stuff like this interests me quite a bit. learning german, i discovered some interesting things about common roots between english and german. the verb to bring is bringen in german. the past perfect form in english is "have brought", or "habe gebracht" in german. the ge- prefix is standard for most verbs in the past perfect tense. the latter part, "-bracht"... see, it's the same! Except that the "ch" sound is pronounced in german, whereas the "gh" has become entirely silent in english. i would assume this means at some point of old english, those consonants would have been pronounced in one way or another.