The Germanic Family:Features, Historical Overview & Spread

The Germanic Family

The Early Germanic Tribes

• North Germanic (Scandinavians)

• West Germanic

• North Sea Germanic (Ingvæons: Frisians, English)

• Weser-Rhine Group (Istvæons: Franks)

• Elbe Group (Irminones: Alamanni, Langobardi, Marcomanni)

• East Germanic (Goths, Vandals, Burgundians)

Germanic Spread

English, Dutch & German

• The train has come late.

• De trein is laat aangekomen.

• Der Zug ist spät angekommen.

• It was late, so we went and chatted in the garden.

• Het was laat geworden, dus zijn wij in de tuin gaan praaten.

• Es wurde spät, deshalb sind wir in den Garten plaudern gegangen.

English, Dutch & German

• Similar in many ways, yet hardly mutually intelligible

• Fundamental core similarities (not only in vocabulary, but also in morphology and syntax)

• Different kind of relatedness than just borrowing (i.e. French influence)

• Language change is an ongoing process - hence English and German were historically similar dialects that evolved apart.

• The Comparative Method gives us a tool to analyse the history of this relationship

Contential West Germanic

Text

Friesisch = FrisianNiederfränkisch = Low FranconianAltsächsisch = Old SaxonOstniederdeutsch = Eastern Low GermanWestfälisch / Ostfälisch = West / East Phallian-----------------------------------------------------Ripuarisch = RipuarianMoselfränkisch = Mosel FranconianRheinfränkisch = Rhein FranconianOstfränkisch = East FranconianOstmitteldeutsch = Eastern Middle GermanSchwäbisch = SwabianAllemannisch = AllemanicBairisch = Bavarian

Low German

Old Saxon• 800-1150 C.E.

• Saxons described by Roman historians

• Major Old Saxon text is the Heliand, a loose Bible translation

• Other minor texts survived

• Much destroyed by Christianization

• Quite similar to Old English

• Saxons eventually conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne (Karl der Große)

Germans Head West

Features of Germanic

• As Germanic splits off from the original Indo-European language, the following features mark it as a distinct and unique family

• The fixing of accent on the root or first syllable of a word

Features of Germanic

• Grimm’s Law (PIE *p, t, k > PGmc. *f, þ, χ/h

Features of Germanic

• Retains PIE past/non-past distinction, develops perfective & future forms (limited in Gothic)

• Creation of weak verbs with a dental preterit (-ed in modern English)

Germanic Verbs

• Strong verbs mark their past and perfect forms by a process called Ablaut - i.e. vowel stem alterations

• Gothic: giban, gaf, gebum, gibans

• Old English: giefan, geaf, geafon, giefen

• Mod. English: give, gave, gave, given

Germanic Verbs

• Weak verbs were formed by taking denominals and adding the dental preterite

• Gothic: salbon, salboda, salbodedum, salboþs “to annoint” (from Gothic salbons - “ointment”)

• Old English: deman, demde, demed “to judge” (from OE dom - “judgement”)

Features of Germanic

• Reduction of PIE mood system by merging subjunctive & optative into a single non-indicative mood

• Grammaticalization of demonstratives as definite articles

Features of Germanic• Reduction of PIE case system to four core

cases

Article NounN sa dagsA þana dagG þis dagisD þamma daga

N þai dagosA þans dagansG þize dageD þaim dagam

Gothic dags “day”

Features of Germanic

• Development of relative pronouns build on demonstratives and interrogative pronouns

• Introduction of verb-second (V2) word order

• Gothic differs from the rest of Germanic due to its being more archaic