North Germanic

Peculiarities of Germanic Languages

1. Indo-European Family. The Germanic group of languages:

1.1. East Germanic

1.2. North Germanic

1.3. West Germanic

2. Linguistic peculiarities of Germanic languages:

2.1. Word stress

2.2. The Germanic Vowel Shift

2.3. The First Consonant Shift (Grimm’s Law)

2.4. The Second Consonant Shift (Verner’s Law)

2.5. Germanic Rhotacism

Recommended Books

Rastorgueva T.A. A History of English. – M., 1983. – P. 24-34

Blake N.F. A History of the English Language. – New York: New York University Press, 1996. – P. 47-74

Костюченко Ю.П. Історія англійської мови. – Київ, 1963. – С. 10-39

Indo-European Family. The Germanic group of languages.

The historical (genealogical) classification of languages groups them according to their origin from a common linguistic ancestor. English belongs to the Germanic group which is one of the twelve groups of Indo-European (IE) family.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are:

· English (Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries);

· Danish (Denmark);

· German (Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Switzerland);

· Afrikaans (South African Republic);

· Swedish (Sweden);

· Icelandic (Iceland).

The history of the Germanic group begins with the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. The Proto-Germanic is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE languages between the 15^th and 10^th c. B.C. PG is an entirely pre-historical language. It was never recorded in written form. In the 19^th century it was reconstructed by methods of comparative linguistics from written evidence in descendant languages.

The Old Germanic languages form 3 groups:

· East Germanic;

· North Germanic;

· West Germanic.

East Germanic

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful were the Goths. The Gothic language is now dead but it is presented in written records of the 6^th c. (e.g. Ulfilas’ Gospels – a manuscript of about 200 pages, 5^th -6^th c.).

This is a translation of the Gospels from Greek into Gothic by Ulfilas, (a West Gothic bishop). Other East Germanic languages have left no written traces (Vandalic, Burgundian).

North Germanic

The North Germanic tribes lived on the southern coasts of the Scandinavian peninsula and in Northern Denmark (since the 4^th c.). They spoke Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. There are runic inscriptions dated the 3d-9^th c. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard material. The alphabet was called runic alphabet or the runes.

Other languages are: Old Danish, Old Norwegian, Old Swedish.

The north Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Victory Age.