Indo-European Languages
Germanic Family
Carol Justus and Jonathan Slocum
The Germanic languages are usually divided into three branches: East, North, and West Germanic. The only attested East Germanic language is Gothic, the dead language of various Gothic peoples who migrated into Roman territories, first as the Visogoths who settled for a time in southern France in the region around Toulouse before entering Spain. The North Germanic branch is represented historically by languages such as Old Norse, and today by modern Scandinavian languages such as Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. The West Germanic branch is represented today by modern English, Dutch, and German for example.
The oldest evidence for any Germanic language comes from dialectally variant Runic inscriptions of the early centuries AD. The next earliest written Germanic is Wulfila's Gothic Bible, a translation from the Greek.
Recommended Reading
- Antonsen, Elmar H. 1989. "The Runes: The Earliest Germanic Writing System," in: The Origins of Writing, ed. by Wayne Senner, pp. 137-158. Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press (Article on the runic script and its origins; now too Antonsen (2002) with Michael Schulte's 2004 review in Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 22:71-95)
- Baugh, Albert C. & Thomas Cable. 2002. A History of the English Language. 5th edition. New York: Prentice-Hall. (A cultural and linguistic history with many new additions)
- Green, Dennis H. 1998. Language and History in the Early Germanic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University. (Overview of early Germanic culture supplemented by more recent publications)
- Ramat, Paolo. 1998. "The Germanic Languages," in: The Indo-European Languages, ed. by Anna Giacolone Ramat & Paolo Ramat, pp. 380-414. London: Routledge. (An article sketching Germanic prehistory, history, and linguistic characteristics)
- Robinson, Orrin. 1992. Old English and its Closest Relatives. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (Oldest Germanic languages, sample texts, and their grammar)
See Online:
- Indo-European Languages: Evolution and Locale Maps;
- Gothic Online (language lessons);
- Old Norse Online (language lessons);
- Old English Online (language lessons);
- Web Links to Germanic resources (incl. language & history).