Definition of sound shift in English:
A systematic change in the pronunciation of a set of speech sounds as a language evolves.
- Such sound shifts in comparative linguistics parallel, almost uncannily, the slow march of genetic mutations as offspring populations gradually separate from a parent stock.
- Philologists have referred to them as P-Celtic in contrast to Goidelic as Q-Celtic, on the basis of a sound shift of q to p which split an earlier tongue known as Common Celtic.
- Crimean Gothic had undergone the same ‘jj’ to- ‘d' sound shift attested by many Visigothic words.
Definition of sound shift in:
- US English dictionary
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