Indo-European

Indo-European languages Anatolian | Indo-Iranian | Greek | Italic Celtic | Germanic | Armenian Balto-Slavic | Tocharian | Albanian

Proto-Indo-European Language | Society | Religion Kurgan | Yamna | Aryan

Indo-European studies

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.

Contents

1 Writing 2 Linguistic Markers 3 Family tree 4 Comparison of Selected Terms 5 See also 6 External links

Writing

Some early 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 a distinctive typeface called Fraktur.

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.
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.
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 Non-Indo-European roots of Germanic languages.
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
        • Lombardic (extinct)
        • 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)
    • Low Saxon
      • Standard Low Saxon
      • Plautdietsch (Mennonite "Low German")
    • East Low German
  • Island German
    • 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)
          • Birminham (Brummie)
      • East Anglian
        • Norfolk (Broad Norfolk)
      • Southern English
        • Estuary English
        • Censored page (London)
        • Somerset
        • Devon
        • Cornwall
      • Scottish English
      • American English
        • Boston dialect
        • Southern American English
        • Standard Midwestern
        • General American
        • Newfoundland English
        • New York-New Jersey English
        • Liberian English
      • Commonwealth English
        • Caribbean English
        • Jamaican English
        • Australian English
        • Canadian 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)
• 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)
      • Scanian
    • Swedish

Comparison of Selected Terms

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

See also

• 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=738
• Proto-Germanic Language Reconstruction Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/theudiskon