the germanic family: features, historical overview...
TRANSCRIPT
The Early Germanic Tribes
• North Germanic (Scandinavians)
• West Germanic
• North Sea Germanic (Ingvæons: Frisians, English)
• Weser-Rhine Group (Istvæons: Franks)
• Elbe Group (Irminones: Alamanni, Langobardi, Marcomanni)
• East Germanic (Goths, Vandals, Burgundians)
English, Dutch & German
• The train has come late.
• De trein is laat aangekomen.
• Der Zug ist spät angekommen.
• It was late, so we went and chatted in the garden.
• Het was laat geworden, dus zijn wij in de tuin gaan praaten.
• Es wurde spät, deshalb sind wir in den Garten plaudern gegangen.
English, Dutch & German
• Similar in many ways, yet hardly mutually intelligible
• Fundamental core similarities (not only in vocabulary, but also in morphology and syntax)
• Different kind of relatedness than just borrowing (i.e. French influence)
• Language change is an ongoing process - hence English and German were historically similar dialects that evolved apart.
• The Comparative Method gives us a tool to analyse the history of this relationship
Contential West Germanic
Text
Friesisch = FrisianNiederfränkisch = Low FranconianAltsächsisch = Old SaxonOstniederdeutsch = Eastern Low GermanWestfälisch / Ostfälisch = West / East Phallian-----------------------------------------------------Ripuarisch = RipuarianMoselfränkisch = Mosel FranconianRheinfränkisch = Rhein FranconianOstfränkisch = East FranconianOstmitteldeutsch = Eastern Middle GermanSchwäbisch = SwabianAllemannisch = AllemanicBairisch = Bavarian
Old Saxon• 800-1150 C.E.
• Saxons described by Roman historians
• Major Old Saxon text is the Heliand, a loose Bible translation
• Other minor texts survived
• Much destroyed by Christianization
• Quite similar to Old English
• Saxons eventually conquered by the Franks under Charlemagne (Karl der Große)
Features of Germanic
• As Germanic splits off from the original Indo-European language, the following features mark it as a distinct and unique family
• The fixing of accent on the root or first syllable of a word
Features of Germanic
• Retains PIE past/non-past distinction, develops perfective & future forms (limited in Gothic)
• Creation of weak verbs with a dental preterit (-ed in modern English)
Germanic Verbs
• Strong verbs mark their past and perfect forms by a process called Ablaut - i.e. vowel stem alterations
• Gothic: giban, gaf, gebum, gibans
• Old English: giefan, geaf, geafon, giefen
• Mod. English: give, gave, gave, given
Germanic Verbs
• Weak verbs were formed by taking denominals and adding the dental preterite
• Gothic: salbon, salboda, salbodedum, salboþs “to annoint” (from Gothic salbons - “ointment”)
• Old English: deman, demde, demed “to judge” (from OE dom - “judgement”)
Features of Germanic
• Reduction of PIE mood system by merging subjunctive & optative into a single non-indicative mood
• Grammaticalization of demonstratives as definite articles
Features of Germanic• Reduction of PIE case system to four core
cases
Article NounN sa dagsA þana dagG þis dagisD þamma daga
N þai dagosA þans dagansG þize dageD þaim dagam
Gothic dags “day”