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Does the German language have any other words in which the German letter "a" corresponds to the English letter "i", e.g. Nacht/night, Macht/might?

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  • Uh... would Mäuse --> mice and Läuse --> lice count for you? – Christian Geiselmann Mar 27 '19 at 16:45
  • That does not count, @ChristianGeiselmann! ä is not the same as a. ä is specifically an a which has been modified to be more like an e or an i, which is why it can be written ae. So this is not a difference between German and English but rather the same change, that is represented in German with an umlaut mark and in English with an e or an i. So all the words that pluralize (to use one example of where umlaut occurs) with a vowel change in English use an e or an i and this corresponds to an umlauted vowel in German. – David Robinson Mar 27 '19 at 22:28
  • Just think of feet - Füße, men - Männer, mice - Mäuse, lice - Läuse, teeth - Zähne, geese - Gänse, women - Weibmänner (which does not exist but that is what it would be). – David Robinson Mar 27 '19 at 22:29
  • @DavidRobinson Thanks for the interesting details. - Women = Weibmänner was new to me. Perhaps a stupid idea, but is Wo = Womb? Then Weib = womb? It would at least make sense in a prehistoric patriarchal society to call women men (or people) with wombs. – Christian Geiselmann Mar 28 '19 at 15:13
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    @christiangeiselmann There has been a discussion of Weib on this site. Sadly no one knows where it comes from which is why no one knows why it is neuter. In fact although it is clear that wife = Weib, not everyone agrees where woman comes from. But of course as far as the plural is concerned the beginning of the word is not important - it is just a compound of man and obviously forms its plural in the same way. – David Robinson Mar 28 '19 at 15:34
  • @ChristianGeiselmann If you are interested in these plurals note that Irish and Scots Gaelic like these genitives and plurals just as much as German, even though they don't have many words of West Germanic origin. They are always marked with an i. So if you go to Faclair Beag, type in an English noun (very common ones are best), look at the results in the left hand column and there is a good chance you will see. For example if you look up cat you will get cat fir. gin. ┐ iol. cait which means "cat masc. gen. & pl. cait". Ignore the pronunciation. – David Robinson Mar 28 '19 at 16:12

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Yes, there are lots of examples of this. In linguistics it is called "i-mutation", a feature that separates Old, Middle and New English from other Germanic and Indo-European languages. Basically it means that in certain contexts Germanic "a" is replaced by English "i".

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  • Actualy, it is called "i-mutation" mainly in Germanic language linguistics. It happens in other languages too, but gets different names, e.g. "metaphony". – Rudy Velthuis Mar 27 '19 at 16:40
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No, it doesnt. You might find words that differ "u" to "i", "e" to "i" or "o" to "i", and also "a" to "i". The point is - Western European languages like to see vowels in strategic places for well-formed words, and the amount of vowels is simply limited.

tofro
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