Language Families Rock: Germanic Languages

Written by Blackkdark on 11th March 2007

Another language family, which I know a lot about is the Germanic language family.  There were a lot of different Germanic tribes in Northern Europe.  In fact, the modern words for German in many other languages are not consistent or uniform and the German word for German is Deutsch.  We also have Tedesco (Italian), Alemán (Spanish), Duits (Dutch), Tysk (Norwegian).  This exists for a few reasons, one is that different areas would get the name of the people from different Tribe.  It's like if an Alien came and met someone from England and that person says that he is an Englishmen, then the Alien might think all Humans call themselves Englishmen, instead of the one nation.  The tribes each had their own histories, legends, cultures and even different Gods, though there was some degree of similarity.  Eventually the cultures split into sections and the languages split into North Germanic, West Germanic, and East Germanic.  The only language which came from East Germanic was Gothic, which is important, but is no longer spoken.

North Germanic, became Old Norse, Old Swedish, and Old Danish.  Old Norse became Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian. Old Icelandic became Icelandic, which is strange in the fact that it's grammar has not changed very much since the middle ages.  This is because of the isolation of Iceland, it didn't change much.  However, many Icelandic speakers will tell you that they can read the old Sagas easily, which is a bit of an exaggeration.  But they would definitely have an advantage in reading something like Anglo-Saxon.  Old Norwegian merged and changed over time, and it is similar to Danish, to the point where if you can speak one you can often read the other.  Old Swedish and Old Danish also formed and changed over time, probably due to exposure to each other.  Over time, the grammar became simplified, and Norwegian and Swedish actually have begun to form tonal qualities not unlike some Asian languages (which also have simplified grammar).

Then we have West Germanic languages.  West Germanic formed into different groups.  Old High German, Old Dutch or Franconian, and Old Saxon.  The Angle language also was from West Germanic.  The Angles were the Germanic peoples who migrated to England, after which England is named (Angle-land).  Then the Saxons came and the language mixed and it became Anglo-Saxon, which is also known as Old English.  Old Saxon became a modern dialect of German, sometimes called Low German.  Dutch itself is also called a form of Low German as well (nieder means low in German, so Nederlands...).  And off of Dutch there is Afrikaans, which is a language that came from a creole in Africa.  Flemish is also from Dutch, but is in the West, and has a French influence.  Then we also have Yiddish, which is another dialect of High German that mixes Hebrew with it as well as being written with the Hebrew alphabet.  There also was Prussian which was another Dialect of German.  There are the other German speaking countries, Austria and Switzerland, which also have difference as well. There are also many German speakers in Romania, as well as other European countries, to the point where German is one of key languages of Europe.  Also, Luxembourgish is a dialect of German too.

The most important of the Germanic languages though would probably be English, being that it is one of the biggest languages in the world.  But English was also influenced by French, and being a world language, it's grammar has slowly been simplified, and new vocabulary comes in all the time.

Timothy