LECTURE 3

THEME: The classification of Germanic Languages

Problems for discussion:

1. The migration of the Germanic tribes

2. East Germanic languages
3. North Germanic languages
4. West Germanic languages
5. The invasion of the British Isles
The earliest migration of Germanic tribes from the lower valley of the Elbe
consisted in their movement north, to the Scandinavian peninsula a few hundred
years before, our era. This geographical segregation must have led to linguistic
differentiation and to the division of PG into the northern and southern branches.
At the beginning of our era some of the settled closer to the visual basin, east of the
other continental Germanic tribes. It is only from this stage of their history that the
Germanic languages can be described under three headings.
The classification of Germanic languages.
Germanic languages are classified into three groups:
1) East Germanic,
2) North Germanic,
3) West Germanic.

East Germanic Languages.

The East Germanic subgroup was formed by the tribes who returned from
Scandinavia at the beginning of our era (1242 -era). The most numerous and
powerful of them were the Goths. They were among the first Teutons to leave the
coast of the Baltic Sea, and start on their great migrations. Around 200 AD they
moved south-east and some time later they reached the lower basin of the Danube,
where they made attacks on the Eastern Roman Empire, Buzantium. Their western
branch, the “Visigota” invaded Roman territory, participated in the assaults on
Rome under Alaric and moved on the southern Gaul, to found one of the first
barbarian kingdom of Medieval Europe, the Toulouse kingdom. The kingdom
lasted until the 8th century, though linguistically the western Goths were soon
absorbed by the native population, , the Romanised Celts. The eastern Goths
“ostrogota” consolidated into a powerful tribal alliance in the lower basin of the
Aniester. The short-lived flourishing of “ostrogothic” culture in the 5th - 6th
centuries under Theodoric.
The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the
4th-6th centuries. The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian. In
the 4th century Ulfilas, a west Gothic bishop made a translation of the Gospels
from Greek into Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet.
E.g. Parts of Ulfilas’ gospels - a manuscript of about two hundreds pages,
probably made in the 5th or 6th c. This manuscript has been preserved and is kept
now in Upsala, Sweden. This manuscript is written on red parchment with silver
and golden letters. It is known as the “silver codex” (codex argenteus). Ulfilas’
Gospels were first published in the 17th c. Gospels have been studied by 19th and
20th c. philologists. The “Silver codex” is one of the earliest texts in the languages
of the Germanic group. It represents a form of language very close to Proto-
Germanic (PG).
The other East Germanic languages are dead now and they have left no
written traces. But some of their tribal names have survived as Bornholm and
Burgundy.
North Germanic Languages
The North Germanic tribes lived on the southern coast of the Scandinavian
peninsula and Northern Denmark. They did not participate in the migrations and
were relatively isolated, though they may have come into closer contact with the
Western tribes after the Goths left the coast of the Baltic Sea. The speech of the
North Germanic tribes showed little dialectical variation until the 9th c. and is
regarded as a sort of common North Germanic parent-language called “Old Norse
or Old Scandinavian”. It has come down to us in runic inscriptions dated from he
3rd to the 9th c. An original Germanic alphabet is known as the “runic alphabet” or
the “runes”. The runes were used by North and west Germanic tribes.
The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began
after the 9th c. when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages. The
famous “Viking Age” from about 800 to 1050 AD is the legendary age of
Scandinavian raids and expansion overseas.
The principal linguistic differentiation in Scandinavia corresponded to the
political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The three kingdoms
constantly fought for dominance of three languages altered. For several hundred
years Denmark was the most powerful of the Scandinavian kingdoms. Norway fell
under Danish rule. Sweden regained its independence in the 16th c. Consequently,
both Swedish and Norwegian were influenced by Danish.

West Germanic Languages

Around the beginning of our era the West Germanic tribes dwelt in the
lowlands between the Oder and the Elbe bordering on the Slovenian tribe n the
East and the Celtic tribes in the South.
The dialectal differentiation of West Germanic was probably quite distinct
even at the beginning of our era since Pliny and Tacitus decrised them under three
tribal names, on the eve of their “Great Migrations” of the 4th and 5th c. west
Germans included several tribes. The Franks (or Franconians) occupied the lower
basin of the Rhine, from there they spread up the Rhine and accordingly
subdivided into Low, Middle and High Franconians. The Angles and the Frisians
(known as the Anglo-Frisian group) the jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal
area of the modern Netherlands, Germany and the Southern part of Denmark. The
High Germans included a number of tribes whose names a known since the early
Middle Ages: Alemanians, Swabians, Bavarians, Thuringians and others.
 In the Early Middle Ages the Franks consolidated into a powerful tribal
alliance. Towards the 8th c. their kingdom grew into one of the largest states in
western Europe. But the empire lacked ethic and economic unity and in the 9th
broke up into parts. Its western part eventually became the basis of France. Though
the names France, French are derived from the tribal name of the Franks. The
Franconian (or the Frank) dialects were not spoken there. The population, the
Romanised Celts of Gaul, spoke a local variety of Latin, which developed into one
of the most extensive Romance languages, French.
The earliest part, the East Franconian Empire, comprised several kingdoms:
Alemania, Bavaria, East Franconia and Saxony. As seen from the names of the
kingdoms, the East Franconian state had a mixed population consisting of several
West Germanic tribes.
The Franconian dialects were spoken in the extreme North of the Empire; in
the later Middle Ages they developed into Dutch - the language of the Low
Countries (the Netherlands) and Flemisa - the language of Flanders. The earliest
texts in Low Franconian date from the 10 th c.
The Modern language of the Netherlands, formerly called “Dutch” and its
variant in Belgium, known as the Gremish dialect, are now treated as a single
language “Netherlandish”. Netherlandish is spoken by almost 20 million people.
About three hundred years ago the Dutch language was brought to South
Africa by colonists from Southern Holland. Their dialects in Africa grew into a
separate West Germanic language, “Afrikaans”. Afrikaans has incorporated
elements from the speech of English and German colonists in Africa and from the
tongues of the natives. Writing in Afrikaans began at the and of the 19th c. Today
Afrikaans is the Mother-tongue of over four million Afrikaans and coloured people
and one of the state languages in the South African Republic (alongside English).
The High German group of tribes did not go far in their migrations. The
High German dialects consolidated into a common language known as “Old High
German (OHG)”. The first written records in OHG date from the 8th and 9th c.
The High German language in a modified form is the national language of
Austria, the language of Liechtenstein and one of he languages in Luxembourg and
Switzerland. The total number of German-speaking people approaches 100 million.
Yiddish grew from the High German dialects which were adopted by
numerous Jewish communities scattered over the Germany 11th and 12th century.
These dialects blended with elements of Hebrew and Slavonic and
developed into a separate West Germanic language with a spoken and literary
form. Yiddish was exported from Germany to many other countries.
At the later stage of the Great migration - in the 5th - a group of Germanic
tribes started out on their invasion of the British Isles. The invaders came from the
lowlands near the North Sea: the Angles, part of the Saxons and Frisians and
probably, the Jutes. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English
language.
The territory of English was at first confined to what is now known as
England proper. From the 13th to the 17th c. it extended to other parts of the
British Isles. The first English written records have come down from 7th c.
 Frisian has survived as a local dialect in Friesland (in the Netherlands). It
has an oral and written form, the earliest records dating from the 13th c.
In the Early Middle Ages the continental Saxons formed a powerful tribe in
the lower basin of the Elbe. Old Saxon known in written from the records of the
9th c.

Recommended Literature

1. Мейе А. Основные особенности германской группы языков. М.,

1952.
2.Прокош Э. Сравнительная грамматика германских языков. М., 1954.
3. Жирмунский В. Ш. История немецкого языка. М., 1959
4. Ильин Г.А. История английского языка. М., 1968
5. Введение в германскую филологию. М., 1980
6. Tursunov B. German filologiyasiga kirish. Samarqand, 2001