Verner's law

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article has an unclear citation style. The reason given is: article uses inline parenthetical referencing. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting. (March 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Verner's law" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

This article contains characters used to write reconstructed Proto-Indo-European words (for an explanation of the notation, see Proto-Indo-European phonology). Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode combining characters and Latin characters.

Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives *β, *ð, *z, *ɣ, *ɣʷ.^[a] The law was formulated by Karl Verner, and first published in 1877.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).