Germanic Languages.

Plan:

1. Modern Germanic languages.

2. The Earliest period of Germanic history. Proto-Germanic.

3. East Germanic.

4. North Germanic.

5. West Germanic.

1. Languages can be classified according to different principles. The historical classification groups languages in accordance with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor.

Genetically, English belongs to Indo-European family of languages and to the Germanic and Teutonic group of languages.

The Germanic languages are the follows: English (in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, former British colonies). German (in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland). Netherlandish (in the Netherland and Belgium). Africaans (in South Africa). Danish (in Denmark). Swedish (in Sweden and Finland). Norwegian (in Norway). Icelandic (in Iceland). Frisian (in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany). Yiddish (in different countries).

The number of people speaking Germanic languages is about 440 million. The total number, speaking English is about 300 million (in over 50 countries).

2. The history of Germanic group begins with the appearance of Proto-Germanic (P.G.) which is also termed as Common or Primitive Germanic, Primitive Teutonic and Simply Germanic.

This language is the ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It had split from Indo-European tongues in the 15^th c. B.C. it was spoken by Germanic tribes.

Teutons settled on the Southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of Elbe. This place is regarded as the original home of Teutons and here they developed their first linguistic features which made them a separate group in the Indo-European family.

P.G. is an entirely pre-historical language: it had no written form. At the earliest stages of history P.G. was fundamentally one language. But later towards our era this language divided into dialectal groups and tribal dialects.

The first mention of Germanic tribes was made by Pitheas, a Greek historian and geographer of the 4^th c. B.C. In the 1^st c. B.C. in COMMENTARIES ON THE GALLIC WAR Julius Caesar described some militant Germanic tribes – the Suevians – who bordered on the Celts of Gaul in the North-East. In the 1^st c. A.D. Pliny and Elder, a prominent Roman scientist and writer, in NATURAL HISTORY made a classified list of Germanic tribes grouping them under six headings. In the 2^nd c. A.D. the Roman historian Tacitus compiled a detailed description of the life and customs of the ancient Teutons. F. Engels made extensive use of these sources in the papers ON THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT GERMANS and THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE STATE. In his work he described the evolution of the economic and social structure of the Teutons from Caesar’s to Tacitus’s time.

Towards the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end. The Teutons had extended over a larger territory and the P.G. language broke into three brunches: East Germanic, North Germanic, and West Germanic.

3. The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes leaving in the Eastern Europe. The most powerful tribe was the Goths. They were among the first Teutons to leave the coast of the Baltic Sea and start on their great migrations. The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4^th – 6^th c. The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian.

In the 4^th c. Ulfilas, a West Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospels from Greek into Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. It was written on red parchment with silver and golden letters and was known as the SILVER CODEX. The SILVER CODEX is one of the earliest texts in the languages of the Germanic group; it represents a form of language very close to P.G.

The other East Germanic languages have no written traces. Some of their tribal names have survived in place-names, which reveal the directions of their migrations. E.g. district Burgundy (Burgundians); Andalusia (is derived from the tribal name Vandals).

4. The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to the North Germanic subgroup of languages. North Germanic group consisted of the tribes living on the southern coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula and in Northern Denmark. That’s why the language of North Germanic is called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian.

This language used in runic alphabet. And the first written records date from the 3^rd to 9^th c. A.D.

The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began after the 9^th c., when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages.

The principal linguistic differentiation in Scandinavia corresponded to the political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The three kingdoms constantly fought for dominance and the relative position of the three languages altered. Swedish and Norwegian languages were influenced by the Danish, because Denmark was the most powerful kingdom. The earliest written records of these three languages date from the 13^th c.

The North Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to Viking Age.

5. The West Germanic tribes dwelt in the lowlands between the Oder and the Elbe bordering on the Slavonian tribes in the East and the Celtic tribes in the South. On the eve of their “great migrations” of the 4^th and 5^th c. the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians (or Franks) occupied the lower basin of the Rhine. The Angles and Frisians, the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the modern Netherlands, Germany and the southern part of Denmark.

A group of tribes known as High Germans lived in the mountainous regions of Germany, so Low Germans, name of West Germanic tribes, who lived in the low-lying areas. The High Germans included a number of tribes whose names are known since the early Middle Ages: the Alemanians, the Swabians, the Bavarians and others.

In the 5^th c. a group of West Germanic tribes – Angles, Saxons, Frisians and Jutes - started out on their invasion of the British Isles. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English language. In the succeeding centuries English spread overseas to other continents. The first English written records have come down from the 7^th c.

Lecture 3