Germanic languages

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

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

Contents

Writing

Our earliest evidence of Germanic is from names, recorded in the 1st century by Tacitus, and in a single instance in the 2nd century BC, on the Negau helmet. From roughly the 2nd century AD, some speakers of early Germanic dialects developed the Elder Futhark. Early runic inscriptons are also largely limited to personal names, and difficult to interpret. The Gothic language was written in the Gothic alphabet developed by Bishop Ulfilas for his translation of the Bible in the 4th century. Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke and read Latin in addition to their native Germanic tongue began writing the Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters, but in Scandinavia, runic alphabets remained in common use throughout the Viking Age.

In addition to the standard Latin alphabet, various Germanic languages use a variety of accent marks and extra letters, including umlauts, the ß (Eszett), Ø, Æ, Å, Ð, Ȝ, and Þ and Ƿ, from runes. Historic printed German is frequently set in blackletter typefaces (e.g. fraktur or schwabacher).

Linguistic Markers

Some unique features of Germanic languages are:

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

History

Image:Germanic language zones 3.PNG

All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic, united by their having been subjected to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law. These took place probably during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe from ca. 500 BC, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo European suggest a common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic Bronze Age.

From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic dialects are divided into three groups, West, East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration period, so that some individual dialects are difficult to classify. The 6th century Lombardic language, for instance, may constitute an originally either North or East Germanic dialect that became assimilated to West Germanic as the Lombards settled at the Elbe. The Western group would have formed in the late Jastorf culture, the Eastern group may be derived from the 1st century dialect of Gotland (see Old Gutnish), leaving southern Sweden as the original location of the Northern group . The earliest coherent Germanic text preserved is the 4th century Gothic translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas. Early testimonies of West Germanic are in Old High German and Old English from about the 9th century. North Germanic is only attested in scattered runic inscriptions, as Proto-Norse, until it evolves into Old Norse by about 800. Longer runic inscriptions survive from the 8th and 9th centuries (Eggjum stone, Rök stone), longer texts in the Latin alphabet survive from the 12th century (Íslendingabók), and some skaldic poetry held to date back to as early as the 9th century.

By about the 10th century, the dialects had diverged enough to make intercomprehensibility difficult. The linguistic contact of the Viking settlers of the Danelaw with the Anglo-Saxons left traces in the English language, and is suspected to have facilitated the collapse of Old English grammar that resulted in Middle English from the 12th century.

The East Germanic languages were marginalized from the end of the Migration period. The Burgundians, Goths and Vandals became linguistically assimilated to their respective neighbors by about the 7th century, with only Crimean Gothic lingering on until the 18th century.

During the early Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Middle English on one hand, and by the High German consonant shift on the continent on the other, resulting in Upper German and Low German, with graded intermediate Central German dialects. By Early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South to Low Saxon and Frisian in the North, and although both extremes are considered German, they are hardly mutually intelligible. The southern dialects have completed the second sound shift, but remained closer to the Middle German vowel system, while the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift, but simplified the vowel system.

The North Germanic languages, on the other hand, remained more unified, largely retaining mutual intelligibility into modern times.

Classification

Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.

Mentioned here are only the principal or unusual contemporary dialects; individual articles linked to below contain larger family trees. For example, many Low Saxon dialects are discussed on Low Saxon besides just Standard Low Saxon and Plautdietsch. Diachronic stages are listed in the main articles (such as Old English and Middle English, in the English language article)

Vocabulary comparison

Several of the terms in the table below have had semantic drift. For example, the form 'Sterben' and other terms for 'die' are cognate with the English word 'starve'. There is also at least one example of a common borrowing from a Non-Germanic source (ounce and its cognates from Latin).

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

See also

External links

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