the second consonant shift. Most dialects of Norwegian and Swedish show a shift that is much like the one in Frisian, with > and > . This shift reached Swedish only around the 16th century or so, as the Gustav Vasa Bible of 1541 still shows the dental fricatives (spelled ). This shift may be part of the same development as in the West Germanic languages, or it may have occurred independently. Danish – geographically between West Germanic and Swedish/Norwegian areas – would have had to experienced this shift first, before it could have spread further northwards. However, Danish does not form a dialect continuum with the West Germanic languages, and the shift occurred only word-initially in it, while it retains medially. On the other hand, Danish exhibits widespread lenition phenomena, including shifts from plosives to fricatives and further to approximants word-medially, so it is conceivable that these changes counteracted the earlier hardening of the dental fricatives that had reached Danish from the south (thus initially > , followed by lenition > ), but only after these changes had propagated further north to the remaining Scandinavian dialects. /β/ > /b/ West Germanic *ƀ (presumably pronounced ), which was an allophone of used in medial position, shifted to (Upper German) Old High German between two vowels, and also after . Unshifted languages retained a fricative, which became between vowels and in coda position. OE : OHG , (obs. English †lief, Dutch , Low German : German ) OE : MHG (English haven, Dutch , Low German ; for German , see below) OE : OHG (English half, Dutch , Low German : German ) OE : OHG , (English liver, Dutch , Low German : German ) OE : OHG (English self, Dutch , Low German : German ) OE : OHG (English salve, Dutch , Low German : German ) In strong verbs such as German 'heave' and 'give', the shift contributed to eliminating the forms in German, but a full account of these verbs is complicated by the effects of by which and appear in alternation in different parts of the same verb in the early forms of the languages. In the case of weak verbs such as 'have' (compare Dutch ) and 'live' (Dutch ), the consonant differences have an unrelated origin, being a result of the West Germanic gemination and a subsequent process of levelling. This shift