Suchergebnisse
Suchergebnisse:
During the early Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Middle English on one hand and by the High German consonant shift on the continent on the other, resulting in Upper German and Low Saxon, with graded intermediate Central German varieties.
- Overview
- Linguistic characteristics of the protolanguage
Germanic languages, branch of the Indo-European language family. Scholars often divide the Germanic languages into three groups: West Germanic, including English, German, and Netherlandic (Dutch); North Germanic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroese; and East Germanic, now extinct, comprising only Gothic and the languages of the Vandals, Burgundians, and a few other tribes.
In numbers of native speakers, English, with 450 million, clearly ranks third among the languages of the world (after Mandarin and Spanish); German, with some 98 million, probably ranks 10th (after Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese). To these figures may be added those for persons with another native language who have learned one of the Germanic languages for commercial, scientific, literary, or other purposes. English is unquestionably the world’s most widely used second language.
The earliest historical evidence for Germanic is provided by isolated words and names recorded by Latin authors beginning in the 1st century bce. From approximately 200 ce there are inscriptions carved in the 24-letter runic alphabet. The earliest extensive Germanic text is the (incomplete) Gothic Bible, translated about 350 ce by the Visigothic bishop Ulfilas (Wulfila) and written in a 27-letter alphabet of the translator’s own design. Later versions of the runic alphabet were used sparingly in England and Germany but more widely in Scandinavia—in the latter area down to early modern times. All extensive later Germanic texts, however, use adaptations of the Latin alphabet.
See table for the names and approximate dates of the earliest recorded Germanic languages.
Britannica Quiz
Languages & Alphabets
The special characteristics of the Germanic languages that distinguish them from other Indo-European languages result from numerous phonological and grammatical changes.
The Germanic languages include some 58 ( SIL estimate) languages and dialects that originated in Europe; this language family is part of the Indo-European language family. Each subfamily in this list contains subgroups and individual languages.
Old High German ( OHG; German: Althochdeutsch (Ahdt., Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050.
Northwest Germanic is attested in the early runic inscriptions ( c. 200–500 ce) from Scandinavia and northern Germany and encompassed all the Germanic territory from Scandinavia southward across much of Germany and the Low Countries.
The earliest and most archaic Germanic language of which we have extensive remains is Gothic, the only attested representative of the East Germanic dialect group. Our knowledge of Gothic is almost entirely based on the Bible translation made around the middle of the 4th century by the Arian Gothic bishop Wulfila.
The Gothic Bible of ad 350 is the earliest extensive Germanic text. The West Germanic languages developed around the North Sea and in overseas areas colonized by their speakers. The North Germanic, or Scandinavian, languages, were carried as far west as Greenland and as far east as Russia in the Viking expansion of the early Middle Ages.
![Dialects of the German Language, 1894. [6638 × 5057] in 2021 | Language ...](https://de.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=early+germanic+languages&ei=UTF-8&fl=0&rd=r2&age=1w&fr=yhs-Elex-elex_22find&th=124&tw=162.8&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F2b%2F92%2F86%2F2b9286554797204c3f8c175919885b2e.jpg&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com.au%2Fpin%2F829506825097919873%2F&size=4989KB&name=Dialects+of+the+German+Language%2C+1894.+%5B6638+%C3%97+5057%5D+in+2021+%7C+Language+...&oid=2&h=5057&w=6638&turl=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.DFJciukHbSSU006r6bonVwHaFp%26pid%3DApi%26rs%3D1%26c%3D1%26qlt%3D95%26w%3D162%26h%3D124&tt=Dialects+of+the+German+Language%2C+1894.+%5B6638+%C3%97+5057%5D+in+2021+%7C+Language+...&sigr=L3fFLRkG_Ieu&sigit=A.YEVbkw23dy&sigi=QE80sNYuDqF9&sign=1.Hv9b2GOKSf&sigt=1.Hv9b2GOKSf "Dialects of the German Language, 1894. [6638 × 5057] in 2021 | Language ...")
