The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the
Germanic family of
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s (the others being 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 ...
and the extinct
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 ...
languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into three branches:
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 ...
, which includes
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
Frisian,
Istvaeonic
Weser-Rhine Germanic is a proposed group of prehistoric West Germanic dialects which would have been both directly ancestral to Dutch, as well as being a notable substratum influencing West Central German dialects. The term was introduced by the G ...
, which includes
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 close relatives, and
Irminonic
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancestra ...
, which includes
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and its close relatives and variants.
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
is by far the most-spoken West Germanic language, with more than 1 billion speakers worldwide. Within Europe, the three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, 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 ...
.
Frisian, spoken by about 450,000 people, constitutes a fourth distinct variety of West Germanic. The language family also includes
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 ...
,
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
,
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
As a standard form of th ...
, and
Scots, which are closely related to Dutch, German and English respectively. Additionally, several
creoles,
patois
''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or ...
, and
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
s are based on Dutch, English, or German.
History
Origins and characteristics
The Germanic languages are traditionally 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 fa ...
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 (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
Germanic.
In some cases, their exact relation was difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, so that some individual varieties have been difficult to classify. This is especially true for the unattested
Jutish language; today, most scholars classify Jutish as a West Germanic variety with several features of North Germanic.
Until the late 20th century, some scholars claimed that all Germanic languages remained mutually intelligible throughout the
Migration Period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
, others hold that speakers of West Germanic dialects like
Old Frankish
Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: *), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century.
After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul, its speakers in Picardy an ...
and speakers of
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
were already unable to communicate fluently by around the 3rd century AD. As a result of the substantial progress in the study of Proto-West Germanic in the early 21st century, there is a growing consensus that East and West Germanic indeed have been mutually unintelligible at that time, whereas West and North Germanic remained partially intelligible.
Dialects with the features assigned to the western group formed from
Proto-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 branc ...
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 ...
(ca. 1st century BC). The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
,
morphological and
lexical
Lexical may refer to:
Linguistics
* Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language
* Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification
* Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
* Lex ...
innovations or archaisms not found in North and East Germanic. Examples of West Germanic phonological particularities are:
* The
delabialization of all labiovelar consonants except word-initially.
* Change of ''*-zw-'' and ''*- đw-'' to ''*-ww-'' e.g. ''*izwiz'' > ''*iwwiz'' ‘you’ dat.pl.; ''*feđwōr'' > ''*fewwōr'' ‘four’.
* , the fricative allophone of , becomes in all positions. (The two other fricatives and are retained.). This must have occurred after ''*-zw-'' and ''*- đw-'' have become ''*-ww-''.
[P. Stiles (2013): p. 15]
* Replacement of the second-person singular preterite ending ''-t'' with ''-ī''. Some scholars, including Karl-Heinz Mottausch and Wolfram Euler now explain this ending as a relict of the
Indo-European aorist tense.
* Loss of word-final . Only Old High German preserves it at all (as ) and only in single-syllable words. Following the later loss of word-final and , this made the nominative and accusative of many nouns identical.
* Loss of final ''*-a'' (including from PGmc. ''*-an#'') in polysyllables: e.g. acc. sg. OHG ''horn'' vs. ORu. ''horna'' ‘horn’; this change must have occurred after the loss of word-final .
*
West Germanic gemination
West Germanic gemination was a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages around the 3rd or 4th century AD. It affected consonants directly followed by , which were generally lengthened or geminated in that position. Because of Si ...
: lengthening of all consonants except before .; this change must have occurred after the loss of final *-a.
* Change of Proto-Germanic ''*e'' to ''i'' before ''i'' and ''j''.
A relative chronology of about 20 sound changes from Proto-Northwest Germanic to Proto-West Germanic (some of them only regional) has been published by Don Ringe in 2014.
A phonological archaism of West Germanic is the preservation of ''
grammatischer Wechsel
In historical linguistics, the German term ' ("grammatical alternation") refers to the effects of Verner's law
Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the vo ...
'' in most verbs, particularly in Old High German. This implies the same for West Germanic, whereas in East and North Germanic many of these alternations (in Gothic almost all of them) had been levelled out analogically by the time of the earliest texts.
A common morphological innovation of the West Germanic languages is the development of a
gerund
In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, one that functions as a noun. In English, it has the properties of both verb and noun, such as being modifiable ...
.
Common morphological archaisms of West Germanic include:
* The preservation of an
instrumental case
In grammar, the instrumental case (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the ''instrument'' or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or an ...
,
* the preservation of the
athematic
In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel or from ablaut placed before the ending of a Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the Indo-European languages with this vowel are thematic, and tho ...
verbs (e.g.
Anglo-Saxon
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- ...
''dō(m)'',
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
''dōm'',
OHG. ''tōm'' "I do"),
* the preservation of some traces of the
aorist
Aorist (; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the I ...
(in Old English and Old High German, but neither in Gothic nor in
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 ...
).
Furthermore, the West Germanic languages share many
lexeme
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken ...
s not existing in North Germanic and/or East Germanic – archaisms as well as common neologisms.
Existence of West Germanic proto-language
Up until the 1990s, some scholars doubted that there was once a Proto-West-Germanic
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 unattest ...
which was ancestral only to later West Germanic languages. Today, there is a growing consensus on what Don Ringe stated in 2012, that "these
honological and morphologicalchanges amount to a massive evidence for a valid West Germanic clade".
After East Germanic broke off (an event usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC), the remaining Germanic languages, 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, divided into four main dialects:
North Germanic, and the three groups conventionally called "West Germanic", namely
#
North Sea Germanic
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 ...
, ancestral to
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 ...
and
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It i ...
#
Weser-Rhine Germanic
Weser-Rhine Germanic is a proposed group of prehistoric West Germanic dialects which would have been both directly ancestral to Dutch, as well as being a notable substratum influencing West Central German dialects. The term was introduced by the G ...
, ancestral to
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch (Dutch: Oudnederlands) or Old Low Franconian (Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch) is the set of Franconian dialects (i.e. dialects that evolved from Frankish) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from aroun ...
and present as a
substrate or superstrate in some of the
Central Franconian and
Rhine Franconian
__NOTOC__
Rhenish Franconian or Rhine Franconian (german: Rheinfränkisch ) is a dialect chain of West Central German. It comprises the varieties of German spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, north ...
dialects of
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 ...
#
Elbe Germanic
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancest ...
, ancestral to the
Upper German
Upper German (german: Oberdeutsch ) is a family of High German dialects spoken primarily in the southern German-speaking area ().
History
In the Old High German time, only Alemannic and Bairisch are grouped as Upper German. In the Middle High G ...
and most
Central German dialects of
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 ...
, and the extinct
Langobardic language.
Although there is quite a bit of knowledge about North Sea Germanic or Anglo-Frisian (because of the characteristic features of its daughter languages, Anglo-Saxon/
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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
and
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 Friesl ...
), linguists know almost nothing about "Weser-Rhine Germanic" and "Elbe Germanic". In fact, both terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archaeological findings, rather than linguistic features. Only later were the terms applied to hypothetical dialectal differences within both regions. Even today, the very small number of
Migration Period
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
runic inscriptions
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of El ...
from the area, many of them illegible, unclear or consisting only of one word, often a name, is insufficient to identify linguistic features specific to the two supposed dialect groups.
Evidence that East Germanic split off before the split between North and West Germanic comes from a number of linguistic innovations common to North and West Germanic,
including:
* The lowering of Proto-Germanic ''ē'' (, also written ''ǣ'') to ''ā''.
* The development of
umlaut.
* The
rhotacism
Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...
of to .
* The development of the
demonstrative
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 frame ...
pronoun ancestral to English ''this''.
Under that view, the properties that the West Germanic languages have in common separate from the North Germanic languages are not necessarily inherited from a "Proto-West-Germanic" language but may have spread by
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for th ...
among the Germanic languages spoken in Central Europe, not reaching those spoken in Scandinavia or reaching them much later. Rhotacism, for example, was largely complete in West Germanic while North Germanic runic inscriptions still clearly distinguished the two phonemes. There is also evidence that the lowering of ''ē'' to ''ā'' occurred first in West Germanic and spread to North Germanic later since word-final ''ē'' was lowered before it was shortened in West Germanic, but in North Germanic the shortening occurred first, resulting in ''e'' that later merged with ''i''. However, there are also a number of common archaisms in West Germanic shared by neither Old Norse nor Gothic. Some authors who support the concept of a West Germanic proto-language claim that, not only shared innovations can require the existence of a linguistic
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
, but also that there are archaisms that cannot be explained simply as retentions later lost in the North or East, because this assumption can produce contradictions with attested features of the other branches.
The debate on the existence of a Proto-West-Germanic clade was recently (2006) summarized:
That North Germanic is... a unitary subgroup f Proto-Germanicis completely obvious, as all of its dialects shared a long series of innovations, some of them very striking. That the same is true of West Germanic has been denied, but I will argue in vol. ii that all the West Germanic languages share several highly unusual innovations that virtually force us to posit a West Germanic clade. On the other hand, the internal subgrouping of both North Germanic and West Germanic is very messy, and it seems clear that each of those subfamilies diversified into a network of dialects that remained in contact for a considerable period of time (in some cases right up to the present).
The reconstruction of Proto-West-Germanic
Several scholars have published reconstructions of Proto-West-Germanic morphological paradigms and many authors have reconstructed individual Proto-West-Germanic morphological forms or lexemes. The first comprehensive reconstruction of the Proto-West-Germanic language was published in 2013 by
Wolfram Euler
Wolfram Euler (born 5 May 1950) is a German historical linguist and Indo-Europeanist.
Scientific work
Euler gained his doctorate (Ph.D.) in 1979 at the University of Giessen under Professor Rolf Hiersche. Euler's thesis was on parallels in nomin ...
, followed in 2014 by the study of
Donald Ringe and Ann Taylor.
Dating Early West Germanic
![2022 04 16 - MAP West Germanic – cc](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/2022_04_16_-_MAP_West_Germanic_%E2%80%93_cc._580_CE_-_END.png)
If indeed Proto-West-Germanic existed, it must have been between the 2nd and 7th centuries. Until the late 2nd century AD, the language of runic inscriptions found in Scandinavia and in Northern Germany were so similar that Proto-North-Germanic and the Western dialects in the south were still part of one language ("Proto-Northwest-Germanic"). After that, the split into West and North Germanic occurred. By the 4th and 5th centuries the
great migration set in. By the end of the 6th century, the area in which West Germanic languages were spoken, at least by the upper classes, had tripled compared to the year 400. This caused an increasing disintegration of the West Germanic language and finally the formation of the daughter languages.
It has been argued that, judging by their nearly identical syntax, the West Germanic dialects were closely enough related to have been mutually intelligible up to the 7th century. Over the course of this period, the dialects diverged successively. The
High German consonant shift that occurred mostly during the 7th century AD in what is now southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can be considered the end of the linguistic unity among the West Germanic dialects, although its effects on their own should not be overestimated. Bordering dialects very probably continued to be mutually intelligible even beyond the boundaries of the consonant shift.
Middle Ages
![Historical West Germanic language area](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Historical_West_Germanic_language_area.png)
During the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...
, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of
Old and
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 p ...
on one hand, and by the
High German consonant shift on the continent on the other.
The
High German consonant shift distinguished the
High German languages
The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
from the other West Germanic languages. By early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from
Highest Alemannic in the South (the
Walliser dialect being the southernmost surviving German dialect) 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 region ...
in the North. Although both extremes are considered
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
, they are not mutually intelligible. The southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, whereas the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift.
Of modern German varieties,
Low German
:
:
:
:
:
(70,000)
(30,000)
(8,000)
, familycolor = Indo-European
, fam2 = Germanic
, fam3 = West Germanic
, fam4 = North Sea Germanic
, ancestor = Old Saxon
, ancestor2 = Middle L ...
is the one that most resembles modern English. The district of
Angeln
Anglia (German and Low German: ''Angeln''; Danish and South Jutlandic: ''Angel''; ang, Engla land) is a small peninsula on the eastern coast of Jutland (the Cimbric Peninsula). Jutland consists of the mainland of Denmark and the northernmos ...
(or Anglia), from which the name ''English'' derives, is in the extreme northern part of Germany between the Danish border and the Baltic coast. The area of the Saxons (parts of today's
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...
and
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...
) lay south of Anglia. The
Angles
The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ' ...
and
Saxons
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
, two
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 ear ...
, in combination with a number of other peoples from northern
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 ...
and the
Jutland
Jutland ( da, Jylland ; german: Jütland ; ang, Ēota land ), known anciently as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula ( la, Cimbricus Chersonesus; da, den Kimbriske Halvø, links=no or ; german: Kimbrische Halbinsel, links=no), is a peninsula of ...
Peninsula, particularly the
Jutes
The Jutes (), Iuti, or Iutæ ( da, Jyder, non, Jótar, ang, Ēotas) were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the departure of the Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nation ...
, settled in Britain following the end of Roman rule in the island. Once in Britain, these Germanic peoples eventually developed a shared cultural and linguistic identity as
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- ...
; the extent of the linguistic influence of the native
Romano-British
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...
population on the incomers is debatable.
Family tree
Note that divisions between subfamilies of continental Germanic languages are rarely precisely defined; most form
dialect continua
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated variet ...
, with adjacent
dialect
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 Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.
*
North Sea Germanic
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 ...
/
Ingvaeonic languages
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 ...
**
Anglo-Frisian languages
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 ...
***
English Languages/Anglic
****
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
****
Scots
****
Yola
****
Fingalian
Fingallian or the Fingal dialect is an extinct Anglic language formerly spoken in Fingal, Ireland. It is thought to have been an offshoot of Middle English, which was brought to Ireland during the Norman invasion, and was extinct by the mid-19 ...
(extinct)
***
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 li ...
****
West Frisian
****
East Frisian
*****
Saterland Frisian
****
North Frisian
**
Low German / Low Saxon
***
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 region ...
***
Westphalian
***
Eastphalian
***
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
dialects
***
Central Pomeranian (moribund)
***
East Pomeranian
East Pomeranian (''Ostpommersch'') is an East Low German dialect that is either moribund or used to be spoken in what was roughly Pomerania (now northwestern Poland; previously part of Germany until the end of World War II) and today is also sp ...
(moribund)
***
Low Prussian
Low Prussian (german: Niederpreußisch), sometimes known simply as Prussian (''Preußisch''), is a moribund dialect of East Low German that developed in East Prussia. Low Prussian was spoken in East and West Prussia and Danzig up to 1945. In D ...
(moribund)
***
Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon ( or ''Nederlaands Nedersaksies''; nl, Nederlands Nedersaksisch) are the Low Saxon dialects of the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are written there with local, unstandardised orthographi ...
*
Weser-Rhine Germanic
Weser-Rhine Germanic is a proposed group of prehistoric West Germanic dialects which would have been both directly ancestral to Dutch, as well as being a notable substratum influencing West Central German dialects. The term was introduced by the G ...
/
Istvaeonic languages /
Netherlandic /
Low Frankish
**
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 ...
***
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 ...
***
West Flemish
West Flemish (''West-Vlams'' or ''West-Vloams'' or ''Vlaemsch'' (in French-Flanders), nl, West-Vlaams, french: link=no, flamand occidental) is a collection of Dutch dialects spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and t ...
***
East Flemish
East Flemish ( nl, Oost-Vlaams, french: flamand oriental) is a collective term for the two easternmost subdivisions ("true" East Flemish, also called Core Flemish,Hoppenbrouwers, Cor; Hoppenbrouwers, Geer (2001): De Indeling van de Nederland ...
***
Zeelandic
Zeelandic ( zea, Zeêuws; nl, Zeeuws; vls, Zêeuws) is a group of Friso-Franconian language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been mov ...
***
Central Dutch
Central College is a private college located in Pella, Iowa, and affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. The college was founded in 1853 and has been accredited by the Higher Learning Commission since 1942. Central has a student body of ...
****
Hollandic
Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish ( East Flemish, ...
****
Zuid-Gelders
***
Brabantine
*** Clevian/
Meuse-Rhenish
Meuse-Rhenish (German: ''Rheinmaasländisch'', Dutch: ''Maas-Rijnlands'', and French: ''francique rhéno-mosan'') is the modern term for literature written in the Middle Ages in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, in a literary language that is eff ...
**
Limburgian
Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg and in the neig ...
*
Elbe Germanic
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancest ...
/
Irminonic languages
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a term introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the unattested proto-language, or dialectal grouping, ancestra ...
/
High German
The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...
**
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
***
Alemannic Alemannic (''Alamannic'') or Alamanni may refer to:
* Alemannic German, a dialect family in the Upper German branch of the German languages and its speakers
* Alemanni, a confederation of Suebian Germanic tribes in the Roman period
* Alamanni (surna ...
, including
Swiss German
Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...
and
Alsatian
***
Swabian
***
Bavarian
*** East Franconian
*** South Franconian
*** Rhine Franconian languages, Rhine Franconian, including the dialects of Hessen, Pennsylvania German language, Pennsylvania German, and most of those from Lorraine Franconian, Lorraine
*** Ripuarian language, Ripuarian
*** Thuringian dialect, Thuringian
*** Upper Saxon German
*** Lower Silesian language, Silesian (moribund)
*** High Prussian (moribund)
*** Lombardic language, Lombardic Langobardic (extinct, unless Cimbrian and Mocheno are in fact Langobardic remnants.)
** Luxembourgish language, Luxembourgish
** Pennsylvania German language
**
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
(a language based on Eastern-Central dialects of late Middle High German/Early New High German)
Comparison of phonological and morphological features
The following table shows a list of various linguistic features and their extent among the West Germanic languages, organized roughly from northwest to southeast. Some may only appear in the older languages but are no longer apparent in the modern languages.
The following table shows a comparison of vowel developments in the respective dialect/language continuum.
The following table shows some comparisons of consonant development in the respective dialect/language (online examples though) continuum, showing the gradually growing partake in the High German consonant shift#Geographical%20distribution, High German consonant shift and the anglofrisian palatalization. The table uses :de:Internationales_Phonetisches_Alphabet, IPA, to avoid confusion via orthographical differences. The realisation of [r] will be ignored.
C = any consonant, A = back vowel, E = front vowel
Phonology
The original vowel system of West Germanic was similar to Proto-Germanic language#Vowels, that of Proto-Germanic; note however the lowering of the long front vowels.
The consonant system was also essentially the same as that of Proto-Germanic. Note, however, the particular changes described above, as well as
West Germanic gemination
West Germanic gemination was a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages around the 3rd or 4th century AD. It affected consonants directly followed by , which were generally lengthened or geminated in that position. Because of Si ...
.
Morphology
Nouns
The noun paradigms of Proto-West Germanic have been reconstructed as follows:
West Germanic vocabulary
The following table compares a number of Frisian, English, Scotch, Yola, Dutch, Limburgish, German and Afrikaans words with common West Germanic (or older) origin. The grammatical gender of each term is noted as masculine (''m.''), feminine (''f.''), or neuter (''n.'') where relevant.
Other words, with a variety of origins:
Note that some of the shown similarities of Frisian and English vis-à-vis Dutch and German are secondary and not due to a closer relationship between them. For example, the plural of the word for "sheep" was originally unchanged in all four languages and still is in some Dutch dialects and a great deal of German dialects. Many other similarities, however, are indeed old inheritances.
Notes
References
Bibliography
* Adamus, Marian (1962). ''On the mutual relations between Nordic and other Germanic dialects.'' Germanica Wratislavensia 7. 115–158.
* Alfred Bammesberger, Bammesberger, Alfred (Ed.) (1991), ''Old English Runes and their Continental Background.'' Heidelberg: Winter.
* Bammesberger, Alfred (1996). ''The Preterite of Germanic Strong Verbs in Classes Fore and Five'', in "NOWELE, North-Western European Language Evolution" 27, 33–43.
* Bremmer, Rolf H., Jr. (2009). ''An Introduction to Old Frisian. History, Grammar, Reader, Glossary.'' Amsterdam / Philadelphia: Benjamins Publishing Company.
* Wolfram Euler, Euler, Wolfram (2002/03). "Vom Westgermanischen zum Althochdeutschen" (From West Germanic to Old High German), ''Sprachaufgliederung im Dialektkontinuum'', in ''Klagenfurter Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft'', Vol. 28/29, 69–90.
* Euler, Wolfram (2013) ''Das Westgermanische – von der Herausbildung im 3. bis zur Aufgliederung im 7. Jahrhundert – Analyse und Rekonstruktion'' (West Germanic: from its Emergence in the 3rd up until its Dissolution in the 7th Century CE: Analyses and Reconstruction). 244 p., in German with English summary, Verlag Inspiration Un Limited, London/Berlin 2013, .
* Härke, Heinrich (2011). ''Anglo-Saxon Immigration and Ethnogenesis'', in: „Medieval Archaeology” No. 55, 2011, pp. 1–28.
* Hilsberg, Susan (2009). ''Place-Names and Settlement History. Aspects of Selected Topographical Elements on the Continent and in England'', Magister Theses, Universität Leipzig.
* Klein, Thomas (2004). "Im Vorfeld des Althochdeutschen und Altsächsischen" (Prior to Old High German and Old Saxon), in ''Entstehung des Deutschen.'' Heidelberg, 241–270.
* Frederik Kortlandt, Kortlandt, Frederik (2008). ''Anglo-Frisian'', in „NOWELE, North-Western European Language Evolution“ 54/55, 265 – 278.
* Looijenga, Jantina Helena (1997). ''Runes around the North Sea and on the Continent AD 150–700; Text & Contents''. Groningen: SSG Uitgeverij.
* Friedrich Maurer (linguist), Friedrich Maurer (1942), ''Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde'', Strassburg: Hüneburg.
* Mees, Bernard (2002). ''The Bergakker inscription and the beginnings of Dutch'', in „Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik” 56, 23–26.
* Mottausch, Karl-Heinz (1998). ''Die reduplizierenden Verben im Nord- und Westgermanischen: Versuch eines Raum-Zeit-Modells'', in "North-Western European Language Evolution" 33, 43–91.
* Mottausch, Karl-Heinz (2011). ''Der Nominalakzent im Germanic parent language, Frühurgermanischen'' - Hamburg: Kovač.
* Nielsen, Hans F. (1981). ''Old English and the Continental Germanic languages. A Survey of Morphological and Phonological Interrelations''. Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft. (2nd edition 1985)
* Nielsen, Hans Frede. (2000). ''Ingwäonisch.'' In Heinrich Beck et al. (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (2. Auflage), Band 15, 432–439. Berlin: De Gruyter.
* R. I. Page, Page, Raymond I. (1999). ''An Introduction to English Runes'', 2. edition. Woodbridge: Bogdell Press.
* Page, Raymond I. (2001). ''Frisian Runic Inscriptions'', in Horst Munske et al., "Handbuch des Friesischen". Tübingen, 523–530.
* Ringe, Donald R. (2012). ''Cladistic principles and linguistic reality: the case of West Germanic.'' In Philomen Probert and Andreas Willi (eds.), Laws and Rules on Indo-European, 33–42. Oxford.
* Ringe, Donald R. (2012): ''Cladistic Methodology and West Germanic.'' Yale Linguistics.
* Ringe, Donald R. and Taylor, Ann (2014). ''The Development of Old English – A Linguistic History of English, vol. II'', 632p. . Oxford.
* Orrin W. Robinson (philologist), Robinson, Orrin W. (1992). ''Old English and Its Closest Relatives. A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages.'' Stanford University Press.
* Elmar Seebold, Seebold, Elmar (1998). "Die Sprache(n) der Germanen in der Zeit der Völkerwanderung" (The Language(s) of the Germanic Peoples during the Migration Period), in E. Koller & H. Laitenberger, ''Suevos – Schwaben. Das Königreich der Sueben auf der Iberischen Halbinsel (411–585)''. Tübingen, 11–20.
* Elmar Seebold, Seebold, Elmar (2006). "Westgermanische Sprachen" (West Germanic Languages), in ''Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde'' 33, 530–536.
* Stifter, David (2009). "The Proto-Germanic shift *ā > ō and early Germanic linguistic contacts", in ''Historische Sprachforschung'' 122, 268–283.
* Stiles, Patrick V. (1985-1986). ''The fate of the numeral “4” in Germanic''. Nowele 6 pp. 81–104, 7 pp. 3–27, 8 pp. 3–25.
* Stiles, Patrick V. (1995). ''Remarks on the “Anglo-Frisian” thesis'', in „Friesische Studien I”. Odense, 177–220.
* Stiles, Patrick V. (2004). ''Place-adverbs and the development of Proto-Germanic long *ē1 in early West Germanic.'' In Irma Hyvärinen et al. (Hg.), Etymologie, Entlehnungen und Entwicklungen. Mémoires de la Soc. Néophil. de Helsinki 63. Helsinki. 385–396.
* Stiles, Patrick V. (2013). ''The Pan-West Germanic Isoglosses and the Subrelationships of West Germanic to Other Branches.'' In Unity and Diversity in West Germanic, I. Special issue of NOWELE 66:1 (2013), Nielsen, Hans Frede and Patrick V. Stiles (eds.), 5 ff.
* Joseph B. Voyles, Voyles, Joseph B. (1992). ''Early Germanic Grammar: pre-, proto-, and post-Germanic Language.'' San Diego: Academic Press
External links
*
{{Authority control
West Germanic languages,
Germanic languages