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|rowspan=2 | [[Migration period]]<br><small>AD 200&ndash;700</small>
|rowspan=2 | [[Migration period]]<br><small>AD 200&ndash;700</small>
| style="background: #aea" |[[Gothic language|Gothic]],
| style="background: #aea; border-bottom: 1px solid #aea;" |[[Gothic language|Gothic]],
| colspan=2 style="background: #eeb"| [[Lombardic language|Lombardic]]
| colspan=2 style="background: #eeb"| [[Lombardic language|Lombardic]]
| style="background: #eca" |
| style="background: #eca; border-bottom: 1px solid #eca;" | &nbsp;
|rowspan=2 style="background: #eba"| [[Old Frankish language|Old Frankish]]
|rowspan=2 style="background: #eba"| [[Old Frankish language|Old Frankish]]
|rowspan=3 style="background: #eba"| [[Old Saxon]]
|rowspan=3 style="background: #eba"| [[Old Saxon]]

Revision as of 15:36, 8 February 2006

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Germanic
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Geographic
distribution		Originally in northern and central Europe; today worldwide
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
  • Germanic
Subdivisions

The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The largest Germanic languages are English and German, with ca. 340 and 120 million native speakers, respectively. Other significant languages include a number of Low Germanic languages (including Dutch, Afrikaans) and the Scandinavian languages (principally Danish, Norwegian and Swedish). The SIL Ethnologue lists 53 different Germanic languages and dialects.

Their common ancestor is Common Germanic, probably spoken in the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe. Common Germanic, and all its descendants, is characterised by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law. Early Germanic dialects enter history with the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire from the 2nd century.

Characteristics of some Germanic languages

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 they are with respect to an overall trend towards analycity. Some, like (German and Faroese have preserved much of the complex inflectional morphology ultimately inherited from Indo-European. Others, like English, Swedish and Afrikaans have moved towards a largely analytic type.

A characteristic of many Germanic languages, especially the more conservative ones and the older stages, is verb second or V2 word order, which is quite uncommon cross-linguistically. Other Germanic languages, most notably English, have replaced this structure with an overall SVO structure.

Most Germanic languages have fairly complex vowel systems with a large phoneme inventory.

Writing

Our earliest evidence of Germanic is from names, recorded in the 1st century by Tacitus, and in a single instance in the 2nd century BC, on the Negau helmet. From roughly the 2nd century AD, some speakers of early Germanic dialects developed the Elder Futhark. Early runic inscriptons 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 tongue began writing the Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters, but in Scandinavia, runic alphabets remained in common use throughout the Viking Age.

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, Ð, Ȝ, and Þ and Ƿ, from runes. Historic printed German is frequently set in blackletter typefaces (e.g. fraktur or schwabacher).

Linguistic Markers

Some unique features of Germanic languages are:

  1. The levelling of the IE tense system into past and present (or common)
  2. The use of a dental suffix (/d/ or /t/) instead of vowel alternation (Indo-European ablaut) to indicate past tense. See: Germanic weak verb.
  3. The presence of two distinct types of verb conjugation: weak (using dental suffix) and strong (using ablaut). English has 161 strong verbs; all are of native English origin. See: West Germanic strong verb.
  4. The use of strong and weak adjectives. Modern English adjectives don't change except for comparative and superlative; this was not the case with Old English, where adjectives were inflected differently depending on whether they were preceded by an article or demonstrative, or not.
  5. The consonant shift known as Grimm's Law.
  6. 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.
  7. The shifting of stress onto the root of the stem. Though English has an irregular stress, native words always have a fixed stress regardless of what's added to them. This is arguably the most important change.

History

File:Germanic language zones 3.PNG
The global distribution of Germanic languages. Solid red indicates that a majority of inhabitants speaks a Germanic language. Striped red indicates that a sizeable minority (more than 10%) speaks a Germanic language.

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 dialects 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 dialects are difficult to classify. The 6th century Lombardic language, for instance, may constitute an originally either North or East Germanic dialect 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 dialect 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 and Old English from about the 9th 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 dialects 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 German, with graded intermediate Central German dialects. By Early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South to Northern Low Saxon and Frisian in the North, and although both extremes are considered German, they are hardly mutually intelligible. The southern dialects have completed the second sound shift, but remained closer to the Middle German vowel system, while the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift, but simplified the vowel system.

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 dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.

Diachronic

Iron Age
500 BC–AD 200 		Proto-Germanic
East Germanic West Germanic North Germanic
South Germanic Anglo-Frisian
Migration period
AD 200–700 		Gothic, Lombardic   Old Frankish Old Saxon Old Frisian Old English Proto-Norse
Vandalic, Burgundian, Old High German
Early Middle Ages
700–1100 		Old Low Franconian Old Norse
Middle Ages
1100–1500 		Middle High German Middle Dutch Middle Low German Middle English Old West Norse, Old East Norse
Early Modern Age
1500–1700 		Crimean Gothic Early Modern High German Low Franconian dialects West Low German, East Low German Middle Frisian Early Modern English West Scandinavian, East Scandinavian
Modern Age
1700 to present 		all extinct High Germanic dialects Frisian dialects English dialects, Scots dialects

Contemporary

Mentioned here are only the principal or unusual contemporary dialects; individual articles linked to below contain larger family trees. For example, many Low German dialects are discussed on Low German besides just Northern Low Saxon and Plautdietsch.

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 cognate 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 Afrikaans Dutch Low German Standard German Yiddish Gothic Icelandic Faroese Swedish Danish Norwegian (Bokmål) Norwegian (Nynorsk)
Apple Aiple Appel Appel Appel Apfel עפּל (Epl) Aplus Epli Epli¹ Äpple Æble Eple Eple
Board Buird Bord Bord Boord Brett ברעט (Bret) Baúrd Borð Borð Bord Bræt Bord Bord
Book Beuk Boek Boek Book Buch בוך (Buḫ) Bóka Bók Bók Bok Bog Bok Bok
Breast Breest Bors Borst Bost Brust ברוסט (Brust) Brusts Brjóst Bróst Bröst Bryst Bryst Bryst
Brown Broun Bruin Bruin Bruun Braun ברוין (Broyn) Bruns Brúnn Brúnur Brun Brun Brun Brun
Day Day Dag Dag Dag Tag טאָג (Tog) Dags Dagur Dagur Dag Dag Dag Dag
Die Dee Sterf Sterven Döen/ Starven Sterben שׁטאַרבּן (Shtarbn) Diwan Deyja Doyggja Dö Dø Dø Døy
Enough Eneuch Genoeg Genoeg   Genug גענוג (Genug) Ga-nóhs Nóg Nóg/ Nógmikið Nog Nok Nok Nok
Give Gie Gee Geven Geven Geben געבן (Gebn) Giban Gefa Geva Giva/ Ge Give Gi Gje
Glass Gless Glas Glas Glas Glas גלאָז (Gloz)   Gler Glas Glas Glas Glas Glas
Gold Gowd Goud Goud Gold Gold גאָלד (Gold) Gulþ Gull Gull Guld Guld Gull Gull
Hand Haund Hand Hand Hand Hand האַנט (Hant) Handus Hönd Hond Hand Hånd Hånd Hand
Head Heid Kop Hoofd/ Kop Kopp Haupt/ Kopf קאָפּ (Kop) Háubiþ Höfuð Høvd/ Høvur Huvud Hoved Hode Hovud
High Heich Hoog Hoog Hoog Hoch הױך (Hoyḫ) Háuh Hár Høg/ur Hög Høj Høy Høg
Home/House Hame Huis Huis (Huus) Heim הײם (Heym) Háimóþ Heim Heim Hem Hjem Hjem Heim
Hook Heuk Haak Haak Haak Haken מענדל (Mendl)   Krókur Krókur/ Ongul Hake/ krok Hage Hake/ Krok Hake/ Krok
House Hoose Huis Huis Huus Haus הױז (Hoyz) Hús Hús Hús Hus Hus Hus Hus
Many Mony Menige Menige Mennig Manch פֿיל (Fil) Manags Margir Mangir/ Nógvir Många Mange Mange Mange
Moon Muin Maan Maan Maan Mond לבֿנה (Levone) Ména Tungl/ Máni Máni Måne Måne Måne Måne
Night Nicht Nag Nacht Natt / Nacht Nacht נאַכט (Naḫt) Nahts Nótt Nátt Natt Nat Natt Natt
No Nae Nee Niet/ Nee Nee Nein/ Nö/ Nee נײן (Neyn) Né Nei Nei Nej Nej Nei Nei
Old Auld Oud Oud Oll Alt אַלט (Alt) Sineigs Gamall Gamal/ Gomul/ Gamalt Gammal Gammel Gammel (but: eldre, eldst) Gammal
One Ane Een Een Een Eins אײן (Eyn) Áins Einn Ein/ Eitt En/ett En En Ein
Ounce Unce Ons Ons   Unze     Únsa   Uns Unse Unse Unse
Snow Snaw Sneeu Sneeuw Snee Schnee שנײ (Šney) Snáiws Snjór Kavi/ Snjógvur Snö Sne Snø Snø
Stone Stane Steen Steen Steen Stein שטײן (Šteyn) Stáins Steinn Steinur Sten Sten Sten Stein
That That Dit Dit, Dat Dat (Dit) Das דאָס (Dos) Þata Þetta Hatta Det Det Det Det
Two Twa Twee Twee Twee Zwei/Zwo צװײ (Ẓvey) Twái Tveir Tveir Två To To To
Who Wha Wie Wie Wokeen Wer װער (Ver) Has Hver Hvør Vem Hvem Hvem Kven
Worm Wirm Wurm Wurm, Worm Worm Wurm װאָרעם (Vorem) Maþa Maðkur, Ormur Maðkur/ Ormur Mask, Orm² Orm Orm Orm

1: The cognate means 'potato'. The correct word is 'Súrepli'. 2: The cognate means snake.

See also

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