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

1 Writing 2 Linguistic Markers 3 Family tree 4 Vocabulary comparison 5 See also 6 External links

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.

• West Germanic
  • High German
    • German
      • Middle German
        • East Middle German
          • Standard German (Hochdeutsch)
        • Luxembourgish
        • West Middle German
          • Pennsylvania German (spoken by the Amish and other groups in southeastern Pennsylvania)
      • Upper German
        • Alemannic German
        • Austro-Bavarian German
        • Hutterite German (aka "Tirolean")
    • Texas German
    • Yiddish (with a significant influx of vocabulary from Hebrew and other languages, and traditionally written in the Hebrew alphabet)
    • Wymysojer (with a significant influence from Low Saxon, Dutch, Polish and Scots)
  • Low German
    • Low Franconian
      • Dutch
      • Afrikaans (with a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages)
      • Limburgish
    • Low Saxon
      • Standard Low Saxon
      • Plautdietsch (Mennonite "Low German")
    • East Low German
  • Insular Germanic
    • Frisian
    • English. Huge influx of Latinate vocabulary and grammar, most via Norman French. Many dialects.
      • British English
        • Received Pronunciation
        • Northern English
        • Northumberland (Geordie)
        • Durham (Pitmatic)
        • Cumbrian
        • Yorkshire
        • Lancashire
        • Merseyside (Scouse)
      • Midlands English
        • East
          • Derbyshire
          • Nottingham
          • Lincolnshire
          • Leicestershire
        • West
          • Black Country (Yam Yam)
          • Birmingham (Brummie)
      • East Anglian
        • Norfolk (Broad Norfolk)
      • Southern English
        • Estuary English
        • Cockney (London)
        • Somerset
        • Devon
        • Cornwall
      • Scottish English
      • American English
        • Boston dialect
        • Southern American English
        • General American
        • New York-New Jersey English
        • California English
        • Hawaiian English
        • Black English/AAVE/Ebonics
        • Liberian English
      • Commonwealth English
        • Caribbean English
        • Jamaican English
        • Australian English
        • Canadian English
        • Newfoundland English
        • Hong Kong English (Hong Kong is no longer a member of the Commonwealth)
        • New Zealand English
        • South African English
        • Indian English
        • Singlish (Singaporean English)
        • Manglish (Malaysian English)
    • Scots
      • Insular Scots
      • Northern Scots incl. Doric
      • Central Scots
      • Southern Scots
      • Ulster Scots
      • Urban Scots (City dialects)
    • Söl'ring
    • Yola
• East Germanic (descending from Gothic)
  • Crimean Gothic (extinct in the 1800s)
  • Vandalic (extinct)
  • Burgundian (extinct)
  • Lombardic (extinct)
• North Germanic (descending from Old Norse):
  • West (Insular) Nordic
    • New Norwegian (Nynorsk) (disputed)
    • Icelandic
    • Faroese
    • Norn (Extinct)
  • East (Continental) Nordic
    • Danish
      • Standard Norwegian (Bokmål and Riksmål) (Dano-Norwegian)
    • Swedish

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
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	Dö	Dø
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)	Né	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

• Germanic verb and its various subordinated articles.
• Language families and languages
• Non-Indo-European roots of Germanic languages
• Folkspraak, a planned language designed to be quickly learnable by a speaker of any Germanic language.
• List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents

External links

• Proto-Germanic Dictionary (http://fordsmender.50megs.com/pgmn.html)
• Ethnologue Report for Germanic (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90067)
• Proto-Germanic Language Reconstruction Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theudiskon)af:Germaanse tale

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