What languages descended from Proto-Germanic?
All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic, spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia. The West Germanic languages include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: English with around 360–400 million native speakers; German, with over 100 million native speakers; and Dutch, with 24 million native speakers.
Where do Proto-Germanic languages come from?
According to Musset (1965), the Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia (Denmark, south Sweden and southern Norway), the Urheimat (original home) of the Germanic tribes.
What is the oldest Germanic language?
Old High German (OHG, German: Althochdeutsch, German abbr. Ahd.) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050….
Old High German | |
---|---|
Language family | Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Old High German |
Writing system | Runic, Latin |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 | goh |
Who spoke Proto-Germanic?
It was spoken in north mainland Europe and southern Scandinavia, more or less during the time of the Roman Republic and also in dialectal form during the early period of the Roman Empire (up till about the 1st century CE).
What was spoken before Old Norse?
Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic in the first centuries CE.
What are the three main branches of primitive Germanic languages?
Scholars often divide the Germanic languages into three groups: West Germanic, including English, German, and Netherlandic (Dutch); North Germanic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroese; and East Germanic, now extinct, comprising only Gothic and the languages of the Vandals, Burgundians, and a …
How old are proto languages?
For the true believers there is proto-world (known under different terms, too) dated somewhere between 100.000 and 200.000 BC. Greenberg and Ruhlen even dare reconstruct some proto-world words like *dik “finger”.
How old is the Germanic language?
The first written Germanic language was created in the 4th Century, by Bishop Ulfilas, who used Latin and Greek orthography to create a version of the Bible in Gothic.
What are the 5 Germanic languages?
The Germanic languages. English is a Germanic language as are German, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic.
How many Germanic languages were there?
Besides the obvious answer, German, there are at least 47 living Germanic languages around today. Most linguists talk about this language family in terms of three branches: the Northern, Eastern and Western Germanic languages. From these three branches, we can group all the Germanic languages we know today.
What is the oldest proto-language?
Linguists estimate that the Proto-Indo-European language was spoken around 5,500 years ago. But they have dated another ancient language, Proto-Afroasiatic — the grandparent of languages like Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and Arabic — to 10,000 to 20,000 years old.
Are German and Sanskrit related?
No. German descends from proto-Indo-European via proto-Germanic, Sanskrit also descends from Indo-European but there is no other common ancestor, let alone a descent of German from Indo-European through Sanskrit.
Which language is closest to Viking?
Icelandic
Icelandic. Spoken only in Iceland, modern Icelandic is the closest language to Old Norse still in use today. Although elements of the language have developed and no-one is quite sure how Old Norse would have sounded, the grammar and vocabulary remains similar.
What is the closest language to Old Norse?
What are the 3 Germanic languages?
What is German language derived from?
German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish). The recorded history of Germanic languages begins with their speakers’ first contact with the Romans, in the 1st century bce.
Where did the Proto-Germanic language come from?
The Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia (Denmark, south Sweden and southern Norway), the Urheimat (original home) of the Germanic tribes.
How many cases did the Proto-Germanic language have?
Proto-Germanic had only six cases, the functions of ablative (place from which) and locative (place in which) being taken over by constructions of preposition plus the dative case. In Modern English these are reduced to two cases in nouns, a general case that does duty… …leads scholars to reconstruct the Proto-Germanic form * hornan .
What are some good books on the evolution of Germanic languages?
The Evolution of Germanic Phonological Systems: Proto-Germanic, Gothic, West Germanic, and Scandinavian. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen. Polomé, Edgar C. (1992). Lippi-Green, Rosina (ed.). Recent Developments in Germanic Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-3593-0. Polomé, Edgar Charles; Fee, Christopher R.; Leeming, David Adams (2006).
How did Proto-Germanic change its sound?
Several sound changes occurred in the history of Proto-Germanic that were triggered only in some environments but not in others. Some of these were grammaticalised while others were still triggered by phonetic rules and were partially allophonic or surface filters .