Look again at the sentence quoted in the overview article:
Die ganze für Geschichte der Sprache und Strenge der Etymologie folgenreiche zweifache Lautverschiebung stellt sich tabellarisch so dar: (The entire twofold sound shift — so consequential for the history of language and the rigor of etymology — presents itself in tabular form as follows:)
The single word “twofold” (zweifache) is carrying more than it looks. This article reads, line by line, the table that immediately follows that sentence.
Three languages, two steps
Grimm lined up three languages: Greek (griech.), Gothic (goth., the oldest Germanic language attested in writing), and Old High German (alth., Althochdeutsch). What matters is that this is not simply a three-way comparison — read left to right, it is a path of change. Lining up three languages means there are, between them, two steps of change: one from Greek to Gothic, and a second from Gothic to Old High German. That is the first sense of “twofold.” (Modern linguistics often distinguishes these as the “First Germanic Consonant Shift” and the “(High) German Consonant Shift,” and the popular term “Grimm’s Law” usually points at only the first of the two — but Grimm himself, writing in 1822, treated the two steps as a single, continuous phenomenon.)
The table is laid out in three series — labials (the p-group), dentals (the t-group), and gutturals (the k-group). Pulling out the labial column alone:
| Column 1 | Column 2 | Column 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greek | P | B | F (Φ) |
| Gothic | F | P | B |
| Old High German | B(V) | F | P |
Read down each column. Column 1: Greek’s voiceless stop P becomes Gothic’s voiceless fricative F, then Old High German’s voiced B(V). Column 2: Greek’s voiced stop B becomes Gothic’s voiceless stop P, then Old High German’s F. Column 3: Greek’s voiced aspirate Φ (which Grimm transliterates as F) becomes Gothic’s B, then Old High German’s P. The dental row (T/D/TH) and the guttural row (K/G/CH) are built on exactly the same structure.
A gap Grimm himself noticed
There is one more interesting detail in this table. Looking at the guttural row, the Gothic cell corresponding to Greek K is left blank (Grimm’s original marks it ”‥”). Grimm noticed this gap himself, and explains it right after the table:
Hieraus ergibt sich nunmehr, wie der Gothe die durch abgang der kehlasp. entspringende lücke deckt: er bedient sich anlautend statt ch des spiritus h, in- und auslautend zuweilen des h, häufig aber auch der med. g. (From this we can now see how the Goth covers the gap left by the missing guttural aspirate: word-initially he uses the aspirate h in place of ch; word-medially and -finally he sometimes uses h, but more often the voiced g.)
Right after presenting a clean, three-row correspondence table, Grimm openly notes a real case that does not fit his own system. It might look like a minor footnote, but this is exactly where the law’s biggest weak point first shows itself — a sound that was supposed to correspond “regularly” instead shows up in two different forms depending on its environment, for reasons Grimm cannot yet explain. That unexplained exception would be resolved, from a completely different angle, roughly a decade after Grimm’s death — a story told in the next article in this feature.
Summary
| Feature of the table | What it means |
|---|---|
| Three languages (Greek, Gothic, Old High German) lined up | Two steps of sound shift (the First Consonant Shift plus the High German Consonant Shift) folded into one table |
| Reading down each column of three | Tracing how one sound changes across two successive steps |
| The labial, dental, and guttural series | The exact same cyclical structure repeated at each place of articulation |
| The gap in Gothic’s guttural row | An exception Grimm himself acknowledged, one his own system could not yet explain |
In a nutshell — the table Grimm presented was not a mere list of sound correspondences; it was a map of two successive historical changes, laid out at a glance. And on that map, in Grimm’s own hand, sat a spot he honestly left unfilled.