#  Indo-European Key Terms 

 



These terms and dates form part of the discussion of the readings for this section, and you should become familiar with them. You can find them defined separately in the Glossary in the back of our textbook, as well as the [online glossary on this site](/glossary). Some of these terms may also come from our lectures, supplementary readings, and workbook exercises for the unit. *You may find it helpful to continually refer back to this list as you progress through the material and lectures of this unit.*

Indo-European  
genetic classification  
inflected language  
satem and centum languages  
cognate words  
inflection  
cases  
personal verb endings  
number  
tense  
gender  
strong and weak verbs  
Germanic Consonant Shift: Grimm's Law and Verner's Law  
Rasmus Rask  
Karl Verner

6th century BCE: Germanic Consonant shift  
1786 William Jones  
1822 Jacob Grimm, *German Grammar*, 2nd ed.  
1915 Ferdinand de Saussure, *Course in General Linguistics*