The germanic group of languages

The Germanic group of languages

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European(IE) language family. The common ancestor of all the 

languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken inapproximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. 

Proto-Germanic, along with all of itsdescendants, is characterized by a number of

unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm’s

law. Early varieties of Germanic enter history with the Germanic peoples settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire in the second century.

The most widely spoken Germanic languages are English and German, with appro-

ximately 400 million and 100million native speakers respectively. The group 

includes other major languages, such as Dutch with 23 million and Afrikaans with over 16 million speakers; and the North Germanic languages 

including Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese with a combined 

total of about20 million speakers. In Netherland Frisian is being spoken by the 

majority of the inhabitants of  the province Friesland/Fryslân. 

The SIL "Ethnologue" lists 53 different Germanic languages.

Writing

The earliest evidence of Germanic languages comes from names recorded in the 

first century by Tacitus(especially from his work "Germania"), but the earliest 

Germanic writing occurs in a single instance in the second century BC on the Negau helmet.From roughly the second century AD, 

certain speakers of early Germanic varieties developed the Elder Futhark, an early form of the Runic alphabet. Early runic inscriptions also are 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 fourth century. Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke 

and read Latin in addition to their native Germanic varieties began writing the 

Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters. However,throughout the Viking Age, Runic alphabets remained in common use in Scandinavia.

In addition to the standard Latin alphabet, many Germanic languages use a variety of accent marks and extraletters, including umlauts, the ß ("Eszett"), IJ, Ø, Æ, Å, Ä, Ö, Ð, and the runes  and . Historical printed German is frequently set in 

blackletter typefaces (e.g. fraktur or schwabacher).

History

All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic, united by their havingbeen subjected to the sound shifts of Grimm's law and Verner's law. These probably took place during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe from ca. 500 BC, but other common 

innovations separating Germanic fromProto-Indo European suggest a common 

history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic BronzeAge.

From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic varieties are divided into  

three groups, West, East, andNorth Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to 

determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, andthey remained 

mutually intelligible throughout the Migration period, so that some individual 

varieties are difficult to classify.

The sixth century Lombardic language, for instance, may constitute an originally, 

either North or East, Germanic variety 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 first century variety of Gotland(see Old Gutnish), leaving southern Sweden as the original location of  

the Northern group. 

Early testimoniesof West Germanic are in Old High German (scattered words and sentences sixth century, coherent texts ninthcentury), Old English (coherent texts 

tenth 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 eighth and ninth centuries (Eggjum 

stone, Rök stone), longer texts in the Latin alphabet survive from the 20 

century (Íslendingabók), and some skaldic poetry held to date back to asearly as 

the ninth century.

Classification

Note that divisions between and among subfamilies of Germanic rarely are 

precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent varieties being 

mutually intelligible and more separated ones not Modern Germanic Languages.

Languages can be classified according to different principles. The historical, or

genealogical classification, groups languages in accordance with their origin form a common linguistic ancestor.

Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the IE linguistic family.Most of the area of Europe and large parts of other continents are occupied today by the IE languages, Germanic being one of their major groups.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:

English - in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zeland, the South African Respublic, and many other former British colonies and dominions;

German - Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland;

Netherlandish - in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium) (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively);

Afrikaans - in the South African Respublic;

Danish - in Denmark;

Swedish - in Sweden and Finland;

Norwegian - in Norway;

Icelandic - in Iceland;

Frisian - in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;

Faroese - in the Faroe Islands;

Yiddish - in different countries.

Lists of Germanic languages given in manuals and reference-books differ in some

points, for the distinction between separate languages, and also between languages and dialects varies. Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are often referred to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; the linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned, for it has intermixed with Danish; Br E and Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent languages.

It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic languages, especially on account of English, which in many countries is one of two languages in a bilingual community, e.g. in Canada. The estimates for English range from 250 to 300 million people who have it as their mother tongue. The total number of people speaking Germanic languages approaches 440 million. To this rough estimate we could add an indefinite number of bilingual people in the countries where English is used as an official language (over 50 countries).

All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history. The survey of their external history will show where and when the Germanic languages arose and acquired their common features and also how they have developed into modern tongues.