The Germanic Family: Features, Historical Overview & Spread The Germanic Family The Early Germanic Tribes • North Germanic (Scandinavians) • West Germanic • Germanic (Ingvæons: , English) • Weser-Rhine Group (Istvæons: ) • Elbe Group (Irminones: Alamanni, Langobardi, ) • East Germanic (, , ) 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 = Altsächsisch = Ostniederdeutsch = Eastern 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. • 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 • 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 with a dental preterit (-ed in ) 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 -second (V2) word order • Gothic differs from the rest of Germanic due to its being more archaic