English is included in a widespread and large group called the Germanic languages. In this article, we will consider it in detail. In turn, this branch is included in an even larger one - the Indo-European languages. These include, in addition to Germanic, and others - Hittite, Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Greek, Celtic, Romanesque, Slavic, and so on. The Indo-European languages are thus a broader grouping.
However, the family we are interested in has its own classification. The Germanic languages are divided into the following 2 subgroups: northern (otherwise called Scandinavian) and western. They all have their own characteristics.
Sometimes Romano-Germanic languages are distinguished. This includes Germanic and Romance (descent from Latin).
West Germanic languages
West Germanic includes Dutch, Frisian, High German, English, Flemish, Boer, Yiddish.
For the majority of the population of the UK - Northern Ireland, Scotland, England - as well as the USA, New Zealand,Australia, Canada is native English. In addition, it is distributed in Pakistan, India, South Africa as an official means of communication.
Frisian is popular in the North Sea and is spoken by the people of the Friesland Islands. Its literary variety is based on West Frisian dialects.
The mother tongue of Austria, Germany and Switzerland is High German. It is also used in the northern regions of the country of Germany by the urban population as a literary one. The rural inhabitants of these areas still speak "Platdeutsche", or Low German, a special dialect that was the language in the Middle Ages. Folk fiction was created on it.
Dutch is native to the people of Holland.
Modern Germanic languages include Boer, otherwise called "Afrikaans", which is common in South Africa, over a large part of its territory. This language close to Dutch is spoken by the Afrikaners, or Boers, descendants of the Dutch colonists who left their homeland in the 17th century.
Flemish is very close to it. It is spoken by the population of Belgium, its northern part, as well as the Netherlands (in some territory). Flemish, along with French, is the official means of communication in Belgium.
Yiddish is a language developed in the 10th-12th centuries, spoken by the Jews of Eastern Europe. Its basis is Middle High German dialects.
LanguagesNorth German subgroup
The following Germanic languages belong to North Germanic: Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish.
The latter is native to the population of the coast of Finland (where representatives of the ancient Swedish tribes moved in the distant past), as well as the Swedish people. Of the dialects that exist today, the Gutnic dialect, which is spoken by the population of the island of Gotland, stands out sharply with its features. The Swedish language today consists of German words written and arranged according to English. Its active dictionary is not very large.
Danish - native to the Danish people, which was also for several centuries the literary and state language of Norway, which, as you know, was part of the Danish state from the end of the 14th century until 1814.
Danish and Swedish, close in the past, are now significantly divergent, they are sometimes combined into a special subgroup of the so-called East Scandinavian dialects.
The Norwegian language, which is native to the people of Norway, is common in this country. Its development was greatly delayed under the influence of historical conditions, since the inhabitants of the state were forced to exist under the rule of the Danes for almost 400 years. Today, in this country, the formation of the Norwegian language is taking place, which is common for the whole nation, occupying a position intermediate between Danish and Swedish in its characteristics.
The people of Iceland speak Icelandic. The ancestors of the inhabitants of this island country were Norwegians,settled in the area as early as the 10th century. The Icelandic language, developing independently for almost a millennium, acquired a number of new features, and also retained many of the properties characteristic of Old Norse. At the same time, the modern means of communication of the inhabitants of the Land of the Fjords has largely lost these features. All these processes have led to the fact that the difference between the Icelandic (New Icelandic) languages and Norwegian is very significant at the present time.
Faroese today exists in the Faroe Islands, which are located north of the Shetland Islands. He retained, as well as Icelandic and other groups of languages, many features of the dialect of his ancestors - Old Norse, from which he later broke away.
Faroese, Icelandic and Norwegian are sometimes combined into one family based on their origin. It is called the West Scandinavian languages. But evidence today suggests that, in its current state, Norwegian is much closer to Danish and Swedish than to Faroese and Icelandic.
Early information about the Germanic tribes
The history of the Germanic languages has been studied in some detail today. The first mention of the Germans dates back to the 4th century BC. The traveler who provided information about them is the astronomer and geographer Pytheas (or Pytheas), a Greek, a resident of the city of Massilia (which today is called Marseilles). He made about 325 BC. e. a great journey to the Amber Coast, located, apparently, at the mouth of the Elbe, as well as near the southern coast of the North and B altic Seas. In your messagePiteas mentions the Gutton and Teutonic tribes. Their names clearly indicate that these peoples are ancient Germanic.
Messages from Plutarch and Julius Caesar
The next mention of the Germans is the message of Plutarch, a Greek historian who lived in the 1st-2nd century AD. He wrote about the Bastarnae that appeared on the lower Danube around 180 BC. e. But this information is very fragmentary, therefore, they do not give us an idea about the language and way of life of the Germanic tribes. They, according to Plutarch, do not know either cattle breeding or agriculture. War is the only occupation for these tribes.
Julius Caesar was the first Roman author to describe the Germanic peoples of the early years CE. e. He says that their whole life is in military pursuits and hunting. They do little farming.
Information from Pliny the Elder
But especially valuable are the information of Pliny the Elder, naturalist (years of life - 23-79 AD), as well as Tacitus, historian (years of life - 58-117 AD). In his works "Annals" and "Germany" the latter provides important information not only about the existing classification of tribes, but also about their way of life, culture, and social system. Tacitus distinguishes 3 groups: istevones, hermiones and ingevons. Pliny the Elder also mentioned the same groups, but attributed the Teutons and Cimbri to the Ingaevons. This classification seems to reflect the division in the 1st century AD quite accurately. e. Germanic tribes.
Old Germanic languages: classification
The study of written monuments allows us to combine the Germanic languages into three subgroups in the period of the earlyMiddle Ages: Gothic (East German), Scandinavian (North German) and Western European.
East Germanic includes Gothic, Vandal and Burgundian.
Burgundian
Burgundian is the language of people from Burgundarholm (Bornholm) - an island in the B altic Sea. The Burgundians settled in southeastern France in the 5th century, in an area that received the same name. This ancient Germanic language has left us a small number of words today, mostly proper nouns.
Vandalic
Vandalic - the dialect of the Vandals who later moved through Spain to North Africa, where they left behind the name Andalusia (today it is a province). This language, like Burgundian, is represented mainly by proper names. Subsequently, the word "vandal" acquired the meaning of a destroyer of cultural monuments, a barbarian, since in 455 these tribes sacked and captured Rome.
Gothic
The Gothic language is represented today by several monuments. The largest of those that have come down to us is the "Silver Scroll" - a translation of the Gospels into Gothic. 187 of the 330 leaves of this manuscript have survived.
Old West Germanic languages
The West Germanic group of languages is represented by Anglo-Saxon, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Frankish, Old High German. Each of them has its own characteristics.
The last of this family includesa number of dialects. Among its most important monuments are the following texts from the 8th century:
1. Glosses - small dictionaries for texts written in Latin, or translations of individual words into German, written in the margins.
2. Translations of works of religious and classical literature created by Notker, who led the monastery school in the late 10th and early 11th centuries.
3. Poem "Muspilli" (2nd half of the 9th century).
4. "The Song of Ludwig".
5. "Merseburg Spells".
6. "The Song of Hildebrand".
Frankish also has several dialects. In the course of history, they all became part of German, except for Low Frankish, which is the ancestor of modern Dutch, Flemish and Boer.
The North Germanic group of languages includes Old Norse, Old Norse, Old Danish and Old Norse dialects. They all have their own specific features.
The last of this group of languages is sometimes called the language of runic inscriptions, since it is represented by many of them (about 150 in total), belonging to the period of the 2nd-9th centuries AD. e.
Old Danish is also preserved in runic epigraphic monuments dating back to the 9th century. About 400 of them are known in total.
The first monuments of the Old Swedish language also date back to the 9th century AD. They are located in the province of Västerjötland and are inscriptions on stones. The total number of runic inscriptions created in this language reaches 2500.
