Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm
German philologist and folklorist Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm in 1822 formulated Grimm's Law, the basis for much of modern comparative linguistics. With his brother Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786-1859), he collected Germanic folk tales and published them as
Grimm's Fairy Tales
(1812-1815).
Indo-European stop consonants, represented in Germanic, underwent the regular changes that Grimm's Law describes; this law essentially states that Indo-European p shifted to Germanic f, t shifted to th, and k shifted to h. Indo-European b shifted to Germanic p, d shifted to t, and g shifted to k. Indo-European bh shifted to Germanic b, dh shifted to d, and gh shifted to g.
This jurist and mythologist also authored the monumental
German Dictionary
and his
Deutsche Mythologie
.
Adapted from Wikipedia.
“And when the baker had plastered his feet, he ran to the miller. 'Miller,' he said, 'strew me some white meal over my paws.' But the miller refused, thinking the wolf must be meaning to harm someone. 'If you don't do it,' cried the wolf, 'I'll eat you up!' And the miller was afraid and did as he was told. And that just shows what men are.”
“Will you hold you tongue!' screamed the cat. 'Another word, and I devour you too!' And the poor little mouse, having "All-gone" on her tongue, out it came, and the cat leaped upon her and made an end of her. And that is the way of the world.”
“In the old times, when it was still of some use to wish for the thing one wanted, there lived a King whose daughters were all handsome, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun himself, who had seen so much, wondered each time he shone over her because of her beauty.”