The Germanic umlaut (sometimes called i-umlaut or i-mutation) is a type of linguistic umlaut in which a back vowel changes to the associated front vowel (fronting) or a front vowel becomes closer to /i/ (raising) when the following syllable contains /i/, /iː/, or /j/. It took place separately in various Germanic languages starting around 450 or 500 AD and affected all of the early languages except Gothic. An example of the resulting vowel alternation is the English plural foot ~ feet (from Germanic */fōts/, pl. */fōtiz/).