A pan-Germanic language is a

zonal auxiliary language Zonal auxiliary languages, or zonal constructed languages, are constructed languages made to facilitate communication between speakers of a certain group of closely-related languages. They form a subgroup of the international auxiliary languages b ...

designed for communication amongst speakers of

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...

. Many of them are very similar and overlap in their approach but they are mutually inconsistent in their orthography, phonology, and vocabulary.

Background

The intention behind a zonal auxiliary language is to create a means of mutual communication among speakers of related languages. Due to the diversity and variation among Germanic dialects, the most-spoken languagesEnglish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and Norwegianare usually given precedence over others. Some of the pan-languages focus on unifying subgroups of the Germanic languages, such as the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

West Germanic languages The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into ...

. The development of each language is similar to the process for developing other auxiliary languages. To create a word or a grammatical form, samples are taken from all of the Germanic languages and the form common to most of the languages is selected. Reference is also made to previously existing and parallel Germanic zonal auxiliary languages.

Overview

The first known active and concise effort to unite the Germanic languages is

Tutonish Tutonish (also called Teutonish, Teutonik, Allteutonish, Altutonish, Alteutonik, Nu Teutonish, Niu Teutonish, or Neuteutonish) is a constructed language created by Elias Molee. He worked on it for several years, and he reformed it multiple times, ...

. It was developed by

Elias Molee Elias Molee (January 3, 1845 – September 27, 1928) was an American journalist, philologist and linguist. Background Elias Molee was born in Muskego, Wisconsin, the son of John Evenson Molie and Anne Jacobson Einong. The original spelling of ...

in 1901, and reformed in 1906 and 1915. It was extremely simplistic. The orthography, while straightforward, was not related to any of the existing natural Germanic languages. However, despite its shortcomings, Molee established Four Principles that provided a framework for future works. Later in the 20th and 21st centuries, other projects have been launched as well, none of which has ever been successful, though: * Euronord was created by linguist and Manx language scholar Adrian J. Pilgrim in 1965. It is chiefly based on English, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish and was intended to be a zonal auxiliary language for Northern Europe. Unlike his predecessor Molee, Pilgrim was not as extensive in his work and little is known about Euronord. * In 2000, a new project was presented on the Internet by Aaron Chapman, Folksstem ("De Nue Germane Kunstsprak"). Later, it was renamed Nordien and Nordienisk. * Folkspraak, a collaborative project or projects, was initiated on the internet in 1995. Since its inception, the project has not advanced much, and rifts in the Folkspraak community have given rise to various variants, including Middelsprake (by Ingmar Roerdinkholder, 2004), Sprak (by Stephan Schneider, 2006) and Frenkisch (by David Parke, 2008). * Tcathan/Chathan (tcatamsck) began being made in 2007. It has influences from Dutch/Afrikaans, German, North Germanic, Modern English, Old English, and Proto-Germanic.

Background

Overview

See also