Information about Proto Germanic Language

Proto-Germanic
Spoken in:	Northern Europe
Language extinction:	evolved into Proto-Norse, Gothic, Frankish and Ingvaeonic by the 4th century
Language family:	}}}  Germanic   Proto-Germanic}}}
Writing system:	Elder Futhark
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	gem
ISO 639-3:	—

Proto-Germanic (or Common Germanic) is the hypothetical common ancestor (proto-language) of all the Germanic languages, which include, among others, modern English, Dutch, German and Swedish. The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any surviving texts, but has been reconstructed using the comparative method. However, a few surviving inscriptions in a runic script from Scandinavia dated to c. 200 are thought to represent a stage of Proto-Norse or Late Common Germanic immediately following the "Proto-Germanic" stage.^[1] Some loan-words from early Germanic which exist in neighbouring non-Germanic languages are believed to have been borrowed from Germanic during the Proto-Germanic phase; an example is Finnish and Estonian kuningas "king", which closely resembles the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *kuningaz.<ref name="Comrie" />

Proto-Germanic is itself descended from Proto-Indo-European (PIE).

Proto-Germanic had only two tenses (preterite and present), compared to the six or seven in Greek, Latin and Sanskrit. Some of this difference is due to deflexion, featured by a loss of tenses present in Proto-Indo-European, for example the perfect tense. However, many of the tenses of the other languages (future, future perfect, probably pluperfect, perhaps imperfect) appear to be separate innovations in each of these languages, and were not present in Proto-Indo-European.

Evolution of Proto-Germanic

Indo-European speakers are thought by some scholars to have arrived at the plains of southern Sweden and Denmark, regarded as being the original dwelling-place of the Germanic peoples, during the Nordic Bronze Age (about 4000 years ago). This is the only area where no pre-Germanic place names have been found.

Archaeological evidence suggests that before their language differentiation (into the individual Germanic branches), the Germanic peoples existed in southern Scandinavia and along the coast from the Netherlands in the west to Vistula in the east around 750 BC.^[2]

Belonging to the Indo-European family of languages, they developed towards the end of the Neolithic culture of Western Europe, including the Funnel-necked beaker culture and the Cord-impressed ware or Battle-axe culture. They inhabited Southern Scandinavia and Schleswig.^[3]

Main article: Germanic substrate hypothesis

Another characteristic is various sound shifts, systematized in Grimm's law. Because these shifts affected Celtic loan words as well as Germanic words, they must have been completed some time after the introduction of the Celtic loan-words into the Proto-Germanic language. They are traditionally assumed to have begun around 500 BC and been completed by the 2nd century BC at the latest. (See Negau helmet and Pre-Roman Iron Age).

A few loan-words may have passed from Proto-Germanic to the Celtic languages; some are further borrowed into and attested through Latin. The Romans borrowed braccae from the Gauls, and the Gauls may have derived this from the Germanic peoples after the First Sound Shift; however, this is one of several explanations.^[4]

Many more loan-words passed from the Celtic languages to Proto-Germanic; some are also borrowed into and attested through Latin. Caesar borrowed ambactus to describe a follower of a chieftain, and the Germanic languages borrow the same word.^[5] (Although Gothic andbahts fits it to Germanic roots). The Germanic peoples borrowed Celtic -rix as well.^[6]

Some have suggested that Proto-Germanic evolved for some time in relative isolation. Their evidence is chiefly based on the vocabulary, where it is claimed that up to one-third of the basic vocabulary of Proto-Germanic, especially in the areas of seafaring, war and animals, is of non-Indo-European origin. Other scholars, however, dispute this figure and have suggested PIE etymologies for most of the words in question.

By definition, Proto-Germanic is the stage of the language constituting the most recent common ancestor of the attested Germanic languages, dated to the latter half of the first millennium BC. The post-PIE dialects spoken throughout the Nordic Bronze Age, roughly 2500–500 BC, even though they have no attested descendants other than the Germanic languages, are referred to as "pre-Proto-Germanic". That about a third of the vocabulary of Proto-Germanic has no unambiguous Indo-European etymology is not unusual for a language of ca. 500 BC, other branches of Indo-European showing a similar picture.

By 250 BC, Proto-Germanic had branched into five groups of Germanic (two each in West and North, and one in East).^[7]

Hybridization as conjectured cause

Main article: Germanic substrate hypothesis

Some also suggest that Proto-Germanic may have arisen somewhat as a Creole language due to cultural diffusion among geographically static indigenous population groups. However, creole languages ordinarily do not reflect the inflected character and the homogeneous forms of the Germanic languages.

It has also been suggested that proto-Germanic arose as a hybrid of two Indo-European dialects, one each of Centum and Satem types though they would have been mutually intelligible at the time of hybridization. This hypothesis may help to explain the difficulty of finding the right place for Germanic within the Indo-European family. However, the Germanic languages are commonly classified as Centum languages, because of the words *hund, not **sund ("hundred", ~ centum with guttural fricative according to Grimm's law) and *hwis, not **his ("who", ~ Latin quis). That is, Ancient PIE *ģ and *ģh became PIE *g and *gh and then Proto-Germanic *k and *g instead of being turned into palatal sounds.

A relationship has been shown between proto-Germanic Centum and proto-Balto-Slavic Satem due to their close geographic proximity when they split from their Indo-European source.

Non-Indo-European elements

The reconstructed Proto-Germanic vocabulary includes a number of fundamental words (referring to, among other things, parts of the body, animals and nature) which appear to some linguists as non-Indo-European in origin, suggesting a vocabulary influence from the earlier inhabitants of northern Europe. The mechanism of this influence is unknown; it may have been simple borrowing, or perhaps retention of old words by people who adopted Proto-Germanic as their new language. For examples, see the Germanic substrate hypothesis.

Phonology

Consonants

Proto-Germanic consonants

CONSONANTS	Labials	Coronals	Velars	Labiovelars
Voiceless stops	p	t	k	kʷ
Voiceless fricatives	f	þ	x	xʷ
Voiced fricatives	ƀ	đ	ǥ	ǥʷ
Nasals	m	n
sibilants		z, s
Liquids, Glides	w	r, l	j

Since the fricatives ƀ, đ, ǥ are not in phonological contrast with voiced stops, they are also written as simple b, d, g.

Grimm's law

• The most notable change in the Germanic languages, Grimm's law, is a systemic chain shift of the original Indo-European stop consonants:
• /p/ > /f/; /b/ > /p/; /bʰ/ > /b/
• /t/ > /θ/; /d/ > /t/; /dʰ/ > /d/
• /k/ > /x/; /ɡ/ > /k/; /ɡʰ/ > /ɡ/
• /kʷ/ > /xʷ/; /ɡʷ/ > /kʷ/; /ɡʷʰ/ > /ɡʷ/, /w/, /ɡ/
• The Proto-Germanic consonants /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ are often said to have "originally" been fricatives and later to have "hardened" in some places into stops. This is disputed, however, by those who assert the opposite.
• The main theoretical argument in favor of the "originally soft" theory is that Verner's law works out slightly neater – voicing applied to unvoiced fricatives produces voiced fricatives, which merge immediately with existing voiced fricatives. With the "originally hard" theory, the newly voiced fricatives would not be the same as the original voiced stops, and therefore a subsequent step is required to merge them.
• The main theoretical argument in favor of the "originally hard" theory is that intervocalic "hardening" of voiced fricatives to stops is rather less common typologically than softening/weakening of voiced stops to fricatives; the most common change to intervocalic voiced fricatives is not hardening but further weakening, to approximates or to outright deletion. (Cf. common pronunciation [en to lao] of Spanish en todo lado [en toðo laðo].) Indeed, the later history of voiced fricatives in the Germanic languages often does show intervocalic weakening (OE /ɣ/ > /w/ or /j/; OE /v/ lost in hēafod > NE head, hlaford > NE lord). On the other hand, intervocalic hardening is the rule in High German (NHG habicht < OHG habuh : NE hawk < OE heafoc), and has also played a role in the later history of some of the Scandinavian languages (Sw. fjäder < OSw. fjædher : NE feather).
• In either case, /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ are acceptable ways of indicating the sounds (as are /β/, /ð/, /ɣ/, although these are somewhat more cumbersome).
• The likely allophones of /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ at the end of the Proto-Germanic period (c. 200 AD) were as follows:
• /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ are generally agreed to be stops [b], [d], [ɡ] after /n/ and when geminated.
• Evidence from all branches of Germanic shows that /ɡ/ was [ɣ] elsewhere, including initially. Initially it was "hardened" to [g] independently and at various times in the various languages:
• Before 350 AD in Gothic (early borrowings indicate lack of initial [ɡ]).
• Before 1000 AD in Old English (palatalization of initial /ɡ/, c. 450 AD, is consistent with [ɣ], not [ɡ]; similar arguments apply to Old Saxon and Old Frisian).
• Perhaps as a result of the High German consonant shift, before 800 AD (Low Saxon dialects still have intervocalic [ɣ]); but some linguists have asserted that /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ have always been stops in all positions in High German.
• Perhaps before 800 AD in Pre-Old Norse, when Old English speakers began borrowing words from Proto-Norse.
• Not yet, in Dutch.
• Evidence from all branches of Germanic shows that /b/ was [b] when initial, or when doubled, or after a nasal, and [β] or [v] elsewhere.
• Evidence differs with regard to /d/. In the oldest representatives of all branches of Germanic it appears that /d/ was a stop [d] initially, or when geminated, or after a nasal. In Gothic and Old Norse /d/ was a fricative elsewhere, [ð] (except where it came into contact with a voiceless consonant in Old Norse, and finally in Gothic, in which case it was devoiced to /θ/). But in West Germanic /d/ became a stop [d] in all positions. Note, then, that Gothic and Old Norse show a symmetrical system where /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ are stops when initial, doubled or post-nasal, and fricatives elsewhere. The reconstructed system of the other (West Germanic) dialects, however, is highly asymmetric (/ɡ/ is mostly fricative, /b/ is part stop, part fricative, and /d/ is entirely stop). Analogy works towards symmetry, and hence the reconstructed West Germanic system is likely to be correct and the symmetric systems of Gothic and Old Norse secondary developments. (An additional argument for this is that early borrowings into Gothic corroborate the initial [ɣ] in Pre-Gothic as in West Germanic.)

Verner's law

• Unvoiced fricatives (/s/, /f/, /θ/, /x/) were voiced when preceded by an unaccented syllable.
• In other words, they remain the same when initial or when directly following a stressed syllable.
• The stress here is the assumed Pre-Proto-Germanic accent, inherited directly from PIE (with some modifications in between). Hence, Germanic becomes a source to derive the original PIE accent.
• Directly after Verner's law was applied, the existing accent system was scrapped and a stress accent was universally applied on the first syllable.
• The voicing of /s/ produced /z/, a new phoneme as soon as the old accent system broke down.
• The voiced /f/, /θ/, /x/ merged into existing /b/, /d/, /ɡ/.

Vowels

Proto-Germanic vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	[i(:)]		[u(:)]
Mid	[e(:)]		[o:]
Near-open	[æ:] (ē2)
Open		[a]

• Proto-Germanic had four short vowels (i, u, e, a), and four or five long vowels (ī, ū, ē, ō and perhaps æ). The exact phonetic quality of the vowels is uncertain.
• PIE a and o merge into Proto-Germanic a, PIE ā and ō merge into Proto-Germanic ō (similar mergers happened in the Slavic languages). At the time of the merge, the vowels probably were [ɒ] and [ɒ:] before their timbres differentiated into maybe [ɑ] and [ɔ:].
• ē and æ are also transcribed as ē₁ and ē₂; ē₁ is uncertain as a phoneme, and only reconstructed from a small number of words; it is posited by the comparative method because whereas all the Germanic languages agree on some occasions of ē, there are some words in which Gothic shows ē and the other Germanic languages agree on ā; this is the basis for the common supposition that there was a vowel [æ:] distinct from [e:] in Proto-Germanic. Krahe treats ē₂ as identical with ī. It probably continues PIE ei or ēi, and it may have been in the process of transition from a diphthong to a long simple vowel in the Proto-Germanic period. All the Germanic languages show ē₂ has merged with ē. The existence of two Proto-Germanic [e:]-like phonemes is supported by the existence of two e-like Elder Futhark runes, Ehwaz and Eihwaz.
• Vowels in unstressed syllables were gradually reduced over time, beginning at the very end of the Proto-Germanic period and continuing into the history of the various dialects. This is reflected to the least extent in Proto-Norse, with steadily greater reduction in Gothic, Old High German, Old English, Modern German and Modern English.

Morphology

Historical linguistics can tell us much about Proto-Germanic. However, it should be kept in mind that these postulations are tentative and multiple reconstructions (with varying degrees of difference) exist. All reconstructed forms are marked with an asterisk (*).

Nouns and adjectives were declined in (at least) six cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, and vocative. Sparse remnants of the earlier locative and ablative cases are visible in a few pronominal and adverbial forms. Pronouns were declined similarly, although without a separate vocative form. The instrumental and vocative can be reconstructed only in the singular; the instrumental survives only in the West Germanic languages, and the vocative only in Gothic.

Verbs and pronouns had three numbers: singular, dual and plural. Although the pronominal dual survived into all the oldest languages, the verbal dual survived only into Gothic, and the (presumed) nominal and adjectival dual forms were lost before the oldest records. As in the Italic languages, it may have been lost before Proto-Germanic became a different branch at all.

Simplification of the inflectional system

It is often asserted out that Germanic languages have a highly reduced system of inflections as compared with Greek, Latin or Sanskrit. Although this is true to some extent, it is probably due more to the late time of attestation of Germanic than to any inherent "simplicity" of the Germanic languages. It is in fact debatable whether Germanic inflections are reduced at all. Other Indo-European languages attested much earlier than the Germanic languages, such as Hittite, also have a reduced inventory of noun cases. Germanic and Hittite might have lost them, or maybe they never shared in their acquisition.

Proto-Germanic had six cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, vocative), three genders, three numbers (singular, dual, plural), three moods (indicative, subjunctive < PIE optative, imperative), two voices (active, passive < PIE middle). This is quite similar to the state of Latin, Greek, and Middle Indo-Aryan of c. 200 AD.

The main area where the Germanic inflectional system is noticeably reduced is the tense system of the verbs, with only two tenses, present and past, as compared with 6 or 7 tenses in Greek and Latin. However:

• Later Germanic languages (especially Modern English) have a more elaborated tense system, derived through periphrastic constructions.
• PIE may have had as few as three "tenses" (present, aorist, perfect), which had primarily aspectual value, with secondary tensal values. The future tense was probably rendered using the subjunctive and/or desiderative verbs. Other tenses were derived in the history of the individual languages through various means (originally periphrastic constructions, such as the augment /e-/ of Greek and Sanskrit and the /-b-/ forms of Latin, derived from the PIE verb /bʱuː/ "be"; reinterpretation of subjunctive and desiderative formations as the future; analogical formations).
• The Germanic past tense contains forms deriving from both the PIE aorist and perfect; this is similar to the Latin perfect tense.

Nouns

The system of nominal declensions was largely inherited from PIE. Primary nominal declensions were the stems in /a/, /ō/, /n/, /i/, and /u/. The first three were particularly important and served as the basis of adjectival declension; there was a tendency for nouns of all other classes to be drawn into them. The first two had variants in /ja/ and /wa/, and /jō/ and /wō/, respectively; originally, these were conjugated exactly like other nouns of the respective class, but later sound changes tended to distinguish these variants as their own subclasses. The /n/ nouns had various subclasses, including /ōn/ (masculine and feminine), /an/ (neuter), and /īn/ (feminine, mostly abstract nouns). There was also a smaller class of root nouns (ending in various consonants), or nouns of relationship (ending in /er/), and neuter nouns in /z/ (this class was greatly expanded in German). Present participles, and a few nouns, ended in /nd/. The neuter nouns of all classes differed from the masculines and feminines in their nominative and accusative endings, which were alike.

	Nouns in -a-		Nouns in -i-
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*wulfaz	*wulfōs, -ōz	*gastiz	*gastijiz
Accusative	*wulfan	*wulfanz	*gastin	*gastinz
Genitive	*wulfisa, -asa	*wulfōn	*gastisa	*gastijōn
Dative	*wulfai, -ē	*wulfamiz	*gastai	*gasti
Vocative	*wulfa	—	*gasti	—
Instrumental	*wulfō	—	*gastī	—

Adjectives

Adjectives agree with the noun they qualify in case, number, and gender. Adjectives evolved into strong and weak declensions, originally with indefinite and definite meaning, respectively. As a result of its definite meaning, the weak form came to be used in the daughter languages in conjunction with demonstratives and definite articles. The terms "strong" and "weak" are based on the later development of these declensions in languages such as German and Old English, where the strong declensions have more distinct endings. In the proto-language, as in Gothic, such terms have no relevance. The strong declension was based on a combination of the nominal /a/ and /ō/ stems with the PIE pronominal endings; the weak declension was based on the nominal /n/ declension.

	Strong Declension						Weak Declension
	Masculine		Feminine		Neuter		Singular	Plural
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*blindaz	*blindai	*blindo	*blindōz	*blinda, -ato	*blindo	*blindano	*blindaniz
Accusative	*blindano	*blindanz	*blindo	*blindōz			*blindana	*blindaniz, -anuniz
Genitive	*blindez(a)	*blindaizo	*blindezōz	*blindaizo	*blindez(a)	*blindaizo	*blindeniz	*blindano
Dative	*blinde/asmē/ā	*blindaimiz	*blindai	*blindaimiz	*blinde/asmē/ā	*blindaimiz	*blindeni	*blindanmiz
Instrumental	*blindo	—	—	—	—	—	—	—

Determiners

Proto-Germanic had a demonstrative which could serve as both a demonstrative adjective and a demonstrative pronoun. In daughter languages it evolved into the definite article and various other demonstratives.

	Masculine		Feminine		Neuter
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*sa	*þai	*so	*þōz	*þat	*þō, *þio
Accusative	*þen(ō), *þan(ō)	*þans	*þo
Genitive	*þes(a)	*þezō	*þezōz	*þaizō	—	—
Dative	*þesmō, *þasmō	*þemiz, *þaimiz	*þezai	*þaimiz	—	—
Instrumental	*þiō	—	—	—	—	—
Locative	*þī	—	—	—	—	—

Schleicher's fable

Carlos Quiles Casas of the Dnghu Group gives a Proto-Germanic version of Schleicher's fable (A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 2007)

Awiz exʷaz-ux: awiz, xʷesja wulno ne ist, spexet exʷanz, ainan krun waǥan weǥantun, ainan-ux mekon ƀoran, ainan-ux ǥumonun axu ƀerontun. Awiz nu exʷamaz weuxet: xert aǥnutai meke witantei, exʷans akantun weran. Exʷaz weuxant: xluđi, awi! kert aknutai uns wituntmaz: mannaz, foþiz, wulnon awjan xʷurneuti seƀi warman wistran. Awjan-ux wulno ne isti. þat xexluwaz awiz akran ƀukeþ.

Footnotes

References

• Antonsen, E. H., On Defining Stages in Prehistoric Germanic, Language 41 (1965), 19ff.
• Bennett, William H. (1980). "An Introduction to the Gothic Language". New York: Modern Language Association of America.
• Campbell, A. (1959). "Old English Grammar". London: Oxford University Press.
• Krahe, Hans and Meid, Wolfgang. Germanische Sprachwissenschaft, 2 vols., de Gruyter, Berlin (1969).
• Lehmann, W. P., A Definition of Proto-Germanic, Language 37 (1961), 67ff.
• Ramat, Anna Giacalone and Paolo Ramat (Eds.) (1998). The Indo-European Languages. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06449-X.
• Joseph B. Voyles, Early Germanic Grammar (Academic Press, 1992) ISBN 0-12-728270-X

See also

• Holtzmann's Law