Written Records of Germanic Languages

Manuscript	Period	Dialect
Silver Codex. Ulfilas’ translation of the Gospel	V-VI cc.	East Germanic: Gothic
Runic inscriptions (the Ruthwell Cross, the Franks	VIII c.	West Germanic: Northumbrian
The Insertions in Latin texts (“Bede’s Death Song Cadmon Hymn”)	VIII c.
Anglo-Saxon Charters	VIII-IX cc.	West Germanic: Kentish, West Saxon, Mercian
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles; King Alfred’s translation of Orosius World history with insertions	IX c.	West Germanic: West Saxon
King’s Alfred translation of Poper Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, a book of instructions for priest	IX c.	West Germanic: West Saxon
Beowulf, an epic of the VII or the VIII c., composed in Nothumbrian or Mercian dialect	X c.	West Germanic: West Saxon copy
Glosses to the Gospel	X-XI c.	West Germanic: West Saxon
The Elder Edda, a collection of heroic songs	XII c.	North Germanic: Old Icelandic
The Younger Edda; Shorri Sturluson’s prose text-book for poets	XIII c.	North Germanic: Old Icelandic

3. Linguistic Features of Germanic Languages. Phonetic Pecularities of Germanic Languages.

All the Germanic languages of the past and present have common features. Some are shared by other groups in the IE family, others are specifically Germanic. The Germanic group acquired their specific distinctive features after the separation of the ancient Germanic tribes from other IE tribes and prior to their further expnsion and disintegration that is during the period of the PG parent languages. These PG features inheruted by the descendant languages, represent the common features of the Germanic group. Other common features developed later, in the course of the individual histories of separate Germanic languages, as a result of similar tendencies arising from PG causes. On the other hand, many Germanic features transformed and even lost in later history.

The peculiar Germanic system of word accentuation is one of the most important distinguishing features of the group. In early PG stress was movable. But in late PG the stress was fixed on the first syllable, which was usually the root of the word and rarely the prefix. Germanic languages inherited this phonetic features. We can observe it in the folowing words:

English – beˈcome, beˈcoming, overˈcome; ˈlover, ˈloving, beˈloved;

German – ˈlieben, ˈliebe, geˈliebt.

The fixed strong word stress has played an important role in the development of the Germanic languages and especially in phometic and morphologivcal changes. Due to the difference in the force of articulation the stressed and unstressed sylables were pronounced with great distincness and precision, while unaccented became less distincted and were phonetically weakened. Unaccented sounds were weakened and lost. Since the stress was fixed on the root, the weakening and loss of sounds mainly affected the suffixes and grammatical endings. Many endings merged with the suffixes and lost, for example:

PG fiskaz, Gt fisks, O Icel fiskr, OE fisc.

As all gramatical endings were unaccented it was the start for the process of reduction which stoped only in the 15^th c.

Germanic languages also have some peculiarities in the sphere of vowels sound, which distinguish them from other IE languages. Throughout history, beginnig with PG, vowels displayed a strong tendency to change. They underwent different kinds of alteration: qualitative and quantitative, dependent and independent. Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound, e.g.: o>a. Quantitative changes make long sounds short or short sounds long, e.g.: [i>i:]. Dependent changes (also positional or combinative) are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions, for instance, a sound may change under the influence of the neighbouring sounds or in a certain type of a syllable. Independent changes (also spontatneous or regular) take place irrespectively of phonetic conditions, i.e. they affect a certain sound in all positions.

From an early date the treatment of vowels was determined by the nature of word stress. In accented syllables the oppositions between vowels were carefully maintained and new distinctive features were introduced, so that the number of stressed vowels grew. In unaccented positions the original contrasts between vowels were weakened or lost; the distinction of short and long vowels was neutralised so that by the age of writing the long vowels in unstressed syllables had been shortened. As for originally short vowels, they tend to be reduced to a neutral sound, losing their qualitative distinctions.

The contrast of short and long is supported by the different directions of their changes. While long vowels generally tended to become closer and to diphtongise, short vowels, on the contrary, often changed into more open sounds. IE short [o], [a] appear as short [a] in Germanic languages, e.g.: IE (Lat.) noctem – Germanic (Gothic) nahts; IE (Russian) ночь – Germanic Nacht. IE long [o:], [a:]appear as long [o:] in Germanic languages e.g.: IE (Latin) māter – OE mōdor, Latin flos – OE flōma. This process is known as the Germanic vowel shift.

The quality of a stressed vowel is in some cases dependent on a following sound. The earliest manifestation of this principle has been termed as fracture or breaking. Germanic fracture concerns two pairs of vowels: pairs e–i and u–o. IE e in the root syllable finds its counterpart in Germanic i, if it followed by i, j or the cluster ‘nasal plus consonant’. Otherwise in Germanic languages e is observed in corresponding words, e.g.: Lat. medius – OE midde, ME middle; Lat. ventus – OE wind, Lat. edere – OE etan.

The change of IE e into Germanic i can be explained by assimilation of the sound under the influence of the i, j. Changes of IE e into Germanic i under the influence of the cluster ‘nasal plus consonant’ haven’t got appropriate phonological interpretation yet.

An IE u finds its counterpart in Germanic u if it followed by u or the cluster ‘nasal plus consonant’. Otherwise the IE u finds its counterpart in Germanic o, e.g.: Sanskr. sunus – OE sune; Lat. iugu – OE. ӡeoc (yoke).

The Gothic language has some other peculiarities. Every IE e becomes i in Gothic, and only before the consonants r, h, ђ it remains as e. Every IE u preserved as u in Gothic and only before r, h, ђ it changes into o, e.g.: Lat. sedere – Goth. sitan (sit).

A special kind of vowel alternation, which is usually called gradtion or ablaut is not a specific feature of the Germanic languages. It was inherited by Germanic languages from ancient IE. The origin of gradation has n’t reflect any phonetic changes but was used as a special independent device to differentiate between words and grammatical forms built from the same root. Vowel gradation is found in the process of the today’s irregular verbs formation in English. It is observed in Russian: нести – ноша, гремит – гром, etc. Gradation is clearly seen in ancient Greek, more especially in conjugation: leipo (I leave) – elipon (past definite) – leloipa (perfect). So the root of the verb appears in three variants, distinguished by gradation: lip-leip-loip. Gradation is an independent vowel interchange unconnected with any phonetic conditions.

The principal gradation series used in the IE languages are qualitative gradation, when vowels differ only in quality (везу-воз) and quantitative one, that is interchange of short, long, zero vowels (Lat. lēgi – lego). The Germanic languages employed both types of ablaut – qualitative and quantitave and their combination, e.g.: Goth. itan – at (qualit.), can – cnawan (quant.), faran – fōr (qual.-quant). The system of gradation in Germanic languages is best seen in the so-called strong verbs of the Gothic languages: reisan – rise – rais – risum – risans (i: – ai – i – i), etc. Gradation occurs not only in root, but also in some grammatical endings of nouns and verbs.

After the changes, in Late PG, the vowel system contained the following sounds: short vowels i,e,a,o,u and long vowels i:, e:. a:, o:, u:. It is believed that in additionto these monophtongs PG had a set of dipthongs made up of more open nulei and closer glided ei, ai, eu, au and also iu. Nowadays, however, many scholars interpret them as sequences of twon independent monophtongs.

An essential feature of Germanic languages is their consonantial system. Germanic consonants are differentiated according to the place and manner of articulation. According to the place of articulation they are subdivided into labial (p, b,f) , labio-dental (t, d , ƀ) back-lingual pure (k, g, h) and back-lingual labio velar kʷ, gʷ, hʷ. According to the manner of articulation they can be noise and sonorants. Noise are plosives subdivided into voiced (b, d, g, gʷ), voiceless (p, t, k, kʷ) and fricatives subdivided into voiced (ƀ, v g, j, gʷ) and voiceless ( f, þ, h, hʷ, s ). Sonorants are j, w, n, l, m, n.

Comparison with other languages within the IE family reveals regular correspondence between Germanic and non-Germanic consonants. The consonants of Germanic look ‘shifted’ as compared with the consonants of non-Germanic alnguages. The alteration of the consonants took place in PG, and the resulting sounds were inherited by the languages of the Germanic group.

The changes of consonants in PG were first formulated in terms of a phonetic law by Jacob Grimm in the early 19^th c. and are often called Grimm’s law. It is also known as the First or Proto-Germanic consonant shift (to be distinguished from the 2^nd which took place in OHG in the 9^th c.) By the terms of Grimm’s Law voiceless plosives p, t, k developed in PG into voiceless fricatives f, h, ƥ (Act I); IE voiced plosives b, d, g were shifted to voiceless plosives p, t, k (Act II) and IE voiced aspirated plosives bh, dh, gh were reflected as pure voiced plosives b, d, g (Act III), e.g.: Lat. pater –Goth. fadar, Lat. tres – Angl three, Lat. noctem – Goth. nahts (Act I); Rus. cлабый – Goth. slepan (sleep) Rus. болото – OE pol, ME pool, Lat. decem – OE tien, NE ten, Lat. granum – Goth. kaurn, ME corn (Act II); Sanscr. bhratar – OE broƥar, Sanscr. madhu – OE medu (honey), Lat. hostis – Goth. gast, O Ind vaha – Goth wiga (way) (Act III).

Another important series of consonant changes in PG was discovered in the late 19^th by a Danish scholar Carl Verner. They are known as Verner’s law. Verner’s law explains some correspondences of consonants which seemed to contradict Grimm’s law and were for a long time regarded as exceptions. It refers to Act I. The voiceless plosives p, t, k became voiceless fricatives f, h, ƥ only in case unstressed vowels preceeded them. Otherwise they became voiced plosives b, d, g., e.g.: Lat. caput – O Sax habid, Greek deka – Goth tigus, O Ind matar – O Sax modru.

One more voiceless fricative consonant is affected by Verner’s law, the consonant s. Preceeded by the unstressed vowel it became voice and changed into z in Germanic languages. Eventually this z became r in Western and Northern Germanic languages (not in Gothic). The latter change z – r is called rhotacism, e.g.: Goth kiusan – OE curon (NE choose), Goth. hausjan – OE hieran (NE hear), Goth. was, wesum OE was, waron (was, were).

In the conjugation system one form may have its stress on one syllable, while another form of the same verb has it on another syllable. In this way alternations within the verbal system arise, which have been named grammatical alternation.

West-Germanic languages show a peculiar phenomenon in the sphere of consonants. Every consonant (with the single exception of r) is lenghtened if it preceded by a short vowel and followed by the consonant j, e.g.: Goth. satjan – OE settan (set), Goth. framian – OE fremman (fulfil). This process is known as West Germanic lenghtening of consonants or West Germanic gemination of consonants.

Another process peculiar to Germanic languages was the process of disappearing of nasal ŋ before voiceless fricatives f, h, ƥ, e.g.: Sanscr. ƥoŋh – O. Icel. ƥohrte (to think), Sanscr. bronhte – OE brōhte (brought).