Germanic languages

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The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. They are characterised by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law.

The largest Germanic languages are German and English. Other significant languages includes a number of Low German languages including Dutch, and the Scandinavian languages. There are 53 Germanic languages by SIL estimate. Their common ancestor is Common Germanic.

Contents

Writing

Some early (roughly 2nd century AD) Germanic languages developed runic alphabets of their own, but use of these alphabets was comparatively limited. East Germanic languages were written in the Gothic alphabet developed by Bishop Ulfilas for his translation of the Bible into Gothic. 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.

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.

Family tree

All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic. 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 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.

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

See also

External links

az:German qrupu ca:Llengües germàniques cs:Germánské jazyky da:Germanske sprog de:Germanische Sprachen es:Lenguas germánicas el:Γερμανικές γλώσσες eo:Gxermana lingvo he:שפות גרמאניות fr:langue germanique id:Bahasa Jermanik is:Germönsk tungumál ja:ゲルマン語派 ko:게르만어 kw:Yethow Germanek nds:Germaansche Spraaken nl:Germaanse talen nn:Germanske språk no:Germanske språk pl:Języki germańskie pt:Línguas germânicas ro:Limbile germanice sv:Germanska språk vi:Nhóm ngôn ngữ gốc Đức zh:日耳曼语族

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