Classification

Anglic languages
English
Scots
Anglo-Frisian languages
Anglic and
Frisian (West, North, Saterland)
North Sea Germanic languages Anglo-Frisian and
Low German/Low Saxon
West Germanic languages
North Sea Germanic and
Dutch; in Africa: Afrikaans
...... German (High):
Central; in Lux.: Luxembourgish
Upper
...... Yiddish Maurer's classification of German tribes

(German) The Germanic languages in contemporary

Europe
German is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of
the Germanic languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into
three branches: North Germanic, East Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of
these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese,
and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic
languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which
survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone
extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such
as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.[18]
Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum,
the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-
Uerdingen, respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were
affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that
were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these
lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north
comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West
Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have
been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic,
and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent
from dialects spoken by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones
(or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). [18]
Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon and Upper
Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects
belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to
the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based
on Central Franconian dialects) and Yiddish. Also closely related to Standard
German are the Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking
countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects) and the various Germanic
dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly
Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine
Franconian (Central Franconian).
After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to
languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low
German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and
southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift.
As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter
Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences
between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also
related to German are the Frisian languages—North Frisian (spoken
in Nordfriesland), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland), and West Frisian (spoken
in Friesland)—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-
Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic
languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman
language.
History
Main article: History of German
Old High German
Main article: Old High German
The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant
shift during the Migration Period, which separated Old High German dialects
from Old Saxon. This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of
both voiced and voiceless stop consonants (b, d, g, and p, t, k, respectively). The
primary effects of the shift were the following below.
 Voiceless stops became long (geminated) voiceless fricatives following a
vowel;
 Voiceless stops became affricates in word-initial position, or following certain
consonants;
 Voiced stops became voiceless in certain phonetic settings. [19]

Voiceless Word-
stop initial Voiced
following a voiceless stop
vowel stop

/p/→/ff/ /p/→/pf/ /b/→/p/

/t/→/ss/ /t/→/ts/ /d/→/t/

/k/→/xx/ /k/→/kx/ /g/→/k/

 The approximate extent of Germanic languages in the
early 10th century:
Old West Norse
Old East Norse
Old Gutnish
Old English (West Germanic)
Continental West Germanic languages (Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old Dutch, Old High
German).
Crimean Gothic (East Germanic)
While there is written evidence of the Old High German language in several Elder
Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen
buckle), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with
the Abrogans (written c. 765–775), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000
Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans, the first
coherent works written in Old High German appear in the ninth century, chief
among them being the Muspilli, Merseburg charms, and Hildebrandslied, and other
religious texts (the Georgslied, Ludwigslied, Evangelienbuch, and translated hymns
and prayers).[20] The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect
offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment, and the Merseburg charms
are transcriptions of spells and charms from the pagan Germanic tradition. Of
particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied, a
secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly
meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the
mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The
written works of this period stem mainly from the Alamanni, Bavarian,
and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group (Irminones), which
had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the
second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. [19]
In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range
of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of
OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of
Latin originals; as a result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate
regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary.
[19]
At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were
dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and
ecclesiastical writing.