Grimm's Law
Excellent reply, Bro. Nick, as we have come to expect of you. You touched on Grimm's Law. Since few people have ever heard of it, we might explain that the brothers Grimm were not just storytellers. They were philologists, among the first serious ones in German studies and the tales resulted from a long research project. What they were really after was information on how German was used and what it's grammar and vocabulary were in various areas, which involved various usages and dialects. They figured that the natural well of the language was to be found in the old folk tales that had been passed down from remote antiquity, so they went out to collect them direct from the lips of all these old gammers in all sorts of remote places. The publication of the tales, and their resultant popularity, was really a by-product of their research. One of the things they learned is that languages change over time and there is a regular progression of how consonantal changes occur, as Nick described. The codified description of how these changes occur is Grimm's law. (Should be Grimms', but that's too much to expect of publishers.) One other note on the tales -- they have been thoroughly bowdlerized to make them more acceptable as children's tales. In the original versions, there are few you would want to read to small tots.
