The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the
Germanic family of
language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s (the others being the
North Germanic and the extinct
East Germanic
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that eas ...
languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into three branches:
Ingvaeonic
North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic ( ), is a subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. These languages share a number of commonalities, such as a single pl ...
, which includes
English, the
Low German languages, and the
Frisian languages
The Frisian languages ( or ) are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 400,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closes ...
;
Istvaeonic, which encompasses
Dutch and its close relatives; and
Irminonic
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the West Germanic d ...
, which includes
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
and its close relatives and variants.
English is by far the most-spoken West Germanic language, with more than 1
billion
Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions:
* 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...
speakers worldwide. Within Europe, the three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch. Frisian, spoken by about 450,000 people, constitutes a fourth distinct variety of West Germanic. The language family also includes
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
,
Yiddish
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
,
Low Saxon
Low Saxon (), also known as West Low German () are a group of Low German dialects spoken in parts of the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and southern Denmark (in North Schleswig by parts of the German-speaking minority). It is one of two di ...
,
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
The language is standardized and officiall ...
,
Hunsrik
Hunsrik (natively ''Hunsrik'' , ''Hunsrückisch'' or ''Hunsrickisch'' and Portuguese ''hunsriqueano'' or ''hunsriqueano riograndense''), also called Riograndese Hunsrik, ' or ', is a Moselle Franconian language derived primarily from the Hunsr� ...
, and
Scots. Additionally, several
creoles,
patois
''Patois'' (, same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or sl ...
, and
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
s are based on Dutch, English, or German.
History
Origins and characteristics
The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West,
East
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
and
North
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
Germanic. In some cases, their exact relation was difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, so that some individual varieties have been difficult to classify. This is especially true for the unattested
Jute
Jute ( ) is a long, rough, shiny bast fibre that can be Spinning (textiles), spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', of the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ...
language; today, most scholars classify
Jute
Jute ( ) is a long, rough, shiny bast fibre that can be Spinning (textiles), spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', of the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ...
as a West Germanic variety with several features of North Germanic.
Until the late 20th century, some scholars claimed that all Germanic languages remained mutually intelligible throughout the
Migration Period
The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...
, while others hold that speakers of West Germanic dialects like
Old Frankish
Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: *), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 10th centuries.
Franks under king Chlodio settled in Roman Gaul in the 5th century. O ...
and speakers of
Gothic were already unable to communicate fluently by around the 3rd century AD. As a result of the substantial progress in the study of Proto-West Germanic in the early 21st century, there is a growing consensus that East and West Germanic indeed would have been mutually unintelligible at that time, whereas West and North Germanic remained partially intelligible.
Dialects with the features assigned to the western group formed from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...
in the late
Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age Europe, Iron Age material culture in what is now Germany, stretching north into Jutland, and east into Poland, spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming the southern part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
Peri ...
(). The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of
phonological
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...
,
morphological and
lexical
Lexical may refer to:
Linguistics
* Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language
* Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification
* Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
* Lexical ...
innovations or archaisms not found in North and East Germanic. Examples of West Germanic phonological particularities are:
* The
delabialization of all
labiovelar consonants except word-initially.
* Change of ''*-zw-'' and ''*- đw-'' to ''*-ww-'' e.g. ''*izwiz'' > ''*iwwiz'' 'you' dat.pl.; ''*feđwōr'' > ''*fewwōr'' 'four'.
* , the fricative allophone of , becomes in all positions. (The two other fricatives and are retained.). This must have occurred after ''*-zw-'' and ''*- đw-'' have become ''*-ww-''.
* Replacement of the second-person singular preterite ending ''-t'' with ''-ī'' (
indicative
A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentence
Dec ...
and
subjunctive mood
The subjunctive (also known as the conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of an utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude toward it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreali ...
). For more than 150 years there has been a scientific debate on the best explanation of these difficult forms. Today, some linguists, beginning with J. v. Fierlinger in 1885 and followed by R. Löwe (1907), O. Behaghel (1922),
Jakob Sverdrup (1927),
Hermann Hirt (1932),
E. Polomé (1964), W. Meid (1971), E. Hill (2004), K.-H. Mottausch and W. Euler (1992ff.) explain this ending as a relic of the
Indo-European aorist tense. Under this assumption, the ending ''-t'' would have replaced older ''-ī(z)''. Sceptical about this explanation – and mostly explaining these forms as influenced by
optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative ...
forms – are
W. Scherer (1868),
W. L. van Helten (before 1917),
Edward Schröder (1921), Bammesberger (1986) and
Don Ringe
Don Ringe (; born c. 1946 – October 11, 2016) was an American political media consultant, Emmy Award winning journalist, documentary filmmaker and online innovator in both the US and overseas. He was a graduate of the Columbia University Gradu ...
(2014).
* Loss of word-final . Only Old High German preserves it at all (as ) and only in single-syllable words. Following the later loss of word-final and , this made the nominative and accusative of many nouns identical.
* Loss of final ''*-a'' (including from PGmc. ''*-an#'') in polysyllables: e.g. acc. sg. OHG ''horn'' vs. ORu. ''horna'' 'horn'; this change must have occurred after the loss of word-final .
*
West Germanic gemination
West Germanic gemination was a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages around the 3rd or 4th century AD. It affected consonants directly followed by , which were generally lengthened or geminated in that position. Because of S ...
: lengthening of all consonants except before .; this change must have occurred after the loss of final *-a.
* Change of Proto-Germanic ''*e'' to ''i'' before ''i'' and ''j''.
A relative chronology of about 20 sound changes from Proto-Northwest Germanic to Proto-West Germanic (some of them only regional) was published by Don Ringe in 2014.
A phonological archaism of West Germanic is the preservation of ''
grammatischer Wechsel
In historical linguistics, the German term ' ("grammatical alternation") refers to the effects of Verner's law when they are viewed synchronically within the paradigm of a Germanic verb.
Overview
According to Grimm's law, the Proto-Indo-Europe ...
'' in most verbs, particularly in Old High German. This implies the same for West Germanic, whereas in East and North Germanic many of these alternations (in Gothic almost all of them) had been levelled out analogically by the time of the earliest texts.
A common morphological innovation of the West Germanic languages is the development of a
gerund
In linguistics, a gerund ( abbreviated ger) is any of various nonfinite verb forms in various languages; most often, but not exclusively, it is one that functions as a noun. The name is derived from Late Latin ''gerundium,'' meaning "which is ...
.
Common morphological archaisms of West Germanic include:
* The preservation of an
instrumental case
In grammar, the instrumental case ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the ''instrument'' or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or ...
,
* the preservation of the
athematic
In Indo-European studies, a thematic vowel or theme vowel is the vowel or from Indo-European ablaut, ablaut placed before the Suffix#Inflectional suffixes, ending of a Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word. Nouns, adjecti ...
verbs (e.g.
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
''dō(m)'',
Old Saxon
Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...
''dōm'',
OHG. ''tōm'' "I do"),
* the preservation of some traces of the
aorist
Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...
(in Old English and Old High German, but neither in Gothic nor in
North Germanic).
Furthermore, the West Germanic languages share many
lexeme
A lexeme () is a unit of lexical meaning that underlies a set of words that are related through inflection. It is a basic abstract unit of meaning, a unit of morphological analysis in linguistics that roughly corresponds to a set of forms ta ...
s not existing in North Germanic and/or East Germanic – archaisms as well as common neologisms. Some lexemes have specific meanings in West Germanic and there are specific innovations in word formation and derivational morphology, for example neologisms ending with modern English ''-ship'' (< wgerm. ''-*skapi'', cf. German ''-schaft'') like ''friendship'' (< wg. ''*friund(a)skapi'', cf. German ''Freundschaft'') are specific to the West Germanic languages and are thus seen as a Proto West Germanic innovation.
Validity of West Germanic as a subgroup
Since at least the early 20th century, a number of morphological, phonological, and lexical archaisms and innovations have been identified as specifically West Germanic. Since then, individual Proto-West Germanic lexemes have also been reconstructed. Yet, there was a long dispute if these West Germanic characteristics had to be explained with the existence of a West Germanic proto-language or rather with
Sprachbund
A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...
effects.
Hans Frede 's 1981 study ''Old English and the Continental Germanic Languages'' made the conviction grow that a West Germanic proto-language did exist. But up until the 1990s, some scholars doubted that there was once a Proto-West Germanic
proto-language
In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...
which was ancestral only to later West Germanic languages. In 2002, Gert Klingenschmitt presented a series of pioneering reconstructions of Proto-West Germanic morphological paradigmas and new views on some early West Germanic phonological changes, and in 2013 the first monographic analysis and description of Proto-West Germanic was published (second edition 2022).
Today, there is a scientific consensus on what Don Ringe stated in 2012, that "these
honological and morphologicalchanges amount to a massive evidence for a valid West Germanic clade".
After East Germanic broke off (an event usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC), the remaining Germanic languages, the
Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Ge ...
languages, divided into four main dialects: North Germanic, and the three groups conventionally called "West Germanic", namely:
*
Northwest Germanic
Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Ge ...
**
North Sea Germanic
North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic ( ), is a subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English language, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. These languages share a number of commonalitie ...
, ancestral to
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are a proposed sub-branch of the West Germanic languages encompassing the Anglic languages ( English, Scots, extinct Fingallian, and extinct Yola) as well as the Frisian languages ( North Frisian, East Frisian, ...
and
Old Saxon
Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...
**
Weser–Rhine Germanic, ancestral to
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch ( Modern Dutch: ') or Old Low Franconian (Modern Dutch: ') is the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages, from around the 6th Page 55: "''Uit de zesde eeu ...
and present as a
substrate or superstrate in some of the
Central Franconian
Central or Middle Franconian () refers to the following continuum of West Central German dialects:
* Ripuarian (spoken in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in eastern Belgium, and the southeastern tip of Dutch Limburg)
* Moselle Fr ...
and
Rhine Franconian
__NOTOC__
Rhenish Franconian or Rhine Franconian ( ) is a dialect chain of West Central German. It comprises the varieties of German spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, northwest Baden-Württember ...
dialects of
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
**
Elbe Germanic
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the West Germanic d ...
, ancestral to the
Upper German
Upper German ( ) is a family of High German dialects spoken primarily in the southern German-speaking area ().
History
In the Old High German time, only Alemannic and Bairisch are grouped as Upper German. In the Middle High German time, East F ...
and most
Central German
Central German or Middle German () is a group of High German languages spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany.
Central German divides into two subgroups, West Central German and East Central Ger ...
dialects of
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous ...
, and the extinct
Langobardic language.
Although there is quite a bit of knowledge about North Sea Germanic or Anglo-Frisian (because of the characteristic features of its daughter languages, Anglo-Saxon/
Old English
Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
and
Old Frisian
Old Frisian was a West Germanic language spoken between the late 13th century and the end of 16th century. It is the common ancestor of all the modern Frisian languages except for the North Frisian language#Insular North Frisian, Insular North ...
), linguists know almost nothing about "Weser–Rhine Germanic" and "Elbe Germanic". In fact, both terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archaeological findings, rather than linguistic features. Only later were the terms applied to hypothetical dialectal differences within both regions. Even today, the very small number of
Migration Period
The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...
runic inscriptions
A runic inscription is an inscription made in one of the various runic alphabets. They generally contained practical information or memorials instead of magic or mythic stories. The body of runic inscriptions falls into the three categories of E ...
from the area, many of them illegible, unclear or consisting only of one word, often a name, is insufficient to identify linguistic features specific to the two supposed dialect groups.
Evidence that East Germanic split off before the split between North and West Germanic comes from a number of linguistic innovations common to North and West Germanic, including:
* The lowering of Proto-Germanic ''ē'' (, also written ''ǣ'') to ''ā''.
* The development of
umlaut.
* The
rhotacism
Rhotacism ( ) or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language f ...
of to .
* The development of the
demonstrative
Demonstratives (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic, their meaning ...
pronoun ancestral to English ''this''.
Under that view, the properties that the West Germanic languages have in common, separate from the North Germanic languages, are not necessarily inherited from a "Proto-West Germanic" language, but may have spread by
language contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...
among the Germanic languages spoken in Central Europe, not reaching those spoken in Scandinavia or reaching them much later. Rhotacism, for example, was largely complete in West Germanic while North Germanic runic inscriptions still clearly distinguished the two phonemes. There is also evidence that the lowering of ''ē'' to ''ā'' occurred first in West Germanic and spread to North Germanic later since word-final ''ē'' was lowered before it was shortened in West Germanic, but in North Germanic the shortening occurred first, resulting in ''e'' that later merged with ''i''. However, there are also a number of common archaisms in West Germanic shared by neither Old Norse nor Gothic. Some authors who support the concept of a West Germanic proto-language claim that, not only shared innovations can require the existence of a linguistic
clade
In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...
, but also that there are archaisms that cannot be explained simply as retentions later lost in the North or East, because this assumption can produce contradictions with attested features of the other branches.
The debate on the existence of a Proto-West Germanic clade was summarized:
The reconstruction of Proto-West Germanic
Several scholars have published reconstructions of Proto-West Germanic morphological paradigms and many authors have reconstructed individual Proto-West Germanic morphological forms or lexemes. The first comprehensive reconstruction of the Proto-West Germanic language was published in 2013 by
Wolfram Euler, followed in 2014 by the study of
Donald Ringe
Donald Ringe () is an American linguist and Indo-Europeanist.
He has been described as a historical linguist and as a mathematical linguist. He is multi-lingual. His work is on language family trees and the Proto-Indo-European language, a ...
and Ann Taylor.
Dating Proto-West Germanic
If indeed Proto-West Germanic existed, it must have been between the 2nd and 7th centuries. Until the late 2nd century AD, the language of runic inscriptions found in Scandinavia and in Northern Germany were so similar that Proto-North Germanic and the Western dialects in the south were still part of one language ("Proto-Northwest Germanic").
Sometime after that, the split into West and North Germanic occurred. By the 4th and 5th centuries the
great migration set in. By the end of the 6th century, the area in which West Germanic languages were spoken, at least by the upper classes, had tripled compared to the year 400. This caused an increasing disintegration of the West Germanic language and finally the formation of the daughter languages.
It has been argued that, judging by their nearly identical syntax, the West Germanic dialects were closely enough related to have been mutually intelligible up to the 7th century. Over the course of this period, the dialects diverged successively. The
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
that occurred mostly during the 7th century AD in what is now southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can be considered the end of the linguistic unity among the West Germanic dialects, although its effects on their own should not be overestimated. Bordering dialects very probably continued to be mutually intelligible even beyond the boundaries of the consonant shift.
Middle Ages

During the
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...
, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of
Old and
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...
on one hand, and by the
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
on the continent on the other.
The
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
distinguished the
High German languages
The High German languages (, i.e. ''High German dialects''), or simply High German ( ) – not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German" – comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Ben ...
from the other West Germanic languages. By early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from
Highest Alemannic
Highest Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic German and is often considered to be part of the German language, even though mutual intelligibility with Standard German and other non-Alemannic German dialects is very limited.
Highest Alemannic dialect ...
in the South (the
Walliser Walliser may refer to:
* people from the Swiss canton of Valais (German: Wallis)
* Pennine Alps (German: ''Walliser Alpen'')
* Walliser German, an Alemannic dialect spoken in Valais and other regions of the Alps
The Alps () are some of the ...
dialect being the southernmost surviving German dialect) to
Northern Low Saxon
Northern Low Saxon (in Standard German, Standard High German: ', also ', lit. ''North(ern) Low Saxon/German''; in Dutch language, Standard Dutch: ') is a subgroup of Low Saxon dialects of Low German. As such, it covers a great part of the West ...
in the North. Although both extremes are considered
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany, the country of the Germans and German things
**Germania (Roman era)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
, they are not mutually intelligible. The southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, whereas the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift.
Of modern German varieties,
Low German
Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
is the one that most resembles modern English. The district of
Angeln
Angeln (; ) is a peninsula on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of Jutland, in the Bay of Kiel. It forms part of Southern Schleswig, the northernmost region of Germany. The peninsula is bounded on the north by the Flensburg Firth, which separates it ...
(or Anglia), from which the name ''English'' derives, is in the extreme northern part of Germany between the Danish border and the Baltic coast. The area of the Saxons (parts of today's
Schleswig-Holstein
Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...
and
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...
) lay south of Anglia. The
Angles and
Saxons
The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
, two
Germanic tribes
The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era ''Germani'' who lived in both ''Germania'' and parts ...
, in combination with a number of other peoples from northern
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
and the
Jutland
Jutland (; , ''Jyske Halvø'' or ''Cimbriske Halvø''; , ''Kimbrische Halbinsel'' or ''Jütische Halbinsel'') is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and part of northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein). It ...
Peninsula, particularly the
Jutes
The Jutes ( ) were one of the Germanic people, Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the end of Roman rule in Britain, departure of the Roman Britain, Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic na ...
, settled in Britain following the end of Roman rule in the island. Once in Britain, these Germanic peoples eventually developed a shared cultural and linguistic identity as
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
; the extent of the linguistic influence of the native
Romano-British
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...
population on the incomers is debatable.
Family tree
Divisions between subfamilies of continental Germanic languages are rarely precisely defined; most form
dialect continua
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated variet ...
, with adjacent
dialect
A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
s being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.
* West Germanic languages
**
North Sea Germanic
North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic ( ), is a subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English language, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. These languages share a number of commonalitie ...
/
Ingvaeonic languages
North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic ( ), is a subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants. These languages share a number of commonalities, such as a single pl ...
***
Anglo-Frisian
The Anglo-Frisian languages are a proposed sub-branch of the West Germanic languages encompassing the Anglic languages ( English, Scots, extinct Fingallian, and extinct Yola) as well as the Frisian languages ( North Frisian, East Frisian, ...
****
Anglic
*****
English
***** Irish Middle English /
Hiberno-Norman
Norman Irish or Hiberno-Normans (; ) is a modern term for the descendants of Norman settlers who arrived during the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Most came from England and Wales. They are distinguished from the native ...
/ Irish Anglo-Norman
******
Fingalian (extinct)
******
Yola (extinct)
*****
Scots
****
Frisian
*****
West Frisian
******
Hindeloopen Frisian
******
Schiermonnikoog Frisian
****** Westlauwers–Terschellings
*******
Terschelling Frisian
*******
Mainland West Frisian
******** Clay Frisian
******** Wood Frisian
*********
Westereendersk
*****
East Frisian
****** Ems
*******
Saterland Frisian
****** Weser
*******
Wangerooge Frisian
Wangerooge Frisian, also known as Wangeroogic or Wangeroogish, is an extinct variety of the East Frisian language, formerly spoken on the East Frisian Island of Wangerooge. Descended from the Weser subdialect of Old Frisian, it flourished on the ...
*******
Wursten Frisian
*****
North Frisian
***
Low German
Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
****
Northern Low Saxon
Northern Low Saxon (in Standard German, Standard High German: ', also ', lit. ''North(ern) Low Saxon/German''; in Dutch language, Standard Dutch: ') is a subgroup of Low Saxon dialects of Low German. As such, it covers a great part of the West ...
****
Westphalian
****
Eastphalian
****
Marchian
****
Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch
Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch is a Low German dialect spoken in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It belongs to the East Low German group.
In the western parts of the language area it is similar to some West Low German dialects, while ...
****
Central Pomeranian
****
East Pomeranian
East Pomeranian (') or Farther Pomeranian (') is an East Low German dialect moribund in Europe, which used to be spoken in the region of Farther Pomerania when it was part of the German Province of Pomerania, until World War II, and today is ...
(moribund)
****
Low Prussian (moribund)
****
Dutch Low Saxon
Dutch Low Saxon ( or ''Nederlaands Nedersaksies''; ) are Low Saxon dialects from the Low German language that are spoken in the northeastern Netherlands and are mostly, but not exclusively, written with local, unstandardised orthographies base ...
**
Weser–Rhine Germanic /
Istvaeonic languages
***
Low Franconian
In historical linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics, Low Franconian is a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic languages, West Germanic Variety (linguistics), varieties closely r ...
****
Dutch
*****
West Flemish
West Flemish (''West-Vlams'' or ''West-Vloams'' or ''Vlaemsch'' (in French Flanders), , ) is a collection of Low Franconian varieties spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and the Netherlands.
West Flemish is spoken by ...
*****
East Flemish
East Flemish (, ) is a collective term for the two easternmost subdivisions ("true" East Flemish, also called Core Flemish,Hoppenbrouwers, Cor; Hoppenbrouwers, Geer (2001): De Indeling van de Nederlandse streektalen. and Waaslandic) of the ...
*****
Zeelandic
Zeelandic (; ; ) is a group of language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been movements to promote the status of Zeelandic from a dial ...
*****
Central Dutch
******
Hollandic
Hollandic or Hollandish ( ) is the most widely spoken dialect of the Dutch language. Hollandic is among the Central Dutch dialects. Other important language varieties of spoken Low Franconian languages are Brabantian, Flemish ( East Flemish, ...
*******
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
********
Arabic Afrikaans
Arabic Afrikaans (Afrikaans: , ) or Lisan-e-Afrikaans () is a form of Afrikaans written in the Perso-Arabic script. It began in the 1830s in the madrasa in Cape Town, South Africa. Beside a 16th-century manuscript in the German language written ...
*******
Kaaps
Kaaps (, meaning 'of the Cape'), also known as Afrikaaps, is a West Germanic African language that evolved in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its status as a sister language of Afrikaans or a dialect of Afrikaans is unclear. Since th ...
******
Kleverlandish
Kleverlandish ( or ; ) is a group of Low Franconian dialects spoken on both sides of the Dutch-German border along the Meuse and Rhine rivers.
Extent and terminology
Kleverlandish varieties are spoken in the Netherlands in the northernmost part ...
*****
Brabantian
****
Limburgish
Limburgish ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...
***
Central German
Central German or Middle German () is a group of High German languages spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany.
Central German divides into two subgroups, West Central German and East Central Ger ...
****
Central Franconian
Central or Middle Franconian () refers to the following continuum of West Central German dialects:
* Ripuarian (spoken in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in eastern Belgium, and the southeastern tip of Dutch Limburg)
* Moselle Fr ...
*****
Ripuarian
*****
Luxembourgish
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
The language is standardized and officiall ...
****
Rhine Franconian
__NOTOC__
Rhenish Franconian or Rhine Franconian ( ) is a dialect chain of West Central German. It comprises the varieties of German spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, northwest Baden-Württember ...
, including the dialects of
Hessen
Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major historic cities are Da ...
,
Pennsylvania German, and most of those from
Lorraine
Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...
*****
Pennsylvania Dutch
The Pennsylvania Dutch (), also referred to as Pennsylvania Germans, are an ethnic group in Pennsylvania in the United States, Ontario in Canada, and other regions of both nations. They largely originate from the Palatinate (region), Palatina ...
****
Thuringian
Thuringian is an East Central German dialect group spoken in much of the modern German Free State of Thuringia north of the Rennsteig ridge, southwestern Saxony-Anhalt and adjacent territories of Hesse and Bavaria. It is close to Upper Saxon s ...
****
Upper Saxon German
Upper Saxon (, , ) is an East Central German dialect spoken in much of the modern German state of Saxony and in adjacent parts of southeastern Saxony-Anhalt and eastern Thuringia. As of the early 21st century, it is mostly extinct and a new r ...
**** Schlesisch–Wilmesau
***** Bielsko-Biała
******
Halcnovian
******
Wymysorys
Wymysorys (, ), also known as Vilamovian, Wilamowicean, or Wilmesaurisch, is a West Germanic language spoken by the Vilamovian ethnic minority in the town of Wilamowice, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland ( in Wymysorys), on the border between Si ...
*****
Silesian (moribund)
****
High Prussian (moribund)
**
Elbe Germanic
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the West Germanic d ...
/
Irminonic languages
Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, ''Nordgermanen und Alemanen'', to describe the West Germanic d ...
***
Upper German
Upper German ( ) is a family of High German dialects spoken primarily in the southern German-speaking area ().
History
In the Old High German time, only Alemannic and Bairisch are grouped as Upper German. In the Middle High German time, East F ...
****
Alemannic, including
Swiss German
Swiss German (Standard German: , ,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no #Conventions, defined orthography for any of them, many different spellings can be found. and others; ) is any of the Alemannic German, Alemannic ...
and
Alsatian
****
Swabian
****
Bavarian
****
East Franconian
East Franconian ( ), usually referred to as Franconian (' ) in German, is a dialect spoken in Franconia, the northern part of the federal state of Bavaria and other areas in Germany around Nuremberg, Bamberg, Coburg, Würzburg, Hof, Bayreuth, ...
****
South Franconian
South Franconian () or South Rhine Franconian () is an Upper German dialect which is spoken in the northernmost part of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, around Karlsruhe, Mosbach and Heilbronn. Like closely related East Franconian, it is a transit ...
****
Lombardic (extinct)
***
Yiddish
Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
(a language based on
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; or ; , shortened as ''Mhdt.'' or ''Mhd.'') is the term for the form of High German, High German language, German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High ...
)
Comparison of phonological and morphological features
The following table shows a list of various linguistic features and their extent among the West Germanic languages, organized roughly from northwest to southeast. Some may only appear in the older languages but are no longer apparent in the modern languages.
The following table shows some comparisons of consonant development in the respective dialect/language (online examples though) continuum, showing the gradually growing partake in the
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
and the anglofrisian palatalization. The table uses
IPA, to avoid confusion via orthographical differences. The realisation of
will be ignored.
C = any consonant, A = back vowel, E = front vowel
Phonology
The existence of a unified Proto-West Germanic language is debated. Features which are common to West Germanic languages may be attributed either to common inheritance or to areal effects.
The phonological system of the West Germanic branching as reconstructed is mostly similar to that of Proto-Germanic, with some changes in the categorization and phonetic realization of some phonemes.
Consonants
In addition to the particular changes described above, some notable differences in the consonant system of West Germanic from Proto-Germanic are:
* Fortition of /ð/ to /d/ in all positions
* The transition of /z/ into a
rhotic consonant
In phonetics, rhotic consonants, or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthography, orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek alphabet, Greek letter Rho (letter), rho (Ρ and ρ), including R, , i ...
(often transcribed as ʀ), which eventually merged with /r/
* A process referred to as
West Germanic gemination
West Germanic gemination was a sound change that took place in all West Germanic languages around the 3rd or 4th century AD. It affected consonants directly followed by , which were generally lengthened or geminated in that position. Because of S ...
, which is visible in the history of all West Germanic languages
Vowels
Some notable differences in the vowel system of West Germanic from Proto-Germanic are:
* Reduction of overlong vowels to simple long vowels
* Lowering of /ɛː/ to /æː/
* The creation of a new short /o/ phoneme, from the lowering of /u/ in initial syllables before /a/, and the reduction of word-final /ɔː/
Morphology
Nouns
The noun paradigms of Proto-West Germanic have been reconstructed as follows:
West Germanic vocabulary
The following table compares a number of Frisian, English, Scots, Yola, Dutch, Limburgish, German and Afrikaans words with common West Germanic (or older) origin. The
grammatical gender
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...
of each term is noted as masculine (''m.''), feminine (''f.''), or neuter (''n.'') where relevant.
Other words, with a variety of origins:
Note that some of the shown similarities of Frisian and English vis-à-vis Dutch and German are secondary and not due to a closer relationship between them. For example, the plural of the word for "sheep" was originally unchanged in all four languages and still is in some Dutch dialects and a great deal of German dialects. Many other similarities, however, are indeed old inheritances.
See also
*
West Germanic Swadesh lists
Notes
References
Sources
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Further reading
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{{Authority control
Germanic languages