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The Germanic Family

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The Germanic Family 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 Friesisch = Frisian Niederfränkisch = Low Franconian Altsächsisch = Old Saxon Ostniederdeutsch = Eastern Low German Westfälisch / Ostfälisch = West / East Phallian Text ----------------------------------------------------- Ripuarisch = Ripuarian Moselfränkisch = Mosel Franconian Rheinfränkisch = Rhein Franconian Ostfränkisch = East Franconian Ostmitteldeutsch = Eastern Middle German Schwäbisch = Swabian Allemannisch = Allemanic Bairisch = 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 Noun Gothic N sa dags dags “day” A þana dag G þis dagis D þamma daga N þai dagos A þans dagans G þize dage D þaim dagam 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.
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