Modern germanic languages

The English language is one of the Germanic or Teutonic languages, a large group belonging to one of the biggest linguistic families, Indo-European.

Germanic languages are spoken in many countries and continents. They are:

WEST GEGMANIC:

English – in Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and some other former British colonies and dominions; (total number of English speaking people is apprpx. 380 mln. people);

German – in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Luxemburg (total number of German speaking people 100 mln people)

Dutch or Netherlandish – in the Netherlands, Belgium, Surinam, the Antillean Islands (21 mln people);

Frisian – in the Netherlandish province, Frisian Islands, 2 regions of Germany (400 mln people);

Afrikaans –in the South African Republic (6 mln people);

Yiddish – in different countries (several hundred people);

NORTH GERMANIC:

Danish – (dansk) in Denmark (5,2 mln people);

Swedish (svenska)– in Sweden (8,8 mln people) and Finland (300.000 thousand people);

Norwegian (norsk) – in Norway (4.2 mln people);

Iselandic (islenska)– in Iceland (272 thousand people);

Faroese – on Faroe Islands (45000 thousand people)

EAST GERMANIC: No living languages.

Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are often referred to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; the linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned for it has intermixed with Danish; BrE and AmE are sometimes regarded as two independent languages.

The total number of people speaking Germanic languages approaches 440 million. It is difficult to estimate the number of people speaking Germanic languages; esp. on account of English, which in many countries is one of two languages in a bilingual community, e.g. in Canada. The estimates for English range from 250 to 380 million people who have it as their mother tongue. So this rough estimate we could add an indefinite number of bilingual people in the countries where English is used as an official language (over 50 countries).

All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history. The survey of their external history will show where and when the Germanic languages arose and acquired their common features and also how they have developed into modern independent tongues.

Table 1

Germanic Languages today

	East Germanic	North Germanic	West Germanic
Old Germanic languages (with dates of the earliest records)	Gothic (4th c.) Vandalic Burgundian	Old Norse or Old Scandinavian (2nd-3rd c.) Old Icelandic (12th c.) Old Norwegian (13th c.) Old Danish (13th c.) Old Swedish (13th c.)	Anglian, Frisian, Jutish, Saxon, Franconian, High German (Alemanic, Thüringian, Swavian, Bavarian) Old English (7th c.) Old Saxon (9th c.) Old High German (8th c.) Old Dutch (12th c.)
Modern Germanic languages	No living languages	Icelandic Norwegian Danish Swedish Faroese	English German Netherlandish Afrikaans Yiddish Frisian