former but with the consonant pattern of the latter. However, individual words from all German dialects and varieties have found their way into the standard. When a German word contains unshifted consonants, it is often a loanword from either Low German or, less often, Central German. Either the shifted form has become obsolete, as in: "harbor", from Low German (15th century), replacing Middle High German ; "lease", from West Central German, replacing Middle High German ; or the two forms are retained as doublets, as in: "coat of arms", from Low German, alongside High German "weapon"; "to fight", from either Low German or Central German, alongside High German "to knock". Other examples of unshifted words from Low German include: "oat" (vs. Swiss, Austrian ); "lip" (vs. "animal lip"); "water level"; "pimple" However, the majority of unshifted words in German are loaned from Latin, Romance, English or Slavic: "pair, couple" (← Medieval Latin ), "whip" (← Old Sorbian/Czech ). Other ostensible irregularities in the sound shift, which we may notice in modern Standard German, are usually clarified by checking the etymology of an individual word. Possible reasons include the following: Onomatopoeia (cf. German ~ English to babble, which were probably formed individually in each language); Later developments after the High German sound shift, especially the elimination of some unstressed vowels. For example, Dutch and German ("church") seem to indicate an irregular shift -rk- > -rch- (compare regular German ). However, stems from OHG (Greek ) with a vowel after (which makes the shift perfectly regular). Similarly, the shifted form ("milk") was or in OHG, but the unshifted ("to milk") never had a vowel after . Certain irregular variations between voiced and unvoiced consonants, especially and , in Middle High German (active several centuries after the shift). Thereby OHG became modern ("thousand"), as if it had been shifted twice. Contrariwise, and more often, the shift was apparently undone in some words: PG > OHG > back again to modern ("vapor, haze"). In this latter case, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether re-voicing was a native Middle High German development or from Low German influence. (Often, both factors have collaborated to establish the voiced variant.) See also Glottalic theory Low Dietsch dialects The Tuscan , a similar evolution differentiating the Tuscan dialects from Standard Italian. References Sources The sample texts have been copied over from on the German Wikipedia. Dates of sound