THE GERMANIC

GROUP
 1. The Germanic Branches

2. The Culture of the Germanic

People
 Germanic

East Germanic North Germanic West Germanic

 The earliest home of the
Tenth century B C Germanic people was the region
of the Elbe.

Second century B C

Northwards to
Scandinavia
MIGRATIONS

Eastwards following the

route of Goths to the
Vistula
1) North Germanic in South Scandinavia excluding Jutland;
2) North Sea Germanic along the North Sea including Jutland;
3) Rhine-Weser Germanic along the area of the middle Rhine
and Weser;
4) Elbe Germanic along the area of the middle Elbe;
5) East Germanic, between the area of middle Oder and the
Vistula.
 First Germanic Consonant Shift or
Grimm’s Law

„ Voiceless plosives became fricatives:

*p > f; *t > þ; *k > x

„ Voiced plosives became voiceless:

*b > p; *d > t; *g > k

„ Voiced-aspirate plosives dropped the aspiration:

*bh > b; *dh > d; *gh > g
 West Germanic

High Germanic Low Germanic

Second (High Germanic) Sound-Shift

English apple maps to German Apfel

English ship maps to German Schiff

Low Germanic Tongues High Germanic Tongues

1. Old Saxon 1. Middle

2. Old Low Franconian 2. Rhenish
3. Old Frisian 3. East Franconian
4. Old English 4. Bavarian
5. Alemannic
High German, especially as
spoken in the midlands and used
16th
in the imperial chancery was
popularized by Luther’s
translation of the Bible (1522-
1532)

The literary
language of
Germany
The West Germanic Branch
North Sea 1. English
2. Frisian
Rhine-Weser 3. Netherlandic
4. Afrikaans
5. German
Elbe
6. Yiddish
Features that English shares with all
the Germanic Languages

1. It shows the shifting of certain consonants described under

the head of Grimm’s Law.

2. It possesses a “weak” as well as a “strong” declension of the

adjective and a distinctive type of conjugation of the verb.

3. It shows the adoption of a strong stress accent on the first or

the root syllable of most words.
Features that Distinguish English from the other
Germanic Languages
„ 1. The disappearance of Proto-Germanic nasal
sounds before voiceless fricatives (f, , and s):

- soft vs sanft
- other vs ander
- us vs uns
- goose vs gans
„ 2. The palatalization of Proto-Germanic /k/ and /g/
before front vowels, as the following English/German
pairs show:

chin vs kinn
birch vs birke
yield vs gelten
yester(day) vs gestern
yard vs garten
 The East Germanic Branch
Oder and the Vistula

GOTHIC

Western area of the Black

Sea
In the eighth century the
language had almost
disappeared.

Relegated to a ritual
language.

Near the lower Danube

 The Gothic Consonant
System

p, t, k, kw, f, h, hw, b, d,
g, s, z, m, n, l, r, w, j.

The nasal was velar before the velar

consonants k, q, and g, g, or gg, as in dragk ‘drank’;
 1. Passive voice,
2. Past tense formed by
Its alphabet contained
reduplication,
the vowel symbols for
3. Dual forms for the 1st
a, e, i, o and u.
and 2nd persons of its
verbs and pronouns.

Let-a > Laí-lot

1.The shortening of long
vowels in final unstressed
syllables.
Proto-Germanic *er ō ‘earth’ > Gothic air a
2. The loss of most short Proto-Germanic *stainaz ‘stone’ > Gothic stains
vowels.
 The North Germanic Branch
Runic inscriptions (Elder Period prior to the
Futhark) separation of the
North and West
Germanic branches.

Northwest Germanic
 Seventh century: North Germanic-> Common Scandinavian

1. Iceland
2. Greenland

Short runic alphabet created 3. The Faroes

around the year 800 4. Shelands
5. Orkneys
6. Hebrides
7. The Isle of Man
8. Parts of Ireland,
England, France
(Normandy) and
Russia.
 Two main dialects

West Scandinavian East Scandinavian

Atlantic region Baltic region

More conservative More innovative

Common Scandinavian: steinn ‘stone’ > East Scandinavian: stēn

 Old Scandinavian
1050 - 1450 Adoption of Latin alphabet

The Northern Kingdoms were brought into the

domain of European Medieval culture.

Old Norse: helviti ‘hell’ < Old English: hellewite

Old Norse: sál ‘soul’ < Old English sāwol
 Middle Low German

The dominance of the The power exerted by

Hanseatic League German politics in
Denmark and Sweden
(1250 – 1450)
The six Germanic languages derived from the
Scandinavian family

1. Danish

2. Swedish

3. Icelandic

4. Faroese

5. New Norwegian

6. Dano-Norwegian
The Culture of the Germanic People

Religion

Early conversion to Christianity

Charms
 Elder Edda

Heroic Mythological

Hávamál
 Social Organization
Loose political structure

Leadership

Tribal Life Leges

Barbarorum
 law
The Germanic social
system

Fixed customs

free and un-free

individuals.
 a king

The tribe was subdivided

into clans (sib).
his council

a tribal assembly