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In the study of historical linguistics and phonetic change, a chain shift is a type of sound shift in which a group of sounds all change at about the same time, with some sounds taking the place of others. Chain shifts may be confined to certain isoglosses; they may also spread over the years.
While a chain shift usually occurs as a set of vowel shifts, chain shifts can also occur in consonants. For example, a set of plosives that have a voiced/voiceless distinction may shift to have an aspirated/unaspirated distinction. In this case, the voiceless consonants may become aspirated, and the voiced consonants become voiceless - although shifts in the opposite direction are also attested, e.g. in Western Armenian.
A famous example of such a shift is the well-known First Germanic Sound Shift or Grimm's Law, which turned the Proto-Indo-European voiceless/voiced/breathy-voiced distinction into a fricative/voiceless/voiced distinction in Germanic. Another is the High German consonant shift which separated Old High German from other West Germanic dialects such as Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon. Other examples of historical chain shifts in English are the Great Vowel Shift of the 15th century, and the ongoing Northern cities vowel shift.
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