[3] Verner's interest in languages was stimulated by reading about the work of Rasmus Christian Rask.

He began to study the accent of Danish and Slavic languages, and he was puzzled by the fact that the Gothic words fadar and broþar have different consonants after the root vowel.

He was preoccupied with the study of accent at the time, so he sought the explanation in that direction which led to the formation of Verner's Law.

He was taught by August Leskien, a pioneer of research into sound-change laws,[4] and he applied for the Bopp prize, which he received in 1877.

He became a professor in 1888 when he was also elected a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.