The debate on the existence of a Proto-West-Germanic clade was recently summarized: That North Germanic is... a unitary subgroup [of Proto-Germanic] is completely obvious, as all of its dialects shared a long series of innovations, some of them very striking. Although both extremes are considered German, they are not mutually intelligible. By early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from Highest Alemannic in the South (the Walliser dialect being the southernmost surviving German dialect) to Northern Low Saxon in the North. English is part of the North Sea Germanic branch of the West Germanic languages. Original meaning "relative" has become "brother or sister" in English. The following table shows a list of various linguistic features and their extent among the West Germanic languages. 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 but that there can be also archaisms that cannot be explained simply as retentions later lost in the North and/or East because this assumption can produce contradictions with attested features of these other branches. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic, but proposes additionally that North and West Germanic (i.e. Rhotacism, for example, was largely complete in West Germanic at a time when North Germanic runic inscriptions still clearly distinguished the two phonemes. 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"). "Im Vorfeld des Althochdeutschen und Altsächsischen" (Prior to Old High German and Old Saxon), in. A famous likely speaker was Emperor Charlemagne. During the Early Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Old and Middle English on one hand, and by the High German consonant shift on the continent on the other. Frisian languages belong to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages, the most widespread language family in Europe and the world. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. Anglo-Saxon in linguistics is still used as a term for the original West Germanic component of the modern English language, which was later expanded and developed through the influence of Old Norse and Norman French, though linguists now more often refer to it as Old English. [8]. 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, [4] including: 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 among the Germanic languages spoken in Central Europe, not reaching those spoken in Scandinavia or reaching them much later. Old English, 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. [2] Most agree that after East Germanic broke off (an event usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC), the remaining Germanic languages, the Northwest Germanic languages, divided into four main dialects:[3] North Germanic, and the three groups conventionally called "West Germanic", namely. The debate on the existence of a Proto-West-Germanic clade was recently summarized: That North Germanic is .. a unitary subgroup [of Proto-Germanic] is completely obvious, as all of its dialects shared a long series of innovations, some of them very striking. The Angles and Saxons, two Germanic tribes, in combination with a number of other peoples from northern Germany and the Jutland Peninsula, particularly the Jutes, settled in Britain following the end of Roman rule in the island. [2] Most agree that after East Germanic broke off (an event usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC), the remaining Germanic languages, the Northwest Germanic languages, divided into four main dialects: [3] [ obsolete source ] North Germanic, and the three groups conventionally called "West Germanic", namely. However, modern English and Frisian are not mutually intelligible, nor are Frisian languages intelligible among themselves, due to independent linguistic innovations and foreign influences. Existence of a West Germanic proto-language. Low German or Low Saxon is a West Germanic language variety spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern part of the Netherlands. This page was last modified on 17 December 2015, at 19:40. However, there are also a number of common archaisms in West Germanic shared by neither Old Norse nor Gothic. Most scholars doubt that there was a Proto-West-Germanic proto-language common to the West Germanic languages and no others, but a few maintain that Proto-West-Germanic existed. Bordering dialects very probably continued to be mutually intelligible even beyond the boundaries of the consonant shift. On the other hand, the internal subgrouping of both North Germanic and West Germanic is very messy, and it seems clear that each of those subfamilies diversified into a network of dialects that remained in contact for a considerable period of time (in some cases right up to the present). Afrikaans is a West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and, to a lesser extent, Botswana and Zimbabwe. When people that have English as their second language … Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It was spoken throughout modern northwestern Germany, primarily in the coastal regions and in the eastern Netherlands by Saxons, a Germanic tribe that inhabited the region of Saxony. After that, the split into West and North Germanic occurred. It is a replacement for the older term Istvaeonic, with which it is essentially synonymous. Old Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Weser on the European North Sea coast. Before that time, it has been argued that, judging by their nearly identical syntax, the West Germanic languages were close enough to have been mutually intelligible. Most scholars doubt that there was a Proto-West-Germanic protolanguage common to the West Germanic languages and no others, though a few maintain that Proto-West-Germanic existed. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch. The first comprehensive reconstruction of the Proto-West-Germanic language was published in 2013 by Wolfram Euler. Comparison of Frisian, English, Dutch and German words with common West Germanic (or older) origine: From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core, Simplified diagram of the modern West Germanic languages, The reconstruction of Proto-West-Germanic, Comparison of phonological and morphological features. "The Proto-Germanic shift *ā > ō and early Germanic linguistic contacts", in. Dots indicate areas where multilingualism is common. [9] Thus, West Germanic as a group of mutually intelligible Germanic dialects was spoken during the Migration Period up until the 7th century AD. On the other hand, the High German consonant shift that happened during the 7th century AD in what is today southern Germany and Switzerland definitely ended the linguistic unity among the West Germanic dialects of that time. In fact, many dialects of Limburgish and Ripuarian are still mutually intelligible today. It is also spoken to a lesser extent in the German diaspora worldwide. Old Frisian evolved into Middle Frisian, spoken from the 16th to the 19th century. All surviving Germanic languages, which are members of the North and West Germanic families, changed to, implying a more approximant-like rhotic consonant in Proto-Germanic. In fact, both terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archaeological findings, rather than linguistic features. The grammatical gender of each term is noted as masculine (m.), feminine (f.), or neuter (n.) where relevant. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). Linguistically, the 3rd and 4th centuries correspond to the formation of Proto-Norse, just predating the separation of West Germanic into Anglo-Frisian, Low German and High German. Dutch is a West Germanic language, that originated from the Old Frankish dialects. In fact, these two terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archeological findings rather than linguistic features. H. F. Nielsen (1981, 2001), G. Klingenschmitt (2002) and K.-H. Mottausch (1998, 2011). If indeed Proto-West-Germanic actually existed, it must have been between the 3rd and 7th centuries. Origins. The southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, whereas the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic, but proposes additionally that North and West Germanic remained as a subgroup after the southward migration of the East Germanic tribes, only splitting into North and West Germanic later. 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, whereas in North Germanic the shortening occurred first, resulting in e that later merged with i. The High German consonant shift 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. During Late antiquity and the Middle Ages, its supposed descendants had a profound influence on the neighboring West Central German dialects and, later, in the form of Standard German, on the German language as a whole. The High German languages or High German dialects comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and eastern Belgium, as well as in neighbouring portions of France, Italy, the Czech Republic (Bohemia), and Poland. "Westgermanische Sprachen" (West Germanic Languages), in, Stifter, David (2009). The original vowel system of West Germanic was similar to that of Proto-Germanic; note however the lowering of the long front vowels. ii that all the West Germanic languages share several highly unusual innovations that virtually force us to posit a West Germanic clade.