A systematic change in a vowel within a word or its related forms to show grammatical relationships, as in 'sing,' 'sang,' 'sung.'
From German 'Ablaut,' literally 'off-sound' (ab- = off, Laut = sound). Coined by German linguists in the 19th century to describe this vowel-changing pattern in Germanic languages.
Ablaut is why English is so weird: we say 'drink, drank, drunk' instead of logically adding '-ed.' This ancient pattern is literally thousands of years old and shows how language preserves its history.
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