25.09.01
The family of Germanic languages is a branch of the Indo-European language family (see the table below: Indo-European language tree). All languages within this family are derived from a parent Indo-European language of early migrants to Europe from southwestern Asia. The major subdivisions within the present day Indo-European languages spoken in Europe are Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic (Breton, Welsh, Irish, Scottish) and Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian) languages.
During their expansion, the Germanic tribes, who spoke an Indo-European language, mixed with other European tribes whose language is unknown. About 80 percent of Germanic word roots are of non-Indo-European origin.
The Germanic languages are organized into three groups, North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic. Gothic, an East Germanic language, is the oldest Germanic language of which much is known. The main text corpus is a Bible translation by the bishop Ulfila from the 4th century C.E. (Common Era, also known as AD). The East Germanic languages (Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian, Lombardic, Rugian, Herulian, Bastarnae, and Scirian) do not have present-day descendants.
The North Germanic languages are modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian (with two written variants, Bokmål or Dano-Norwegian and Nynorsk or New Norwegian), Icelandic, and Faroese, as well as the various dialects of these languages. Here you will find some discussion of Gutnish and Dalska. North Germanic is historically divided into an East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian (Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese) group.
Out of the many West Germanic dialects, the following six present-day languages have distinctive written standards: Afrikaans, Dutch (Dutch-Flemish), English, Frisian, German, and Yiddish. Some discussion is also included here of Low German, Pennsylvanian German, Scots, and Black English Vernacular.
The Germanic Branch of the Indo-European languages
Afrikaans is a contemporary West Germanic language developed from seventeenth century Dutch in the Cape region. It is presently one of the eleven official languages of the Republic of South Africa.
Number of speakers (1988): 10 million
An example of Afrikaans (The Lord's Prayer):
Ons Vader wat in die hemel is,
laat u Naam geheilig word;
laat u koninkryk kom;
laat u wil ook op die aarde geskied,
net soos in die hemel.
Gee ons vandag
ons daaglikse brood;
en vergeef ons ons oortredings
soos ons ook dié vergewe
wat teen ons oortree;
en laat ons nie in die versoeking kom nie
maar verlos ons van die Bose.or
African-American Vernacular English
Black English Vernacular (BEV), or African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), is a term used for the language spoken by US citizens of Black African background. It has its origins in the pidgins and creoles developed by Africans enslaved and brought to America from the 16th century onwards. Socially isolated from white communities, BEV continued to develop in distinctive ways even after the end of slavery and the migration of American Blacks from the agricultural South to cities in the industrial North in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Dalska is a distinct Swedish dialect. It is archaic in several respects, and it is incomprehensible to speakers of Standard Swedish. It is spoken by the inhabitants of Älvdalen, Orsa, Mora, Rättvik, Leksand and Gagnef counties around the lake Siljan, the north west part of Dalecarlia (Dalarna). The area had 72,000 inhabitants in 1990, but only a minority master the genuine dialect. The dialect is not a homogeneous one, and it varies from village to village. Most distinctive are the dialects of Älvdalen.
An example of the Dalska spoken in €lvdalen (The Lord's Prayer):
Fader uor, du so ir i imblum.
Mo namned dett werd elgad.
Mo ritsjed dett kumŒ.
Mo wila dai stsji nido juord'n,
hlaisog uppi imblam.
DsjŠv uoss i dag bršd uott fer da'n
Og felŒt uoss skulder uorer,
hlaisog wid am felŠted diem
so irΠstsjylduger uoss nod.
Og stell it uoss fšr frestelsum,
ŒtŒ redd uoss fro uonda.
[Fer ritsjed ir dett og makte og Šrrligiete
i ievigiet. Amen.]
Modern Danish is the contemporary descendent of Old Danish. It is the official language of Denmark.
Number of Speakers (1988): 5 million
An example of Danish (The Lord's Prayer):
Vor Fader, du som er i Himlene!
Helliget vorde dit navn;
komme dit rige;
ske din vilje
på jorden, som den sker i Himmelen;
giv os i dag vort daglige brød;
og forlad os vor skyld,
som også vi forlader vore skyldnere;
og led os ikke ind i fristelse;
men fri os fra det onde;Dutch or Flemish is the contemporary descendent of Middle Dutch. With slight differences, the same language is called Dutch in the Netherlands and Flemish in Belgium. It is one of the two official languages of the Netherlands and one of the three official languages of Belgium.
Number of Speakers (1988): 21 million
An example of Dutch (The Lord's Prayer):
Onze Vader in de hemel,
uw naam worde geheiligd,
uw koninkrijk kome,
uw wil geschiede,
op aarde zoals in de hemel.
Geef ons heden ons dagelijks brood
en vergeef ons onze schulden
zoals ook wij anderen hun schulden hebben vergeven,
en stel ons niet op de proef
maar verlos ons van de duivel.
Modern English is the contemporary descendent of Middle English. The intensive contact with French after the Norman conquest in the 11th century had a strong influence on the language, especially on the vocabulary.
Number of speakers (1988): 431 million
Some examples of New English (The Lord's Prayer):
Our Father in Heaven,
let your holy name be known,
let your kingdom come,
and your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today the bread that we need,
and forgive us our wrongs,
as we forgive those
who have done wrong to us.
Do not lead us into trial,
but save us from evil.Faroese is the mother tongue of almost all 50 000 inhabitants on the Faroe Islands. The Islands were first inhabited in the 8th century by people from Norway. When Denmark left Norway to Sweden in 1814, the Faroe Islands remained a part of the kingdom of Denmark. The language is known from mediaeval ballads, but a written language was first created in the 19th century. During the 20th century, Faroese has increasingly become the language of media and education in the Faroe Islands.
Frisian is a contemporary West Germanic language spoken in the Netherlands and Germany. It is one of the two official languages of the Netherlands. From the earliest records of about 1300 until about 1575, Frisian is called Old Frisian. Subsequently, Frisian is referred to as New Frisian. Some Frisian scholars also identify a Middle Frisian period from about 1600 to about 1800.
Frisian exists in three major divisions, each of which is subdivided into dialects. The two dialects of East Frisian have been largely replaced by dialects of New Low German, which are called East Frisian. North Frisian is divided into about ten dialects. Nearly all modern Frisian literature is in West Frisian, which has about six dialects.
Number of Speakers (1988): TBS
An example of Frisian (The Lord's Prayer):
Us Heit yn 'e himel,
lit jo namme hillige wurde,
lit jo keninkryk komme,
Lit jo wil dien wurde
op ierde likegoed as yn 'e himel.
Jou ús hjoed ús deistich brea
en ferjou ús ús skulden
sa't wy ús skuldners ek ferjûn hawwe;
en lit ús net yn fersiking komme,
mar ferlos ús fan 'e kweade;
[want jowes is it keninkryk
en de krêft
en de hearlikheid
oant yn ivichheid. Amen.]Gutnish is a contemporary Eastern North Germanic language spoken on the island of Gotland. It is first attested in legal documents of the fourteenth century C. E. Many authorities would classify Gutnish as a dialect of Swedish.
Number of Speakers (1988): roughly 50,000
Icelandic is the contemporary language of Iceland. It is a close descendent of Old Norse. Among the Germanic languages, Icelandic is the language that has preserved the greatest number of morphological features of its historical antecedent.
Number of Speakers (1988): 250,000
An example of Icelandic (The Lord's Prayer):
Fa›ir vor, ßú sem er á himnum.
Helgist ßitt nafn, til komi ßitt ríki,
ver›i ßinn vilji, svo á jör›u sem á himni.
Gef oss í dag vort daglegt brau›.
Fyrirgef oss vorar skuldir,
svo sem vér og fyrirgefum
vorum skuldunautum.
Og eigi lei› ßú oss í freistni,
heldur frelsa oss frá illu.
[_ví a› ßitt er ríki›, mátturinn og d‡r›in
a› eilífu amen.]Modern High German is the contemporary descendent of Middle High German. It is an official language in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.
Number of speakers (1988): 118 million
An example of High German (The Lord's Prayer):
Vater unser im Himmel,
Geheiligt werde dein Name.
Dein Reich komme.
Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel so auf Erden.
Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute.
Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,
wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigern.
Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung,
sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.New (or Modern) Low German (Plattdeutsch) is the contemporary descendent of Middle Low German. It is spoken on the North German plain in Germany and the Netherlands. The name Low Saxon is preferred in the Netherlands. There are many extant dialects of Low German.
Number of Speakers: 1.5 to 2.0 million
An example of Low German (The Lord's Prayer):
Unse Vader in'n Himmel!
Mak din Nam herrli un hillig ock bi uns!
Help du uns ock dorto, dat du gans unse Herr warst!
Din Will schall dörchstahn bi uns up de Eer
grad so as bi di in'n Himmel!
Giff uns vundag dat Brod, dat wi hüt nödi hebbt!
Un denn vergiff uns unse Schulden,
grad so as wi vergewen hebbt de Minschen,
de uns wat schülli sünd.
Un help dorto, dat wi nich to Fall kamt!
Ja, mak uns frie un redd uns vun dat Böse!Modern Norwegian, a contemporary Western North Germanic language, is the official language of Norway. It has two major written standards: Nynorsk and Bokmål. Nynorsk is the contemporary descendent of Old Norwegian. Bokmål, also called Dano-Norwegian or Riksmål, is heavily influenced by Danish. Bokmål is the more commonly used in print. Since 1951 there has been a concerted effort to effect a merger of the two standards.
Number of Speakers (1988): 5 million
Examples of Norwegian (The Lord's Prayer) in Nynorsk and Bokmål.
Bokmål:
Fader vår, du som er i himmelen!
La ditt navn holdes hellig.
La ditt rike komme.
La din vilje skje på jorden
som i himmelen.
Gi oss i dag vårt daglige brød.
Forlat oss vår skyld,
som vi òg forlater våre skyldnere.
Led oss ikke inn i fristelse,
men frels oss fra det onde.Nynorsk:
Fader vår, du som er i himmelen!
Lat namnet ditt helgast.
Lat riket ditt koma.
Lat viljen råda på jorda
så som i himmelen.
Gje oss i dag vårt daglege brød.
Forlat oss vår skuld
som me òg forlet våre skuldmenn.
Før oss ikkje inn i freisting,
men frels oss frå det onde.
For riket er ditt og makta i all æve.
Amen.
Pennsylvania German is the language of the descendants of early German Mennonite immigrants in Pennsylvania. They arrived there in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they have also spread to other parts of North America. In the 1990 US census 246,000 people claimed Pennsylvania German ancestry (more than half of them in Pennsylvania). The language is kept alive, at least among the Amish, and 84,000 claimed Pennsylvania German as the language spoken in their homes in 1990. Because of the similarity of the words Deutsch and Dutch, the Pennsylvania Germans and their language are widely known as "Pennsylvania Dutch."
Scots is used for the language that developed in Scotland from Old English (see the entry for Scots in the historical section below). Some Scottish authors still write in a modern-day version of Scots, and a massive 10-volume Scottish National Dictionary was completed in 1976. (Several newer and more wieldy dictionaries of Scots also exist.)
The linguistic situation today in Scotland is a complex one, with "Southron" (Standard English) the usual language of power, prestige, education, and writing, and Scots as a substrate, bearing rich connotations of tradition and national pride. 'Full' traditional Scots, completely incomprehensible to monolingual English speakers, is not widely spoken, but even many of the common dialects in Scotland are very difficult for non-Scots to understand. (Primary source: The Oxford Companion to the English Language, ed. by Tom McArthur, Oxford University Press 1992.)
An example of Scots (the Lord's Prayer, from W. Lorimer's 1983 translation of the New Testament):
Our Faither in heiven,
hallowt be thy name;
thy K’ngdom come;
thy will be dune
on the yird, as in heiven.
G’e us out breid for this incomin day;
forg’e us the wrangs we hae wrocht,
as we hae forg’en the wrangs we hae dree'd;
an sey-us-na sairlie, but sauf us
frae the Ill Ane.Modern Swedish is a contemporary Eastern North Germanic language, a descendent of Old Swedish. It is the official language of Sweden and it is also spoken by a minority in Finland.
Number of Speakers (1988): 9 million
An example of Swedish (The Lord's Prayer):
Vår fader, du som är i himlen.
Låt ditt namn bli helgat.
Låt ditt rike komma.
Låt din vilja ske,
på jorden så som i himlen.
Ge oss i dag vårt bröd för dagen som kommer.
Och förlåt oss våra skulder,
liksom vi har förlåtit dem som står i skuld till oss.
Och utsätt oss inte för prövning,
utan rädda oss från det onda.Yiddish is originally the language of East European Jews. Jewish refugees entering Poland from Germany in the 14th and 15th century spoke a type of Middle High German influenced heavily by Hebrew. In Poland the Jews flourished, and after the partition of Poland they spread to Russia, Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Romania. The Yiddish that developed in the Slavic-speaking countries (Eastern Yiddish, the basis for Modern Standard Yiddish) acquired many Slavic characteristics.
Later on emigration to North and South America, South Africa, and Australia created several Yiddish-speaking communities outside Europe. By the year 1900 there were 8 million people in Eastern Europe and 1 million in North America with Yiddish as their mother tongue. Yiddish-speaking Jews have always lived as a minority together with Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Russians etc., and thus almost all Yiddish-speaking people have become bilingual (often trilingual).
Because of the Holocaust, and assimilation and emigration to America and Israel, Yiddish is hardly used any more in Europe. The Yiddish-speaking communities in America and Israel are also decreasing. Today, there are hardly more than half a million speakers of Yiddish. In the Soviet Union only 153,000 people claimed that Yiddish was their mother tongue in the 1989 census, in the USA 213,000 (1990 census) and in Israel 49,000 (1983 census). (Primary source: ther Germanic Languages, ed. by Ekkehard König & Johan van der Auwera, Routledge 1994.)
The North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages is spoken by the Germanic-speaking people who stayed in northern part of the Germanic homeland. Between about 800 C.E. and 1000 C.E., the dialects of North Germanic diverged into West and East Norse. West Norse can be further divided into Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian, while East Norse developed into Old Danish and Old Swedish.
A characteristic of the North Germanic languages is the use of a postposed definite article.
Old Norse was a Western North Germanic language used in Iceland, Ireland, Norway, the Hebrides, the Orkneys, Shetland (see Norn), and the Faroe Islands from approximately the tenth to the thirteenth century. It started diverging from common North Germanic at about 800 C. E. It is the language of the Norse Eddas and Sagas. Its living descendents are Icelandic, Faroese, and Norwegian (but Norwegian has been affected by extensive contact with East Norse languages to a much greater degree than Faroese or Icelandic).
Terminology for varieties of Norse is vexed. Old Icelandic & Old Norwegian are sometimes called Old Norse or (Old) West Norse, and Danish and Swedish (Old) East Norse. Other people refer to Old Norse-Icelandic, excluding Norwegian. (Paul Acker).
Old Danish was an Eastern North Germanic language, spoken in Denmark, the ancestor of modern Danish and Bokmål. It is preserved in runic inscriptions and (in the Roman alphabet) in some 13th century documents.
Old Swedish was an Eastern North Germanic language attested in about 2000 runic inscriptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries C. E. Its contemporary descendant is modern Swedish. From the early 13th century onwards Old Swedish was also written in Roman script.
Norn was a mixed language of Old Norse and Irish spoken in the Shetland Islands. It is extinct.
There is extant an entire ballad text in Norn, Hildina-kvadet.
The ballad is described in the article: Hildina-kvaedet. Ein etteroeknad og ei tolking by Eigil Lehmann, printed in: Fra Fjon til Fusa 1984. Årbok for Hordamuseet og for Nord- og Midhordland sogelag.
Hildina-kvadet was written down in 1774 by the Scot George Low. He got it from a farmer - Guttorm - at the Shetland island Foula. Low did not understand the language, so the transcription may not be very accurate. Lehmann tries to reconstruct the Norn version of the song.
Lehmann's preface contains a bibliography, translated here by Reidar Moberg:
"The song was printed as early as 1808 by James Headrick, in 1838 by the Norwegian P.A. Munch. Others, who have been working on this kvad, is the Dane Svend Grundtvig, the Norwegian Sophus Bugge, Jakob Jakobsen from the Faroe Islands, the Norwegian Moltke Moe and the Dane Axel Olrik. These have mostly tried to bring the kvad back to old Norse. Such a reconstruct from Axel Olrik from 1898 could be found in a work on the kvad of the Dane Hakon Grüner-Nielsen in the honour book to Gustav Indrebo 1939. The most thorough work is done by the Norwegian Marius Haegstad in the book Hildina-kvadet from 1900."
The West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages is spoken by the Germanic-speaking people who occupied the southwestern part of the Germanic homeland. The languages of these people show characteristic differences from the East and North Germanic branches.
The modern West Germanic Languages are Afrikaans, Dutch-Flemish, English, Frisian, Low German, and High German.
Groupings of the West Germanic Languages vary. The grouping shown in the tree is derived from Campbell, wherein Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon are grouped as Ingaevonic languages and Old High German is shown separated. Baldi groups English and Frisian as Anglo-Frisian and High and Low German as German. In any case English and Frisian are agreed to be very closely related. English and Frisian (and Scots) share sound changes that do not occur in German. The Ingaevonic languages do not partake of the High German or second sound shift.
Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) is the oldest recorded form of English. It is said to be the language of the three tribes (Angles, Saxons, and Jutes) of West Germanic-speaking people who invaded and occupied Britain in the fifth century C.E. It is very closely related to Old Frisian.
Old English developed four major dialects: Northumbrian, Mercian, West Saxon, and Kentish. Most of recorded Old English is in the West Saxon dialect.
Old English is characterized by phonetic spelling, a moderate number of inflections (two numbers, three genders, four cases, remnants of dual number, and instrumental case), a syntax somewhat dependent on word order, and a simple two tense, three mood, four person (three singular, one plural) verb system.
Old English is recorded from the late seventh century onwards. By about 1100 C.E. enough changes had accumulated so that the language is designated Middle English.
Old Low German consisted of a pair of West Germanic languages, spoken along the North Sea coast, Old Saxon, and Old Franconian. Old Saxon was the ancestor of Middle Low German and Modern Low German. Old Franconian was the ancestor of Middle Dutch and Dutch-Flemish.
Middle English is the descendent of Old English. English after about 1100 C.E. had changed enough to warrant a different designation. Middle English had about five major dialects, Northern, West Midlands, East Midlands, Southwestern, and Kentish.
Middle English is characterized by the reduction and loss of inflectional endings and the introduction of a large number of words derived first from Latin through Norman or Middle French and subsequently from Middle Dutch. By the late fifteenth century, East Midlands Middle English, the language of London, had acquired enough changes to be designated Early Modern English, the language of Mallory (Le Morte d'Arthur).
Scotland was completely Celtic-speaking until about the 10th century, at which point Celtic began to be increasingly replaced by Germanic. Although the Gaelic language lives on in Scotland, the majority of Scotland's inhabitants today speak English or Scots. Scots has a history dating back to the seventh century, having descended from Old Northumbrian, the northernmost variety of Old English.
By the 14th century it had been greatly influenced by Norse and Anglo-Norman immigrants; it was known as Inglis up until the end of the 15th century when the term Scots began to be used. Around this time the guid Scots tongue supplanted Latin as the language of literature and record in Scotland, except that no Scots Bible was produced.
Up to the end of the 17th century, Scots flourished, though it was increasingly influenced by English (known in Scotland as Southron). The union of the crowns in the early 17th century removed the political reason for separate languages and English essentially replaced Scots in the written record, until a revival in the early 19th century, inspired by the poetry and literature of such writers as Allan Ramsay and Robert Burns. Some Scottish authors still write in a modern-day version of Scots, and its colloquial variants are widely spoken.
(Primary source: The Oxford Companion to the English Language, ed. by Tom McArthur, Oxford University Press 1992.)
An example of Scots (the Lord's Prayer, from M. Nisbet, c. 1520):
Our fader that art in heuenis,
hallewit be thi name.
Thi kingdom cum to.
Thi wil be done in erde, as in heuen.
Gefe to vs this day our breid ouer vthir substance.
And forgif to vs our dettis,
as we forgef to our dettouris.
And leid vs nocht into temptatioun,
bot deliuer vs fra euile.
Amen.
Gothic, an East Germanic language, is the oldest Germanic language of which much is known. The main text corpus is a Bible translation by the bishop Ulfila from the 4th century C.E. (Common Era, also known as AD). The East Germanic languages (Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian, Lombardic, Rugian, Herulian, Bastarnae, and Scirian) do not have present-day descendants.
Gothic was the language of the Goths, originally found in the lower parts of the Vistula basin, in present day Poland. The Goths are later found in Northern Italy and in the Iberian Peninsula. Their language is known from a few texts, of which only one is more extensive, namely the so-called Silver Bible (Codex Argenteus), a translation of the New Testament into Gothic. The translation was made by bishop Wulfila in the 4th century, and the manuscript is assumed to be written in Ravenna around 550 C. E. Gothic is extinct; it probably remained a spoken language longest on the Crimean Peninsula, in present day Ukraine, where it is reported to have been spoken until the 16th century.
Vandalic was the East Germanic language of the Germanic-speaking people who invaded Gaul, Iberia, and Africa. They founded a kingdom in Africa in the fifth century C. E. Vandalic is extinct.
Lombardic was the East Germanic language of the Germanic-speaking people who invaded and settled in Italy in the sixth century C.E. It is said that Lombardic participated in the so-called second sound shift which is primarily attested in High German. Lombardic is extinct.