phonology - Why did /x/ change to /f/ in English?


As we know, the English language doesn't have the /x/ phoneme anymore (at least in an everyday kind of context*) and the sound seems to have been dropped in many words, such as in light or eight.


However, consider the following words: laugh, tough, rough and cough. It strikes me as very odd that what was once a /x/ would turn into /f/; it seems much more likely to me that it would have shifted to /h/, /ʃ/ or even /g/ — but definitely not to a fricative at the front.


My question is: Has it been attested that /x/ shifted to /f/ in certain situations ? Is there an explanation for this phenomenon?


laugh is lachen in both German and Dutch with a /x/-like sound; rough is ruig in Dutch and ruuch in Swiss German (both with /x/). So there is some relation between /x/ and /f/, but it perplexes me.


(On an irrelevant note, I also notice that shaft is Schacht in German, but the whole ft vs. cht at the end of words seems to be more complicated and possibly independent from the /f/ in the words I mentioned in the second paragraph. There are some Dutch-German pairs where they systematically differ: {kracht, Kraft}, {lucht, Luft}, {stichting, Stiftung}. This is odd, too, but not in the scope of this question — or of this site for that matter.)



* disregarding all annoyed teenagers who use "ugh" excessively ;)



Answer



Not really answering "why" but here is "how":


This is called labial-velar shift and occurs in many other instances. Both /x/ and /f/ are fricatives and the change required to go from the velar /x/ to the labial /f/ or the other way round is pretty small (to make an /f/ start with an /x/ and touch lower lip to the upper teeth for, alternatively make an /f/ and open your mouth, you should end up with an /x/ ).


old english/old high german ruh -> english rough / german rau(this changed in a different manner in the case of german)


old english/old high german hlahhan -> english laugh / german lachen


it can also occur the other way round:


old high german luft -> dutch lucht


Much more detailed information can be found in this paper (as well as, I'm sure, other sources)


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