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MODERN GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND THEIR SPREADING ON THE GLOBE

The Germanic languages is a subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages, which were spoken by about 420 million people in many parts of the world (chiefly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere)

The Germanic languages are organized into three groups, North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic.

Distribution of Germanic LanguagesWest GermanicEnglish443 Million SpeakersBritain, Ireland, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, India, Philippines

German118 Million SpeakersGermany, Austria, Switzerland, parts of Alsace-Lorraine

Dutch (including Flemish)21 Million SpeakersNetherlands and Belgium

Afrikaans10 Million SpeakersSouth Africa

Yiddish5 Million SpeakersEast and South Europe, United States

Frisian1/2 Million SpeakersNorth Sea CoastHolland to Schleswig-Holstein

North GermanicSwedish9 Million SpeakersSweden, Finland

Danish5 Million SpeakersDenmark

Norwegian5 Million SpeakersNorway

Icelandic251,000 SpeakersIceland

Faeroese47,000 SpeakersFaeroes Islands

Common Characteristics

1. Germanic sound shift or consonant shift (also called Grimm's law); in Latin pater, English father; 2. Also peculiar to the Germanic languages is the recessive accent, whereby the stress usually falls on the first or root syllable of a word, especially a word of Germanic origin.

3. All Germanic languages have strong and weak verbs:as in English lie, lay, lain or ring, rang, rung; German ringen, rang, gerungen.4. Also typically Germanic is the formation of the genitive singular by the addition of -s or -es. Examples are English man, man's; Swedish hund, hunds; German Lehrer, Lehrers or Mann, MannesModern West Germanic languages

The modern West Germanic Languages are Afrikaans, Dutch, Flemish, English, Frisian, German( Low German, and High German) and Yiddish.

Modern North Germanic languages

The modern Norse languagesDanish, Faeroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedishall stem from an earlier form of Norse known as Old Norse.