Food & drinkEveryday life

egg

Every Germanic language inherited a word for egg from *ajją, but the Norse form had a hard -gg-. English already had its own ey (plural eyren); the Danelaw's egg spread south and won out by about 1500, while German, Dutch and Yiddish kept the soft Ei.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Proto-Germanic to Old English

From Proto-Germanic to Old High German, Middle High German, German

From Middle High German to Yiddish

From Proto-Germanic to Middle Dutch, Dutch

From Old Norse to Icelandic

From Old Norse to Faroese

From Old Norse to Swedish

From Old Norse to Danish

From Old Norse to Norwegian

500 BCEProto-Germanic

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

The road to English

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