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Indo-European speakers are thought by some scholars to have arrived at the plains of southern Sweden and Denmark, regarded to be the original dwelling-place of the Germanic peoples, during the Nordic Bronze Age (about 4000 years ago). This is the only area where no pre-Germanic place names have been found. The Battle-axe people is the best candidate for this immigration. Another characteristic is various sound shifts called Grimm's law, which, due to the fact that it also affected Celtic loan words, probably began around 500 BC and must have been completed by the 2nd century BC at the latest. (See Negau helmet) and Pre-Roman Iron Age.) Some have suggested that Proto-Germanic evolved for some time in relative isolation. Their evidence is chiefly based on the vocabulary, where it is claimed that up to one-third of the basic vocabulary of Proto-Germanic, especially in the areas of seafaring, war and animals, is of non-Indo-European origin. Other scholars, however, dispute this figure and have suggested PIE etymologies for most of the words in question. By definition, Proto-Germanic is the stage of the language constituting the most recent common ancestor of the attested Germanic languages, dated to the latter half of the first millennium BC. The post-PIE dialects spoken throughout the Nordic Bronze Age, roughly 2500–500 BC, even though they have no attested descendants other than the Germanic languages, are referred to as "pre-Proto-Germanic". That about a third of the vocabulary of Proto-Germanic has no unambiguous Indo-European etymology is not unusual for a language of ca. 500 BC, other branches of Indo-European showing a similar picture. Archaeological evidence suggests a common German language existed in a region covering from southern Scandinavia and all along North Sea and Baltic coasts from the Meuse river in the west to the Vistula in the east around 750 BCE. By 250 BCE, it had branched into five distinct groups of Germanic (two each in West and North, and one in East). •

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hund, not
sund ("hundred", ~ centum with guttural fricative according to Grimm's law) and
hwis, not
his ("who", ~ Latin quis). Besides, IE
g >
k in Germanic and IE
gH >
g, instead of becoming palatal sounds.

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The most notable change in the Germanic languages, Grimm's law, is a systemic chain shift of the original Indo-European stop consonants:

> ; > ; >

> ; > ; >

> ; > ; >

> ; > ; > , ,

The Proto-Germanic consonants are often said to have "originally" been fricatives and later to have "hardened" in some places into stops. This is disputed, however, by those who assert the opposite.

The main theoretical argument in favor of the "originally soft" theory is that Verner's law works out slightly neater – voicing applied to unvoiced fricatives produces voiced fricatives, which merge immediately with existing voiced fricatives. With the "originally hard" theory, the newly voiced fricatives would not be the same as the original voiced stops, and therefore a subsequent step is required to merge them.

The main theoretical argument in favor of the "originally hard" theory is that intervocalic "hardening" of voiced fricatives to stops is rather less common typologically than softening/weakening of voiced stops to fricatives; the most common change to intervocalic voiced fricatives is not hardening but further weakening, to approximates or to outright deletion. (Cf. common pronunciation en to lao of Spanish en todo lado en toðo laðo.) Indeed, the later history of voiced fricatives in the Germanic languages often does show intervocalic weakening (OE > or ; OE lost in hēafod > NE head, hlaford > NE lord). On the other hand, intervocalic hardening is the rule in High German (NHG habicht < OHG habuh

NE hawk < OE heafoc), and has also played a role in the later history of some of the Scandinavian languages (Sw. fjäder < OSw. fjædher

NE feather).

In either case, are acceptable ways of indicating the sounds (as are , , , although these are somewhat more cumbersome).

The likely allophones of at the end of the Proto-Germanic period (c. 200 AD) were as follows:

are generally agreed to be stops , , after and when geminated.

Evidence from all branches of Germanic shows that was elsewhere, including initially. Initially it was "hardened" to independently and at various times in the various languages:

Before 350 AD in Gothic (early borrowings indicate lack of initial ).

Before 1000 AD in Old English (palatalization of initial , c. 450 AD, is consistent with , not ; similar arguments apply to Old Saxon and Old Frisian).

Perhaps as a result of the High German consonant shift, before 800 AD (Low Saxon dialects still have intervocalic ); but some linguists have asserted that have always been stops in all positions in High German.

Perhaps before 800 AD in Pre-Old Norse, when Old English speakers began borrowing words from Proto-Norse.

Not yet, in Dutch - although this is truer of the Belgian pronunciation rather than the standard pronunciation of the Netherlands, where the letter g is pronounced , i.e. voiceless.

Evidence from all branches of Germanic shows that was when initial, or when doubled, or after a nasal, and or elsewhere.

Evidence differs with regard to . In the oldest representatives of all branches of Germanic it appears that was a stop initially, or when geminated, or after a nasal. In Gothic and Old Norse was a fricative elsewhere, (except where it came into contact with a voiceless consonant in Old Norse, and finally in Gothic, in which case it was devoiced to ). But in West Germanic became a stop in all positions. Note, then, that Gothic and Old Norse show a symmetrical system where are stops when initial, doubled or post-nasal, and fricatives elsewhere. The reconstructed system of the other (West Germanic) dialects, however, is highly asymmetric ( is mostly fricative, is part stop, part fricative, and is entirely stop). Analogy works towards symmetry, and hence the reconstructed West Germanic system is likely to be correct and the symmetric systems of Gothic and Old Norse secondary developments. (An additional argument for this is that early borrowings into Gothic corroborate the initial in Pre-Gothic as in West Germanic.)

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Unvoiced fricatives () were voiced when preceded by an unaccented syllable.

In other words, they remain the same when initial or when directly following a stressed syllable.

The stress here is the assumed Pre-Proto-Germanic accent, inherited directly from PIE (with some modifications in between). Hence, Germanic becomes a source to derive the original PIE accent.

Directly after Verner's law applied, the existing accent system was scrapped and a stress accent was universally applied on the first syllable.

The voicing of produced , a new phoneme as soon as the old accent system broke down.

The voiced , , merged into existing , , .

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Proto-Germanic vowels

i,ī      u,ū

 e,ē

  æ    ō

   a

Proto-Germanic had four short vowel qualities, and four or five long vowel qualities. The exact phonetic quality of the vowels is uncertain.

PIE a and o merge into Proto-Germanic a, PIE ā and ō merge into Proto-Germanic ō (similar mergers happened in the Slavic languages). At the time of the merge, the vowels probably were and before their timbres differentiated into maybe and .

ē and æ are also transcribed as ē₁ and ē₂; ē₂ is uncertain as a phoneme, and only reconstructed from a small number of words. Krahe treats ē as identical with ī. It probably continues PIE ei or ēi, and it may have been in the process of transition from a diphthong to a long simple vowel in the Proto-Germanic period. The existence of two Proto-Germanic e:-like phonemes is supported by the existence of two e-like Elder Futhark runes, Ehwaz and Eihwaz.

Extensive reduction of vowels in unstressed syllables happened, beginning at the very end of the Proto-Germanic period and continuing into the history of the various dialects. This is reflected to the least extent in Proto-Norse, with steadily greater reduction in Gothic, Old High German, Old English, Modern German and Modern English.

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).

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Later Germanic languages (especially Modern English) have a more elaborated tense system, derived through periphrastic constructions.

PIE may have had as few as three "tenses" (present, aorist, perfect), which had primarily aspectual value, with secondary tensal values. The future tense was probably rendered using the subjunctive and/or desiderative verbs. Other tenses were derived in the history of the individual languages through various means (originally periphrastic constructions, such as the augment /e-/ of Greek and Sanksrit and the /-b-/ forms of Latin, derived from the PIE verb "be"; reinterpretation of subjunctive and desiderative formations as the future; analogical formations).

The Germanic past tense contains forms deriving from both the PIE aorist and perfect; this is similar to the Latin perfect tense.

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