The Germanic languages are a branch of the
Indo-European language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
,
North America,
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
and
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number o ...
. The most widely spoken Germanic language,
English, is also the world's most
widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from
Proto-Germanic, spoken in
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
Scandinavia.
The
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 ...
include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages:
English with around 360–400 million native speakers;
German, with over 100 million native speakers; and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, with 24 million native speakers. Other West Germanic languages include
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, an offshoot of Dutch, with over 7.1 million native speakers;
Low German, considered a separate collection of
unstandardized dialects, with roughly 4.35–7.15 million native speakers and probably 6.7–10 million people who can understand it
[Taaltelling Nedersaksisch](_blank)
H. Bloemhoff. (2005). p88.[STATUS UND GEBRAUCH DES NIEDERDEUTSCHEN 2016](_blank)
, A. Adler, C. Ehlers, R. Goltz, A. Kleene, A. Plewnia (2016)[Saxon, Low](_blank)
''Ethnologue''. (at least 2.2 million in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
(2016)
and 2.15 million in the Netherlands (2003));
Yiddish, once used by approximately 13 million
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
in pre-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
Europe,
now with approximately 1.5 million native speakers;
Scots, with 1.5 million native speakers;
Limburgish varieties with roughly 1.3 million speakers along the
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
–
Belgian
Belgian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to, Belgium
* Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent
* Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German
*Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
–
German border; and the
Frisian languages
The Frisian (, ) languages are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closest l ...
with over 500,000 native speakers in the Netherlands and Germany.
The largest
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...
are
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
,
Danish and
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
, which are in part mutually intelligible and have a combined total of about 20 million native speakers in the
Nordic countries and an additional five million second language speakers; since the Middle Ages, however, these languages have been strongly influenced by
Middle Low German, a West Germanic language, and Low German words account for about 30–60% of their vocabularies according to various estimates. Other extant North Germanic languages are
Faroese,
Icelandic, and
Elfdalian
Elfdalian or Övdalian ( or , pronounced in Elfdalian, or in Swedish) is a North Germanic language spoken by up to 3,000 people who live or have grown up in the locality of Älvdalen ('), which is located in the southeastern part of Älvdale ...
, which are more conservative languages with no significant Low German influence, more complex grammar and limited mutual intelligibility with other North Germanic languages today.
[Holmberg, Anders and Christer Platzack (2005). "The Scandinavian languages". In ''The Comparative Syntax Handbook,'' eds Guglielmo Cinque and Richard S. Kayne. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press]
Excerpt at Durham University
.
The
East Germanic branch included
Gothic,
Burgundian, and
Vandalic
Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very fragm ...
, all of which are now extinct. The last to die off was
Crimean Gothic
Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.
Attestation
The existence of a Germanic dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th ce ...
, spoken until the late 18th century in some isolated areas of
Crimea
Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
.
The
SIL ''
Ethnologue'' lists 48 different living Germanic languages, 41 of which belong to the Western branch and six to the Northern branch; it places
Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German in neither of the categories, but it is often considered a German dialect by linguists. The total number of Germanic languages throughout history is unknown as some of them, especially the East Germanic languages, disappeared during or after the
Migration Period. Some of the West Germanic languages also did not survive past the Migration Period, including
Lombardic. As a result of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
and subsequent
mass expulsion of Germans, the German language
suffered a significant loss of ''
Sprachraum
In linguistics, a sprachraum (; , "language area", plural sprachräume) is a geographical region where a common first language (mother tongue), with dialect varieties, or group of languages is spoken.
Characteristics
Many sprachräume are separ ...
'', as well as moribundity and extinction of several of its dialects. In the 21st century, German dialects are dying out as
Standard German gains primacy.
The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic, also known as Common Germanic, which was spoken in about the middle of the 1st millennium BC in
Iron Age Scandinavia. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, notably has a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
change known as "
Grimm's law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...
." Early varieties of Germanic entered history when the
Germanic tribes
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and e ...
moved south from
Scandinavia in the 2nd century BC to settle in the area of today's northern Germany and southern Denmark.
Modern status
West Germanic languages
English is an
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
of
Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
, Canada, Nigeria,
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (; es, Islas Malvinas, link=no ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and about from Cape Dubouze ...
,
Saint Helena,
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Philippines, Jamaica,
Dominica,
Guyana,
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
,
American Samoa,
Palau
Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the ...
,
St. Lucia,
Grenada,
Barbados,
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Puerto Rico,
Guam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, India,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
,
Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
,
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...
, the
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...
and former British colonies in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Furthermore, it is the ''
de facto
''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...
'' language of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, as well as a recognized language in
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
and Malaysia.
German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany,
Liechtenstein,
Luxembourg and Switzerland and has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia and Denmark. German also continues to be spoken as a minority language by
immigrant communities in North America, South America, Central America, Mexico and Australia. A German dialect,
Pennsylvania Dutch, is still used among various populations in the American state of
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
in daily life.
Dutch is an official language of
Aruba, Belgium,
Curaçao, the Netherlands,
Sint Maarten, and
Suriname. The Netherlands also
colonized
Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, but Dutch was scrapped as an official language after
Indonesian independence
The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence ( id, Proklamasi Kemerdekaan Indonesia, or simply ''Proklamasi'') was read at 10:00 on Friday, 17 August 1945 in Jakarta. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed resistance of th ...
. Today, it is only used by older or traditionally educated people. Dutch was until 1983 an official language in South Africa but evolved into and was replaced by
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, a
partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch.
Afrikaans is one of the 11
official languages in South Africa and is a ''
lingua franca'' of Namibia. It is used in other
Southern African nations, as well.
Low German is a collection of very diverse dialects spoken in the northeast of the Netherlands and northern Germany.
Scots is spoken in
Lowland
Upland and lowland are conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level. In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland or lowland.
Definitions
Upland and lowland are portions of p ...
Scotland and parts of
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
(where the local dialect is known as
Ulster Scots).
Frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
in the Netherlands and Germany.
Luxembourgish is a
Moselle Franconian
__NOTOC__
Moselle Franconian (german: Moselfränkisch, lb, Muselfränkesch) is a West Central German language, part of the Central Franconian languages area, that includes Luxembourgish.
It is spoken in the southern Rhineland and along the ...
dialect that is spoken mainly in the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, where it is considered to be an official language. Similar varieties of Moselle Franconian are spoken in small parts of Belgium, France, and Germany.
Yiddish, once a native language of some 11 to 13 million people, remains in use by some 1.5 million speakers in Jewish communities around the world, mainly in North America, Europe, Israel, and other regions with
Jewish populations.
Limburgish
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
are spoken in the
Limburg
Limburg or Limbourg may refer to:
Regions
* Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium
* Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands
* Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...
and
Rhineland regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border.
North Germanic languages
In addition to being the official language in Sweden,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
is also spoken natively by the
Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, which is a large part of the population
along the coast of western and southern Finland. Swedish is also one of the two official languages in Finland, along with
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, and the only official language in
Åland. Swedish is also spoken by some people in Estonia.
Danish is an official language of Denmark and in its overseas territory of the
Faroe Islands, and it is a ''lingua franca'' and language of education in its other overseas territory of
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
, where it was one of the official languages until 2009. Danish, a locally recognized minority language, is also natively spoken by the Danish minority in the German state of
Schleswig-Holstein.
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
is the official language of Norway. Norwegian is also the official language in the overseas territories of Norway such as
Svalbard,
Jan Mayen
Jan Mayen () is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is long (southwest-northeast) and in area, partly covered by glaciers (an area of around the Beerenberg volcano). It has two parts: larger ...
,
Bouvet island
Bouvet Island ( ; or ''Bouvetøyen'') is an island claimed by Norway, and declared an uninhabited protected nature reserve. It is a subantarctic volcanic island, situated in the South Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of the Mid-Atlantic R ...
,
Queen Maud Land
Queen Maud Land ( no, Dronning Maud Land) is a roughly region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east. In addi ...
and
Peter I island.
Icelandic is the official language of
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
.
Faroese is the official language of the Faroe Islands, and is also spoken by some people in Denmark.
Statistics
History
All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical
Proto-Germanic, united by subjection to the sound shifts of
Grimm's law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...
and
Verner's law
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law w ...
. These probably took place during the
Pre-Roman Iron Age
The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain,
roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, northern Germany, Poland and the Netherlands.
The regio ...
of Northern Europe from c. 500 BC. Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after c. 500 BC, and
Proto-Norse from the 2nd century AD and later is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic from
Proto-Indo-European suggest a common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the
Nordic Bronze Age
The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from c. 2000/1750–500 BC.
The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Battle Axe culture (th ...
.
From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic varieties are divided into three groups:
West,
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
, and
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 ...
Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions.
The western group would have formed in the late
Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now northern Germany and southern Scandinavia spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age and associating with Germanic peoples. The culture evo ...
, and the eastern group may be derived from the 1st-century
variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of
Gotland, leaving southern Sweden as the original location of the northern group. The earliest period of
Elder Futhark (2nd to 4th centuries) predates the division in regional script variants, and linguistically essentially still reflects the
Common Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic br ...
stage. The
Vimose inscriptions include some of the oldest datable Germanic inscriptions, starting in c. 160 AD.
The earliest coherent Germanic text preserved is the 4th-century
Gothic translation of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...
by
Ulfilas. Early testimonies of West Germanic are in
Old Frankish/
Old Dutch (the 5th-century
Bergakker inscription
The Bergakker inscription is an Elder Futhark inscription discovered on the scabbard of a 5th-century sword. It was found in 1996 in the Dutch town of Bergakker, in the Betuwe, a region once inhabited by the Batavi. There is consensus that the f ...
),
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
(scattered words and sentences 6th century and coherent texts 9th century), and
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
(oldest texts 650, coherent texts 10th century). North Germanic is only attested in scattered runic inscriptions, as
Proto-Norse, until it evolves into
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlemen ...
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
A skald, or skáld (Old Norse: , later ; , meaning "poet"), is one of the often named poets who composed skaldic poetry, one of the two kinds of Old Norse poetry, the other being Eddic poetry, which is anonymous. Skaldic poems were traditional ...
dates back to as early as the 9th century.
By about the 10th century, the varieties had diverged enough to make
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
difficult. The linguistic contact of the
Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
settlers of the
Danelaw
The Danelaw (, also known as the Danelagh; ang, Dena lagu; da, Danelagen) was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian ...
with the
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
left traces in the English language and is suspected to have facilitated the collapse of Old English grammar that, combined with the influx of
Romance
Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to:
Common meanings
* Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings
* Romance languages, ...
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
vocabulary after the
Norman Conquest, resulted in
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old 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 by their respective neighbors by about the 7th century, with only
Crimean Gothic
Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.
Attestation
The existence of a Germanic dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th ce ...
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
Northern Low Saxon (in High German: ', in Standard Dutch: ') is a subgroup of Low Saxon dialects of Low German. As such, it covers a great part of the West Low German-speaking areas of northern Germany, with the exception of the border regio ...
in the North, and, although both extremes are considered German, they are hardly mutually intelligible. The southernmost varieties had completed the second sound shift, while the northern varieties remained unaffected by the consonant shift.
The North Germanic languages, on the other hand, remained unified until well past 1000 AD, and in fact the mainland Scandinavian languages still largely retain mutual intelligibility into modern times. The main split in these languages is between the mainland languages and the island languages to the west, especially
Icelandic, which has maintained the grammar of Old Norse virtually unchanged, while the mainland languages have diverged greatly.
Distinctive characteristics
Germanic languages possess a number of defining features compared with other Indo-European languages.
Some of the best-known are the following:
# The
sound changes known as
Grimm's Law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...
and
Verner's Law
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law w ...
, which shifted the values of all the Indo-European stop consonants (for example, original * became Germanic * in most cases; compare ''three'' with
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, ''two'' with Latin , ''do'' with
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
). The recognition of these two sound laws were seminal events in the understanding of the regular nature of linguistic sound change and the development of the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
, which forms the basis of modern
historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
.
# The development of a strong
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
on the first syllable of the word, which triggered significant phonological reduction of all other syllables. This is responsible for the reduction of most of the basic English, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish words into monosyllables, and the common impression of modern English and German as consonant-heavy languages. Examples are Proto-Germanic → ''strength'', → ''ant'', → ''head'', → ''hear'', → German "autumn, harvest", → German "witch, hag".
# A change known as
Germanic umlaut, which modified vowel qualities when a high front vocalic segment (, or ) followed in the next syllable. Generally, back vowels were fronted, and front vowels were raised. In many languages, the modified vowels are indicated with a
umlaut mark (e.g., in German, pronounced , respectively). This change resulted in pervasive alternations in related words — still extremely prominent in modern German but present only in remnants in modern English (e.g., ''mouse/mice'', ''goose/geese'', ''broad/breadth'', ''tell/told'', ''old/elder'', ''foul/filth'', ''gold/gild'').
# Large numbers of vowel qualities. English has around 11–12 vowels in most dialects (not counting diphthongs),
Standard Swedish
Standard Swedish () denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, the spoken standard may vary considerably from region to region. Several prestige dialects have devel ...
has 17
pure vowels (monophthongs), standard German and Dutch 14, and
Danish at least 11. The Amstetten dialect of
Bavarian German has 13 distinctions among long vowels alone, one of the largest such inventories in the world.
# ''
Verb second'' (V2) word order, which is uncommon cross-linguistically. Exactly one noun phrase or adverbial element must precede the verb; in particular, if an adverb or prepositional phrase precedes the verb, then the subject must immediately follow the finite verb. In modern English, this survives only in a few relics, known in the EFL classroom as "inversion": examples include some constructions with ''here'' or ''there'' (''Here comes the sun; there are five continents''), verbs of speech after a quote (''"Yes", said John''), sentences beginning with certain conjunctions (''Hardly had he said this when...; Only much later did he realize...'') and sentences beginning with certain adverbs of motion to create a sense of drama (''Over went the boat; out ran the cat;
Pop Goes The Weasel
"Pop! Goes the Weasel" (Roud 5249) is a traditional English and American song, a country dance, nursery rhyme, and singing game that emerged in the mid-19th century. It is commonly used in Jack-in-the-box toys and for ice cream trucks. The song ...
''). However it is common in all other modern Germanic languages.
Other significant characteristics are:
# The reduction of the various
tense and
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
combinations of the Indo-European verbal system into only two: the
present tense and the
past tense (also called the
preterite).
# The development of a new class of
weak verbs that use a dental
suffix (, or ) instead of
vowel alternation (
Indo-European ablaut) to indicate past tense. The vast majority of verbs in all Germanic languages are weak; the remaining verbs with vowel ablaut are the
strong verbs. The distinction has been lost in Afrikaans.
# A distinction in
definiteness of a
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
that is marked by different sets of inflectional endings for
adjectives, the so-called strong and weak inflections. A similar development happened in the
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...
. This distinction has been lost in modern English but was present in
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
and remains in all other Germanic languages to various degrees.
# Some words with etymologies that are difficult to link to other Indo-European families but with variants that appear in almost all Germanic languages. See
Germanic substrate hypothesis.
#
Discourse particles, which are a class of short, unstressed words which speakers use to express their attitude towards the utterance or the hearer. This word category seems to be rare outside of the Germanic languages. An example would be the word 'just', which the speaker can use to express surprise.
Note that some of the above characteristics were not present in Proto-Germanic but developed later as
areal feature
In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to ...
s that spread from language to language:
* Germanic umlaut only affected 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 ...
and
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 ...
(which represent all modern Germanic languages) but not the now-extinct
East Germanic languages
The East Germanic languages, also called the Oder–Vistula Germanic languages, are a group of extinct Germanic languages that were spoken by East Germanic peoples. East Germanic is one of the primary branches of Germanic languages, along with ...
, such as
Gothic, nor Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor of all Germanic languages.
* The large inventory of vowel qualities is a later development, due to a combination of Germanic umlaut and the tendency in many Germanic languages for pairs of long/short vowels of originally identical quality to develop distinct qualities, with the length distinction sometimes eventually lost. Proto-Germanic had only five distinct vowel qualities, although there were more actual vowel phonemes because length and possibly nasality were phonemic. In modern German, long-short vowel pairs still exist but are also distinct in quality.
* Proto-Germanic probably had a more general S-O-V-I word order. However, the tendency toward V2 order may have already been present in latent form and may be related to
Wackernagel's Law, an Indo-European law dictating that sentence
clitics must be placed second.
Roughly speaking, Germanic languages differ in how conservative or how progressive each language is with respect to an overall trend toward
analyticity. Some, such as
Icelandic and, to a lesser extent, German, have preserved much of the complex
inflectional morphology
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and de ...
inherited from Proto-Germanic (and in turn from
Proto-Indo-European). Others, such as English,
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
, and
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
, have moved toward a largely analytic type.
Linguistic developments
The subgroupings of the Germanic languages are defined by shared innovations. It is important to distinguish innovations from cases of linguistic conservatism. That is, if two languages in a family share a characteristic that is not observed in a third language, that is evidence of common ancestry of the two languages ''only if'' the characteristic is an innovation compared to the family's
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattes ...
.
The following innovations are common to the
Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germ ...
languages (all but
Gothic):
* The lowering of /u/ to /o/ in initial syllables before /a/ in the following syllable: → ''bode'', Icelandic "messages" ("a-Umlaut", traditionally called ''Brechung'')
* "Labial umlaut" in unstressed medial syllables (the conversion of /a/ to /u/ and /ō/ to /ū/ before /m/, or /u/ in the following syllable)
* The conversion of /ē
1/ into /ā/ (vs. Gothic /ē/) in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, West Germanic also has this change, but North Germanic has shortened the vowel to /e/, then raised it to /i/. This suggests it was an areal change.
* The raising of final /ō/ to /u/ (Gothic lowers it to /a/). It is kept distinct from the nasal /ǭ/, which is not raised.
* The
monophthongization
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraphs ...
of /ai/ and /au/ to /ē/ and /ō/ in non-initial syllables (however, evidence for the development of /au/ in medial syllables is lacking).
* The development of an intensified demonstrative ending in /s/ (reflected in English "this" compared to "the")
* Introduction of a distinct ablaut grade in Class VII
strong verbs, while Gothic uses
reduplication (e.g. Gothic ''haihait''; ON, OE ''hēt'', preterite of the Gmc verb ''*haitan'' "to be called") as part of a comprehensive reformation of the Gmc Class VII from a reduplicating to a new ablaut pattern, which presumably started in verbs beginning with vowel or /h/ (a development which continues the general trend of de-reduplication in Gmc); there are forms (such as OE dial. ''heht'' instead of ''hēt'') which retain traces of reduplication even in West and North Germanic
The following innovations are also common to the
Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germ ...
languages but represent
areal changes:
* Proto-Germanic /z/ > /r/ (e.g. Gothic ''dius''; ON ''dȳr'', OHG ''tior'', OE ''dēor'', "wild animal"); note that this is not present in
Proto-Norse and must be ordered after
West Germanic
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 ...
loss of final /z/
*
Germanic umlaut
The following innovations are common to the
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 ...
:
* Loss of final /z/. In single-syllable words, Old High German retains it (as /r/), while it disappears in the other West Germanic languages.
* Change of
�(fricative allophone of /d/) to stop
in all environments.
* Change of /lþ/ to stop /ld/ (except word-finally).
*
West Germanic gemination of consonants, except ''r'', before /j/. This only occurred in short-stemmed words due to
Sievers' law. Gemination of /p/, /t/, /k/ and /h/ is also observed before liquids.
* Labiovelar consonants become plain velar when non-initial.
* A particular type of ''umlaut'' /e-u-i/ > /i-u-i/.
* Changes to the 2nd person singular past-tense: Replacement of the past-singular stem vowel with the past-plural stem vowel, and substitution of the ending ''-t'' with ''-ī''.
* Short forms (''*stān, stēn'', ''*gān, gēn'') of the verbs for "stand" and "go"; but note that
Crimean Gothic
Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.
Attestation
The existence of a Germanic dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th ce ...
also has ''gēn''.
* The development of a
gerund.
The following innovations are common to the
Ingvaeonic
North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic , is a postulated grouping of the northern West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants.
Ingvaeonic is named after the Ingaevones, a West Ge ...
subgroup of the
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 ...
, which includes English, Frisian, and in a few cases Dutch and Low German, but not High German:
* The so-called
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, with loss of /n/ before voiceless fricatives: e.g. ''*munþ'', ''*gans'' > Old English ''mūþ, gōs'' > "mouth, goose", but German ''Mund, Gans''.
* The loss of the Germanic
reflexive pronoun
A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that refers to another noun or pronoun (its antecedent) within the same sentence.
In the English language specifically, a reflexive pronoun will end in ''-self'' or ''-selves'', and refer to a previously n ...
. Dutch has reclaimed the reflexive pronoun from Middle High German .
* The reduction of the three Germanic
verbal
plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
forms into one form ending in ''-þ''.
* The development of Class III weak verbs into a relic class consisting of four verbs (''*sagjan'' "to say", ''*hugjan'' "to think", ''*habjan'' "to have", ''*libjan'' "to live"; cf. the numerous Old High German verbs in ''-ēn'').
* The split of the Class II weak verb ending ''*-ō-'' into ''*-ō-/-ōja-'' (cf. Old English ''-ian'' < ''-ōjan'', but Old High German ''-ōn'').
* Development of a plural ending *-ōs in a-stem nouns (note, Gothic also has ''-ōs'', but this is an independent development, caused by
terminal devoicing of ''*-ōz'';
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries along the North Sea coast, roughly between the mouths of the Rhine and Weser rivers. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland (today's Northern Fri ...
has ''-ar'', which is thought to be a late borrowing from
Danish). Cf. modern English plural ''-(e)s'', but German plural ''-e''.
* Possibly, the
monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
ization of Germanic ''*ai'' to ''ē/ā'' (this may represent independent changes in Old Saxon and
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages.
The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
).
The following innovations are common to the
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages.
The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
subgroup of the
Ingvaeonic languages:
* Raising of nasalized ''a, ā'' into ''o, ō''.
*
Anglo-Frisian brightening
The phonological system of the Old English language underwent many changes during the period of its existence. These included a number of vowel shifts, and the palatalisation of velar consonants in many positions.
For historical development ...
: Fronting of non-nasal ''a, ā'' to ''æ,ǣ'' when not followed by ''n'' or ''m''.
*
Metathesis of ''CrV'' into ''CVr'', where ''C'' represents any consonant and ''V'' any vowel.
*
Monophthongization
Monophthongization is a sound change by which a diphthong becomes a monophthong, a type of vowel shift. It is also known as ungliding, as diphthongs are also known as gliding vowels. In languages that have undergone monophthongization, digraphs ...
of ''ai'' into ''ā''.
Common linguistic features
Phonology
The oldest Germanic languages all share a number of features, which are assumed to be inherited from Proto-Germanic. Phonologically, it includes the important sound changes known as
Grimm's Law
Grimm's law (also known as the First Germanic Sound Shift) is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. First systematically put forward by Jacob Gr ...
and
Verner's Law
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives , , , , , following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives , , , , . The law w ...
, which introduced a large number of
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s; late
Proto-Indo-European had only one, /s/.
The main vowel developments are the merging (in most circumstances) of long and short /a/ and /o/, producing short /a/ and long /ō/. That likewise affected the
diphthongs, with PIE /ai/ and /oi/ merging into /ai/ and PIE /au/ and /ou/ merging into /au/. PIE /ei/ developed into long /ī/. PIE long /ē/ developed into a vowel denoted as /ē
1/ (often assumed to be phonetically ), while a new, fairly uncommon long vowel /ē
2/ developed in varied and not completely understood circumstances. Proto-Germanic had no
front rounded vowel
A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded.
The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include:
* , a close front rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel")
* , a near-close front rounded vowel (or " ...
s, but all Germanic languages except for
Gothic subsequently developed them through the process of
i-umlaut.
Proto-Germanic developed a strong stress accent on the first syllable of the root, but remnants of the original free PIE accent are visible due to Verner's Law, which was sensitive to this accent. That caused a steady erosion of vowels in unstressed syllables. In Proto-Germanic, that had progressed only to the point that absolutely-final short vowels (other than /i/ and /u/) were lost and absolutely-final long vowels were shortened, but all of the early literary languages show a more advanced state of vowel loss. This ultimately resulted in some languages (like Modern English) losing practically all vowels following the main stress and the consequent rise of a very large number of monosyllabic words.
Table of outcomes
The following table shows the main outcomes of Proto-Germanic vowels and consonants in the various older languages. For vowels, only the outcomes in stressed syllables are shown. Outcomes in unstressed syllables are quite different, vary from language to language and depend on a number of other factors (such as whether the syllable was medial or final, whether the syllable was
open or
closed and (in some cases) whether the preceding syllable was
light or
heavy
Heavy may refer to:
Measures
* Heavy (aeronautics), a term used by pilots and air traffic controllers to refer to aircraft capable of 300,000 lbs or more takeoff weight
* Heavy, a characterization of objects with substantial weight
* Heavy, ...
).
Notes:
* ''C-'' means before a vowel (word-initially, or sometimes after a consonant).
* ''-C-'' means between vowels.
* ''-C'' means after a vowel (word-finally or before a consonant). Word-final outcomes generally occurred ''after'' deletion of final short vowels, which occurred shortly after Proto-Germanic and is reflected in the history of all written languages except for
Proto-Norse.
* The above three are given in the order ''C-'', ''-C-'', ''-C''. If one is omitted, the previous one applies. For example, ''f, -
'' means that ''
' occurs after a vowel regardless of what follows.
* Something like ''a(…u)'' means "''a'' if /u/ occurs in the next syllable".
* Something like ''a(n)'' means "''a'' if /n/ immediately follows".
* Something like ''(n)a'' means "''a'' if /n/ immediately precedes".
Morphology
The oldest Germanic languages have the typical complex inflected morphology of old
Indo-European languages, with four or five noun cases; verbs marked for person, number, tense and mood; multiple noun and verb classes; few or no articles; and rather free word order. The old Germanic languages are famous for having only two tenses (present and past), with three PIE past-tense aspects (imperfect, aorist, and perfect/stative) merged into one and no new tenses (future, pluperfect, etc.) developing. There were three moods: indicative, subjunctive (developed from the PIE
optative mood) and imperative. Gothic verbs had a number of archaic features inherited from PIE that were lost in the other Germanic languages with few traces, including dual endings, an inflected passive voice (derived from the PIE
mediopassive voice), and a class of verbs with reduplication in the past tense (derived from the PIE perfect). The complex tense system of modern English (e.g. ''In three months, the house will still be being built'' or ''If you had not acted so stupidly, we would never have been caught'') is almost entirely due to subsequent developments (although paralleled in many of the other Germanic languages).
Among the primary innovations in Proto-Germanic are the
preterite present verbs, a special set of verbs whose present tense looks like the past tense of other verbs and which is the origin of most
modal verb
A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', or ''advice''. Modal verbs generally accompany the b ...
s in English; a past-tense ending; (in the so-called "weak verbs", marked with ''-ed'' in English) that appears variously as /d/ or /t/, often assumed to be derived from the verb "to do"; and two separate sets of adjective endings, originally corresponding to a distinction between indefinite semantics ("a man", with a combination of PIE adjective and pronoun endings) and definite semantics ("the man", with endings derived from PIE ''n''-stem nouns).
Note that most modern Germanic languages have lost most of the inherited inflectional morphology as a result of the steady attrition of unstressed endings triggered by the strong initial stress. (Contrast, for example, the
Balto-Slavic languages
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branc ...
, which have largely kept the Indo-European
pitch accent and consequently preserved much of the inherited morphology.)
Icelandic and to a lesser extent modern German best preserve the Proto–Germanic inflectional system, with four noun cases, three genders, and well-marked verbs. English and Afrikaans are at the other extreme, with almost no remaining inflectional morphology.
The following shows a typical masculine ''a''-stem noun, Proto-Germanic ''*fiskaz'' ("fish"), and its development in the various old literary languages:
Strong vs. weak nouns and adjectives
Originally, adjectives in Proto-Indo-European followed the same declensional classes as nouns. The most common class (the ''o/ā'' class) used a combination of ''o''-stem endings for masculine and neuter genders and ''ā''-stems ending for feminine genders, but other common classes (e.g. the ''i'' class and ''u'' class) used endings from a single vowel-stem declension for all genders, and various other classes existed that were based on other declensions. A quite different set of "pronominal" endings was used for pronouns,
determiners, and words with related semantics (e.g., "all", "only").
An important innovation in Proto-Germanic was the development of two separate sets of adjective endings, originally corresponding to a distinction between indefinite semantics ("a man") and definite semantics ("the man"). The endings of indefinite adjectives were derived from a combination of pronominal endings with one of the common vowel-stem adjective declensions – usually the ''o/ā'' class (often termed the ''a/ō'' class in the specific context of the Germanic languages) but sometimes the ''i'' or ''u'' classes. Definite adjectives, however, had endings based on ''n''-stem nouns. Originally both types of adjectives could be used by themselves, but already by Proto-Germanic times a pattern evolved whereby definite adjectives had to be accompanied by a
determiner with definite semantics (e.g., a
definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
,
demonstrative pronoun
Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...
,
possessive pronoun, or the like), while indefinite adjectives were used in other circumstances (either accompanied by a word with indefinite semantics such as "a", "one", or "some" or unaccompanied).
In the 19th century, the two types of adjectives – indefinite and definite – were respectively termed "strong" and "weak", names which are still commonly used. These names were based on the appearance of the two sets of endings in modern German. In German, the distinctive case endings formerly present on nouns have largely disappeared, with the result that the load of distinguishing one case from another is almost entirely carried by determiners and adjectives. Furthermore, due to regular sound change, the various definite (''n''-stem) adjective endings coalesced to the point where only two endings (''-e'' and ''-en'') remain in modern German to express the sixteen possible inflectional categories of the language (masculine/feminine/neuter/plural crossed with nominative/accusative/dative/genitive – modern German merges all genders in the plural). The indefinite (''a/ō''-stem) adjective endings were less affected by sound change, with six endings remaining (''-, -e, -es, -er, -em, -en''), cleverly distributed in a way that is capable of expressing the various inflectional categories without too much ambiguity. As a result, the definite endings were thought of as too "weak" to carry inflectional meaning and in need of "strengthening" by the presence of an accompanying determiner, while the indefinite endings were viewed as "strong" enough to indicate the inflectional categories even when standing alone. (This view is enhanced by the fact that modern German largely uses weak-ending adjectives when accompanying an indefinite article, and hence the indefinite/definite distinction no longer clearly applies.) By analogy, the terms "strong" and "weak" were extended to the corresponding noun classes, with ''a''-stem and ''ō''-stem nouns termed "strong" and ''n''-stem nouns termed "weak".
However, in Proto-Germanic – and still in
Gothic, the most conservative Germanic language – the terms "strong" and "weak" are not clearly appropriate. For one thing, there were a large number of noun declensions. The ''a''-stem, ''ō''-stem, and ''n''-stem declensions were the most common and represented targets into which the other declensions were eventually absorbed, but this process occurred only gradually. Originally the ''n''-stem declension was not a single declension but a set of separate declensions (e.g., ''-an'', ''-ōn'', ''-īn'') with related endings, and these endings were in no way any "weaker" than the endings of any other declensions. (For example, among the eight possible inflectional categories of a noun — singular/plural crossed with nominative/accusative/dative/genitive — masculine ''an''-stem nouns in Gothic include seven endings, and feminine ''ōn''-stem nouns include six endings, meaning there is very little ambiguity of "weakness" in these endings and in fact much less than in the German "strong" endings.) Although it is possible to group the various noun declensions into three basic categories — vowel-stem, ''n''-stem, and other-consonant-stem (a.k.a. "minor declensions") — the vowel-stem nouns do not display any sort of unity in their endings that supports grouping them together with each other but separate from the ''n''-stem endings.
It is only in later languages that the binary distinction between "strong" and "weak" nouns become more relevant. In
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
, the ''n''-stem nouns form a single, clear class, but the masculine ''a''-stem and feminine ''ō''-stem nouns have little in common with each other, and neither has much similarity to the small class of ''u''-stem nouns. Similarly, in Old Norse, the masculine ''a''-stem and feminine ''ō''-stem nouns have little in common with each other, and the continuations of the masculine ''an''-stem and feminine ''ōn/īn''-stem nouns are also quite distinct. It is only in
Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects whose ancestor was Old Dutch. It was spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. Until the advent of Modern Dutch after 1500 or c. 1550, there was no overarc ...
and modern German that the various vowel-stem nouns have merged to the point that a binary strong/weak distinction clearly applies.
As a result, newer grammatical descriptions of the Germanic languages often avoid the terms "strong" and "weak" except in conjunction with German itself, preferring instead to use the terms "indefinite" and "definite" for adjectives and to distinguish nouns by their actual stem class.
In English, both sets of adjective endings were lost entirely in the late
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
period.
Classification
Note that divisions between and among subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not. Within the Germanic language family are
East Germanic
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
,
West Germanic
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 ...
, and
North Germanic
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
. However, East Germanic languages became extinct several centuries ago.
All living Germanic languages belong either to the
West Germanic
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 ...
or to the
North Germanic
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
branch.
The West Germanic group is the larger by far, further subdivided into
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages.
The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
on one hand and
Continental West Germanic on the other. Anglo-Frisian notably includes English and all its
variants
Variant may refer to:
In arts and entertainment
* ''Variant'' (magazine), a former British cultural magazine
* Variant cover, an issue of comic books with varying cover art
* ''Variant'' (novel), a novel by Robison Wells
* "The Variant", 2021 e ...
, while Continental West Germanic includes German (
standard register and
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
), as well as Dutch (
standard register and
dialects
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
). East Germanic includes most notably the extinct Gothic and Crimean Gothic languages.
Modern classification looks like this. For a full classification, see
List of Germanic languages.
*
West Germanic
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 ...
**
High German languages (includes
Standard German and
its dialects)
***
Upper German
****
Alemannic German
****
Austro-Bavarian German
*****
Mòcheno language
*****
Cimbrian language
*****
Hutterite German
Hutterite German (German: ''Hutterisch'') is an Upper German dialect of the Bavarian variety of the German language, which is spoken by Hutterite communities in Canada and the United States. Hutterite is also called Tirolean, but this is an ana ...
***
Wymysorys
***
Hunsrik
Hunsrik (natively and Portuguese ''Hunsrik'' or ''Hunsrückisch''), also called ''Riograndenser Hunsrückisch'' or ''Katharinensisch'', is a Moselle Franconian language derived primarily from the Hunsrückisch dialect of West Central German. T ...
***
Yiddish
***
High Franconian (a transitional dialect between Upper and Central German)
***
Central German
****
East Central German
East Central German or East Middle German (german: Ostmitteldeutsch) is the eastern non- Franconian Central German language and is part of High German. Present-day Standard German as a High German variant, has actually developed from a compromi ...
****
West Central German
West Central German (german: Westmitteldeutsch) belongs to the Central, High German dialect family of German. Its dialects are Franconian and comprise the parts of the Rhinelandic continuum located south of the Benrath line isogloss, including ...
*****
Luxembourgish
*****
Pennsylvania Dutch
**
Low German
***
West Low German
***
East Low German
East Low German (german: ostniederdeutsche Dialekte, ostniederdeutsche Mundarten, Ostniederdeutsch; nds, Oostplattdütsch) is a group of Low German dialects spoken in north-eastern Germany as well as by minorities in northern Poland. Together ...
***
Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German)
**
Low Franconian
Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
***
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and
its dialects
***
Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
(a separate
standard language)
***
Limburgish (an
official minority language)
**
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are the Anglic (English, Scots, and Yola) and Frisian varieties of the West Germanic languages.
The Anglo-Frisian languages are distinct from other West Germanic languages due to several sound changes: besides th ...
***
Anglic (or English)
****
English and
its dialects
****
Scots in Scotland and
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
***
Frisian
****
West Frisian
****
East Frisian
*****
Saterland Frisian (last remaining dialect of East Frisian)
****
North Frisian
*
North Germanic
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...
** West Scandinavian
***
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
(of Western branch origin, but heavily influenced by the Eastern branch)
***
Icelandic
***
Faroese
***
Elfdalian
Elfdalian or Övdalian ( or , pronounced in Elfdalian, or in Swedish) is a North Germanic language spoken by up to 3,000 people who live or have grown up in the locality of Älvdalen ('), which is located in the southeastern part of Älvdale ...
** East Scandinavian
***
Danish
***
Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
****
Dalecarlian dialects
Dalecarlian (''dalmål'' in Swedish) is a group of East and West Scandinavian languages, and their respective dialects spoken in Dalarna County, Sweden. Some Dalecarlian varieties can be regarded as part of the Swedish dialect group in Gäs ...
**
Gutnish
*
East Germanic
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
**
Gothic †
***
Crimean Gothic
Crimean Gothic was an East Germanic language spoken by the Crimean Goths in some isolated locations in Crimea until the late 18th century.
Attestation
The existence of a Germanic dialect in Crimea is noted in a number of sources from the 9th ce ...
† (relationship to earlier Gothic unclear)
**
Burgundian †
**
Vandalic
Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very fragm ...
†
Writing
The earliest evidence of Germanic languages 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.
From roughly the 2nd century AD, certain speakers of early Germanic varieties developed the
Elder Futhark, an early form of the
runic alphabet
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
. Early runic inscriptions also are largely limited to personal names and difficult to interpret. The
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizeable text c ...
was written in the
Gothic alphabet developed by Bishop
Ulfilas for his translation of the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts ...
in the 4th century.
[ Cercignani, Fausto, ''The Elaboration of the Gothic Alphabet and Orthography'', in "Indogermanische Forschungen", 93, 1988, pp. 168–185.] Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke and read
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
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.
Modern Germanic languages mostly use an alphabet derived from the
Latin Alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
. In print, German used to be predominately set in
blackletter typefaces (e.g.,
fraktur or
schwabacher
The German word Schwabacher (pronounced ) refers to a specific style of blackletter typefaces which evolved from Gothic Textualis (''Textura'') under the influence of Humanist type design in Italy during the 15th century. Schwabacher typesetti ...
)
until the 1940s, while ''
Kurrent'' and, since the early 20th century, ''
Sütterlin'' were formerly used for German handwriting. Yiddish is written using an adapted
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...
.
Vocabulary comparison
The table compares cognates in several different Germanic languages. In some cases, the meanings may not be identical in each language.
See also
*
List of Germanic languages
*
Language families and languages
*
List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents
*
Germanization
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, people and culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationalism went hand in hand. In ling ...
*
Anglicization
*
Germanic name
*
Germanic verb
The Germanic language family is one of the language groups that resulted from the breakup of Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It in turn divided into North, West and East Germanic groups, and ultimately produced a large group of mediaeval and modern l ...
and its various subordinated articles
*
Germanic placename etymology
*
German name
Personal names in German-speaking Europe consist of one or several given names (''Vorname'', plural ''Vornamen'') and a surname (''Nachname, Familienname'').
The ''Vorname'' is usually gender-specific. A name is usually cited in the " Western orde ...
*
German placename etymology
*
Isogloss
*
South Germanic languages
Footnotes
Notes
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Germanic languages in general
*
*
*
Proto-Germanic
*
*
;Gothic
*
*
Old Norse
*
*
Old English
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Old High German
*
*
External links
Germanic Lexicon Project'Hover & Hear' pronunciations of the same Germanic words in dozens of Germanic languages and 'dialects', including English accents, and compare instantaneously side by side
*
ttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swadesh_lists_for_Germanic_languages Swadesh lists of Germanic basic vocabulary words(from Wiktionary'
Swadesh-list appendix
Germanic languages fragments��YouTube (14:06)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Germanic Languages
Indo-European languages