South Germanic is a term used for a number of proposed groupings of 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 ...

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 ...

. However, it is not widely used and has no agreed definition.

Uses

The following uses of the term "South Germanic" are found: * As a straightforward synonym for

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 ...

with the exception of its exclusion of those of the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

. This usage is particularly found in the study of

Germanic mythology Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. Origins As the Germanic langu ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, where it covers continental German sources in contrast to those from Scandinavia, which are termed

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, this usage is also found occasionally in the work of linguists — for example, Stefan Sonderegger. (The

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 ...

are generally ignored because there are no pre-Christian texts.) * As a term in Ernst Schwarz's theory of the Germanic dialects. He divides Germanic into a

and a South Germanic (or Continental Germanic) group, with the Scandinavian (or Nordic) languages and the extinct

(

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 ...

and

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 ...

) languages in the former. A feature of his grouping is the intermediate position of two other groups,

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 ...

and

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 ...

(

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 ...

), with the latter viewed "floating" being initially part of North Germanic (in the 2nd century BC), but moving closer to the more southerly dialects in the subsequent five centuries. This view has received some support, although a number of those who share Schwarz's view, such as Lehmann, use instead the terms Northeast Germanic (for Schwarz's North Germanic) and Southwest Germanic (for Schwarz's South Germanic). * As a synonym for

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 ...

. This usage seems to be exclusive to Claus Jürgen Hutterer, who groups North Sea Germanic separately from the

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 ...

and

groups which give rise to (among others) the High German

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), ...

. Although it can be seen as a development of Schwarz's theory, it implies that North Sea Germanic and South Germanic did not form any sort of larger West Germanic grouping. The German term ''Binnengermanisch'' (''Inland Germanic'') is also used informally in a similar sense to distinguish between the coastal West Germanic dialects and the rest, though it does not imply that they are not all part of West Germanic.

References

Bibliography

* *H.L. Kufner, "The grouping and separation of the Germanic languages" in F. van Coetsem & H.L. Kufner (eds.), ''Toward a Grammar of Proto Germanic'' (Niemeyer, 1972) *H. Kuhn, "Zur Gliedering der germanischen Sprachen", in ''Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum'' 86 (1955), 1-47. * * * * * * {{Germanic languages Germanic languages

Uses

See also

References

Bibliography