæja (h lost in ON) lahhan hlahhian hlæhhan "to laugh"
wandijanaN wandjan venda wenten wendian wendan "to turn" (no gemination before -ij-)
hailijanaN hailjan heila heilen hēlian hǣlan "to heal" (no gemination before -ij-)
farjanaN farjan ferja ferien ferian ferian "to carry" (no gemination of r)
nazjanaN nasjan - nerien nerian nerian "to heal" (no gemination of r from z)
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