Information about Germanic Languages

Germanic Teutonic
Geographic distribution:	Originally in northern, western and central Europe; today worldwide
Genetic classification:	}}
Subdivisions:	East Germanic North Germanic West Germanic
ISO 639-2:	gem

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The Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all languages comprising this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the latter mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law. Early Germanic varieties enter history with the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire from the 2nd century.

The largest Germanic languages are English and German, with approximately 400 and 100 million native speakers respectively. The group consists of other major languages, such as Dutch with 22 million and Afrikaans with over 16 million speakers; and the North Germanic languages including Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese with a combined total of about 20 million speakers. The SIL Ethnologue lists 53 different Germanic languages.

Characteristics

Germanic languages possess several unique features, such as the following:

1. The leveling of the IE tense and aspect system into the present tense and past tense (also called preterite).
2. A large class of verbs that use a dental suffix (/d/ or /t/) instead of vowel alternation (Indo-European ablaut) to indicate past tense. These are called the Germanic weak verbs; the remaining verbs with vowel ablaut are the Germanic strong verbs.
3. The use of so-called strong and weak adjectives: different sets of inflectional endings for adjectives depending on the definiteness of the noun phrase. (Modern English adjectives do not inflect at all, except for the comparative and superlative; this was not the case in Old English, where adjectives were inflected differently depending on whether they were preceded by an article or demonstrative.)
4. The consonant shift known as Grimm's Law. (The consonants in High German have shifted farther yet by the High German consonant shift.)
5. A number of words with etymologies that are difficult to link to other Indo-European families, but variants of which appear in almost all Germanic languages. See Germanic substrate hypothesis.
6. The shifting of stress accent onto the root of the stem and later to the first syllable of the word. (Though English has an irregular stress, native words always have a fixed stress regardless of what is added to them.)

Germanic languages differ from each other to a greater degree than do some other language families such as the Romance or Slavic languages. Roughly speaking, Germanic languages differ in how conservative or how progressive each language is with respect to an overall trend towards analyticity. Some, like German, Dutch and Icelandic, have preserved much of the complex inflectional morphology inherited from the Proto-Indo-European language. Others, like English, Swedish and Afrikaans have moved towards a largely analytic type.

Another characteristic of Germanic languages is verb second or V2 word order, which is quite uncommon cross-linguistically. This feature is shared by all modern Germanic languages except English, which appears to have had V2 earlier in its history but has largely replaced the structure with an overall SVO structure.

Writing

The earliest evidence of Germanic comes from names recorded in the 1st century by Tacitus (especially from his work Germania), but the earliest Germanic writing occurs in a single instance in the 2nd century BC on the Negau helmet^[1]. From roughly the 2nd century AD, certain speakers of early Germanic varieties developed the Elder Futhark, an early form of the runic alphabet. Early runic inscriptions are also largely limited to personal names, and difficult to interpret. The Gothic language was written in the Gothic alphabet developed by Bishop Ulfilas for his translation of the Bible in the 4th century. Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke and read Latin in addition to their native Germanic varieties began writing the Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters. However, throughout the Viking Age, runic alphabets remained in common use in Scandinavia.

In addition to the standard Latin alphabet, various Germanic languages use a variety of accent marks and extra letters, including umlauts, the ß (Eszett), IJ, Ø, Æ, Å, Ä, Ö, Ğ, Ȝ, and Ş and Ƿ, from runes. Historic printed German is frequently set in blackletter typefaces (e.g. fraktur or schwabacher).

History

All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic, united by their having been subjected to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law. These took place probably during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe from ca. 500 BC, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo European suggest a common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic Bronze Age.

From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic varieties are divided into three groups, West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration period, so that some individual varieties are difficult to classify.

The 6th century Lombardic language, for instance, may constitute an originally either North or East Germanic variety that became assimilated to West Germanic as the Lombards settled at the Elbe. The Western group would have formed in the late Jastorf culture, the Eastern group may be derived from the 1st century variety of Gotland (see Old Gutnish), leaving southern Sweden as the original location of the Northern group . The earliest coherent Germanic text preserved is the 4th century Gothic translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas. Early testimonies of West Germanic are in Old High German (scattered words and sentences 6th century, coherent texts 9th century), Old English (coherent texts 10th century). North Germanic is only attested in scattered runic inscriptions, as Proto-Norse, until it evolves into Old Norse by about 800. Longer runic inscriptions survive from the 8th and 9th centuries (Eggjum stone, Rök stone), longer texts in the Latin alphabet survive from the 12th century (Íslendingabók), and some skaldic poetry held to date back to as early as the 9th century. By about the 10th century, the varieties had diverged enough to make intercomprehensibility difficult. The linguistic contact of the Viking settlers of the Danelaw with the Anglo-Saxons left traces in the English language, and is suspected to have facilitated the collapse of Old English grammar that resulted in Middle English from the 12th century.

The East Germanic languages were marginalized from the end of the Migration period. The Burgundians, Goths and Vandals became linguistically assimilated to their respective neighbors by about the 7th century, with only Crimean Gothic lingering on until the 18th century.

During the early Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Middle English on one hand, and by the High German consonant shift on the continent on the other, resulting in Upper German and Low Saxon, with graded intermediate Central German varieties. By Early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South to Northern Low Saxon in the North, and although both extremes are considered German, they are hardly mutually intelligible. The southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, while the northern varieties remained unaffected by the consonant shift.

The North Germanic languages, on the other hand, remained more unified, with the larger languages largely retaining mutual intelligibility into modern times.

Classification

Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent varieties being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.

Diachronic

General Note: The table shows the succession of the significant historical stages of each language (vertically), and their approximate groupings in subfamilies (horizontally). Horizontal sequence within each group does not imply a measure of greater or lesser similarity.

Iron Age 500 BC–AD 200

Proto-Germanic

East Germanic

West Germanic

North Germanic

South Germanic

Anglo-Frisian

Migration period AD 200–700

Gothic,

Lombardic1

Old Frankish

Old Saxon

Old Frisian

Old English

Proto-Norse

Vandalic, Burgundian,

Old High German

Early Middle Ages 700–1100

Old Low Franconian

Runic Old West Norse

Runic Old East Norse

Middle Ages 1100–1350

Middle High German

Middle Dutch

Middle Low German

Middle English

Old Icelandic

Old Norwegian

Early Old Danish

Early Old Swedish

Early Old Gutnish

Late Middle Ages2 1350–1500

Early New High German

Middle English

Early Scots

Late Old Icelandic

Old Faroese

Old Norn

Middle Norwegian

Late Old Danish

Late Old Swedish

Late Old Gutnish

Early Modern Age 1500–1700

Crimean Gothic

Low Franconian varieties, including Dutch

Middle Frisian

Early Modern English

Middle Scots

Icelandic

Faroese

Norn

Norwegian

Danish

Swedish

Gutnish

Modern Age 1700 to present

all extinct

High German varieties

Low Saxon varieties

Frisian varieties

English varieties

Scots varieties

extinct3

extinct3

Note 1: There are conflicting opinions on the classification of Lombardic. Contrary to its isolated position in the table above, it has also been classified as close to either Upper German or Old Saxon. See the article on the Lombardic language for more information.

Note 2: Late Middle Ages refers to the post Black Death period. Especially for the language situation in Norway this event was important.

Note 3: The speakers of Norn were assimilated to speak the Modern Scots varieties, and the Gutnish language is today practically a dialect of Swedish.

Contemporary

See also:

Mentioned here are all the principal and some secondary contemporary varieties; individual articles linked to below may contain larger family trees. For example, many Low Saxon varieties are discussed on Low Saxon besides just Northern Low Saxon and Plautdietsch.

• Proto-Germanic
• West Germanic languages
• High German languages
• standard German
• Central German
• East Central German
• West Central German
• Luxembourgish
• Pennsylvania German (spoken by the Amish and other groups in southeastern Pennsylvania)
• Upper German
• Alemannic German
• Swabian German, including Stuttgart
• Low Alemannic German, including the area of Lake Constance and Basel German
• Alsatian
• High Alemannic German, including Zürich German and Bernese German
• Highest Alemannic German, including the Bernese Oberland dialects and Walliser German
• Austro-Bavarian German
• North Bavarian (including Nuremberg)
• Middle Bavarian (including Munich and Vienna)
• South Bavarian (including Innsbruck, Klagenfurt and Bolzano, Italy)
• Hutterite German (aka "Tirolean")
• Yiddish (with a significant influx of vocabulary from Hebrew and other languages, and traditionally written in the Hebrew alphabet)
• Wymysorys (with a significant influence from Low Saxon, Dutch, Polish and Scots)
• Low Franconian
• Standard Dutch
• Old Dutch
• Middle Dutch
• Modern Dutch
• Brabantic
• Zealandic
• West Flemish
• East Flemish
• Hollandic
• Limburgish
• Zuid-Gelders
• Afrikaans (with a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages)
• Low German
• West Low German
• Northern Low Saxon
• East Frisian Low Saxon
• Westphalian language
• Eastphalian language
• East Low German
• Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low Saxon)
• Anglo-Frisian
• Old Frisian
• Frisian
• Stadsfries language
• West Frisian language (spoken in The Netherlands)
• Clay Frisian (Klaaifrysk)
• Wood Frisian (Wâldfrysk)
• Noardhoeks
• South Frisian (Súdhoeks)
• Southwest Frisian (Súdwesthoeksk)
• Schiermonnikoogs
• Hindeloopers
• Aasters
• Westers
• East Frisian language (spoken in Germany)
• Saterland Frisian language
• Several extinct Frisian variants
• North Frisian language (spoken in Germany)
• Mainland Frisian
• Mooring
• Goesharde Frisian
• Wiedingharde Frisian
• Halligen Frisian
• Karrharde Frisian
• Island Frisian
• Söl'ring
• Fering
• Öömrang
• Heligolandic
• Anglic
• English language
• Old English
• Middle English (significant influx of words from Old French)
• Early Modern English
• Modern English
• British English (English English, including Northern English, Midlands English, Southern English dialects and others, Welsh English, Scottish English) and Irish English
• North American English (American English and Canadian English)
• Australian English and New Zealand English
• South African English
• South Asian English (Indian English)
• South-East Asian English (Singapore English, Malaysian English)
• West Indian English (Caribbean English)
• Scots language
• Early Scots^[2] (from Northern Middle English with a significant influx of words from Anglo-Norman and Norse)
• Middle Scots
• Modern Scots language (huge influx of Latinate vocabulary, mostly via Norman French, some Scanadinavian influence via Anglo-Norse)
• Northern Scots
• North Northern
• Mid Northern
• North East Scots
• Doric aka South Northern
• Central Scots
• North East
• South East Central
• West Central
• South West Central Scots
• South Scots "Border Tongue"
• Insular Scots
• Ulster Scots aka "Ullans"(Ulster/Lallans)
• Yola
• North Germanic
• Proto-Norse
• Old Norse
• West Scandinavian
• Norwegian (gen. Western branch, but heavy influence from Eastern branch)
• Bokmål Official written standard
• Nynorsk Official written standard
• Riksmål Unofficial written standard
• Høgnorsk Unofficial written standard
• Vestlandsk
• Sørlandsk
• South-West Norwegian
• Bergen Norwegian/Bergensk
• North-West Norwegian
• Nord-Norsk
• Helgeland Norwegian
• Nordland Norwegian
• Troms Norwegian
• Finnmark Norwegian
• East Norwegian
• Vikvær Norwegian
• Middle East Norwegian
• Oppland Norwegian
• Østerdal Norwegian
• Midland Norwegian
• Gudbrandsdal Norwegian
• Valdres and Hallingdal
• Western Telemark Norwegian
• Eastern Telemark Norwegian
• Trøndelag Norwegian
• Outer Trøndelag Norwegian
• Inner Trøndelag Norwegian
• Namdal Norwegian
• South-eastern Trøndersk
• Jamtlandic (also considered Norrlandic)
• (also considered Norrlandic)
• Icelandic
• Old Icelandic
• Modern Icelandic
• Gøtudanskt(Faroese Street Danish)
• Faroese
• Norn (Extinct)
• Shetland Norn (Extinct)
• Orkney Norn (Extinct)
• East Scandinavian
• Danish
• Rigsdansk/Rigsmål
• Eastern Danish (Amager, Bornholm, Skåne, Halland, Blekinge)
• Bornholmsk
• Scanian
• Island Danish
• Jutlandic/Jutish
• North Jutlandic
• East Jutlandic
• West Jutlandic
• Sønderjysk (Danish Slesvig, German Schleswig)
• Swedish
• Dalecarlian language
• Älvdalsmål (considered a Swedish Sveamål dialect, but has official orthography and is, because of a lower degree of mutual intelligibility with Swedish, considered a separate language by many linguists, see p. 6 in this reference)
• Old Swedish
• New Swedish
• Modern Swedish
• Sveamål
• Norrländska mål
• Götamål
• Östsvenska mål (Finland Swedish)
• Sydsvenska mål
• Old Gutnish
• Modern Gutnish

Alternate classification of contemporary North Germanic languages

• Insular Scandinavian
• Icelandic
• Faroese
• Continental Scandinavian
• Danish
• Norwegian
• Swedish

Vocabulary comparison

Several of the terms in the table below have had semantic drift. For example, the form 'Sterben' and other terms for 'die' are cognates with the English word 'starve'. There is also at least one example of a common borrowing from a Non-Germanic source (ounce and its cognates from Latin).

English	Scots	Frisian	Afrikaans	Dutch	Low Saxon	German	Gothic	Icelandic	Faroese	Swedish	Danish	Norwegian (Bokmål)	Norwegian (Nynorsk)
Apple	Aiple	Apel	Appel	Appel	Appel	Apfel	Aplus	Epli	Epl(i) [3]	Äpple	Æble	Eple	Eple
Board	Buird	Board	Bord	Bord	Boord	Brett / Bord [4]	Baúrd	Borğ	Borğ	Bord	Bord	Bord	Bord
Beech	Beech	Boeke/ Boekebeam	Beuk	Beuk	Böke	Buche	Bōka [5]/ -bagms	Bók	Bók	Bok	Bøg	Bøk	Bøk, Bok
Book	Beuk	Boek	Boek	Boek	Book	Buch	Bōka	Bók	Bók	Bok	Bog	Bok	Bok
Breast	Breest	Boarst	Bors	Borst	Bost	Brust	Brusts	Brjóst	Bróst	Bröst	Bryst	Bryst	Bryst
Brown	Broun	Brún	Bruin	Bruin	Bruun	Braun	Bruns	Brúnn	Brúnur	Brun	Brun	Brun	Brun
Day	Day	Dei	Dag	Dag	Dag	Tag	Dags	Dagur	Dagur	Dag	Dag	Dag	Dag
Dead	Deid	Dea	Dood	Dood	Dood	Tot	Dauşs	Dauğur	Deyğur	Död	Død	Død	Daud
Die (Starve)	Dee	Stjerre	Sterf	Sterven	Döen/ Starven	Sterben	Diwan	Deyja	Doyggja	Dö	Dø	Dø	Døy
Enough	Eneuch	Genôch	Genoeg	Genoeg	Noog	Genug	Ganōhs	Nóg	Nóg/ Nógmikiğ	Nog	Nok	Nok	Nok
Finger	Finger	Finger	Vinger	Vinger	Finger	Finger	Figgrs	Fingur	Fingur	Finger	Finger	Finger	Finger
Give	Gie	Jaan	Gee	Geven	Geven	Geben	Giban	Gefa	Geva	Giva / Ge	Give	Gi	Gje(va)
Glass	Gless	Glês	Glas	Glas	Glas	Glas		Gler	Glas	Glas	Glas	Glass	Glas
Gold	Gowd	Goud	Goud	Goud	Gold	Gold	Gulş	Gull	Gull	Guld/ Gull	Guld	Gull	Gull
Hand	Haund	Hân	Hand	Hand	Hand	Hand	Handus	Hönd	Hond	Hand	Hånd	Hånd	Hand
Head	Heid	Holle	Hoof <ref name="hoof"">Now only used in compound words such as hoofpyn (headache) and metaphorically such as hoofstad (capital city)./ Kop[6]	Hoofd/ Kop[6]	Kopp[6]	Haupt/ Kopf[6]	Háubiş	Höfuğ	Høvd/ Høvur	Huvud	Hoved	Hode	Hovud
High	Heich	Heech	Hoog	Hoog	Hoog	Hoch	Háuh	Hár	Høg/ur	Hög	Høj	Høy/høg	Høg
Home	Hame	Hiem	Heim [10]/ Tuis[11]	Heim <ref name="heim" />/Thuis[11]	Heim	Heim	Háimōş	Heim	Heim	Hem	Hjem	Hjem/heim	Heim
Hook	Heuk	Hoek	Haak	Haak	Haak	Haken	Krappa/ Krampa	Krókur	Krókur/ Ongul	Hake/ Krok	Hage/ Krog	Hake/ Krok	Hake/ Krok<ref name="ongel"">Ongel is also used for fishing hook.
House	Hoose	Hûs	Huis	Huis	Huus	Haus	Hūs	Hús	Hús	Hus	Hus	Hus	Hus
Many	Mony	Mannich/Mennich	Menige	Menig	Mennig	Manch	Manags	Margir	Mangir/ Nógvir	Många	Mange	Mange	Mange
Moon	Muin	Moanne	Maan	Maan	Maan	Mond	Mēna	Tungl/ Máni	Máni/ Tungl	Måne	Måne	Måne	Måne
Night	Nicht	Nacht	Nag	Nacht	Natt/ Nacht	Nacht	Nótt	Nótt	Natt	Natt	Nat	Natt	Natt
No	Nae	Nee	Nee	Nee(n)	Nee	Nein (Nö, Nee)	Nē	Nei	Nei	Nej	Nej	Nei	Nei
Old	Auld	Âld	Oud	Oud, Gammel [13]	Oll	Alt	Sineigs	Gamall (but: eldri, elstur)	Gamal (but: eldri, elstur)	Gammal (but: äldre, äldst)	Gammel (but: ældre, ældst)	Gammel (but: eldre, eldst)	Gam(m)al (but: eldre, eldst)
One	Ane	Ien	Een	Een	Een	Eins	Áins	Einn	Ein	En	En	En	Ein
Ounce	Unce	Ûns	Ons	Ons	Ons	Unze	Unkja	Únsa	Únsa	Uns	Unse	Unse	Unse
Snow	Snaw	Snie	Sneeu	Sneeuw	Snee	Schnee	Snáiws	Snjór	Kavi/ Snjógvur	Snö	Sne	Snø	Snø
Stone	Stane	Stien	Steen	Steen	Steen	Stein	Stáins	Steinn	Steinur	Sten	Sten	Stein	Stein
That	That	Dat	Dit, Daardie	Dat, Die	Dat (Dit)	Das	Şata	Şağ	Tağ	Det	Det	Det	Det
Two/Twain	Twa	Twa	Twee	Twee	Twee	Zwei (Zwo)	Twái	Tveir/ Tvær/ Tvö	Tveir (/Tvá)	Två	To	To	To [14]
Who	Wha	Wa	Wie	Wie	Wokeen	Wer	Ƕas (Hwas)	Hver	Hvør	Vem	Hvem	Hvem	Kven
Worm	Wirm	Wjirm	Wurm	Wurm/ Worm	Worm	Wurm	Maşa	Mağkur, Ormur	Mağkur/ Ormur	Mask/ Orm [15]	Orm	Mark/ Makk/ Orm	Mark/ Makk/ Orm [15]
English	Scots	Frisian	Afrikaans	Dutch	Low Saxon	Standard German	Gothic	Icelandic	Faroese	Swedish	Danish	Norwegian (Bokmål)	Norwegian (Nynorsk)

See also

• Germanic verb and its various subordinated articles.
• Language families and languages
• Non-Indo-European roots of Germanic languages
• List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents
• Germanization and Anglicization
• Germanic placenames

Notes

External links

• Germanic Lexicon Project
• Bibliographie der Schreibsprachen: Bibliography of medieval written forms of High and Low German and Dutch
• Ethnologue Report for Germanic

Modern Germanic languages
Afrikaans | Alemannic | Danish | Dutch | English | Faroese | Frisian | German | Icelandic | Limburgish | Low German | Luxembourgish | Norwegian | Scots | Swedish | Yiddish