West Germanic languages

West Germanic
West Germanic
Geographic; distribution:	Originally between the Rhine, Alps, Elbe, and North Sea; today worldwide
Linguistic classification:	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic; ;
Subdivisions:	North Sea Germanic Weser-Rhine Germanic Elbe Germanic
ISO 639-5:	gmw
	; Extent of Germanic languages in present day Europe; North Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Swedish Danish West Germanic languages Scots English Frisian Dutch Low German High German Dots indicate areas where multilingualism is common.

The West Germanic Languages are a branch of Germanic languages first spoken in Central Europe and the British Isles. The branch has three parts: the North Sea Germanic languages, the Weser-Rhine Germanic languages, and the Elbe Germanic languages. The most spoken languages in the branch are English, German, and Dutch.^[1]

These languages were spread around the world in the Colonial Era. English is now spoken by around 400 million people natively.^[2]

Branches

There are three branches of West Germanic languages:

North Sea Germanic / Ingvaeonic languages
- Anglo-Frisian languages
  - English Languages/Anglic
    - English
    - Scots
    - Yola (extinct)
    - Fingalian (extinct)
  - Frisian languages
- Low German / Low Saxon
  - Northern Low Saxon
  - Schleswig dialects
  - Holstein dialects
  - Westphalian
  - Eastphalia dialects
  - Brandenburg dialects ("Märkisch")
  - Pomeranian (moribund)
  - Low Prussian (moribund)
  - Dutch Low Saxon
Weser-Rhine Germanic / Istvaeonic languages / Netherlandic / Low Frankish
- Dutch
  - West Flemish
  - East Flemish
  - Zeelandic
  - Hollandic
  - Brabantine
  - Clevian/Meuse-Rhenish
  - Limburgian
- Afrikaans
Elbe Germanic / Irminonic languages / High German
- German
  - Alemannic, including Swiss German and Alsatian
  - Swabian
  - Austro-Bavarian
  - East Franconian
  - South Franconian
  - Rhine Franconian, including the dialects of Hessen, Pennsylvania German, and most of those from Lorraine
  - Ripuarian
  - Thuringian
  - Upper Saxon German
  - Silesian (moribund)
  - Lombardic AKA Langobardic (extinct, unless Cimbrian and Mocheno are in fact Langobardic remnants.)
  - High Prussian (moribund)
- Luxembourgish
- Pennsylvania German language
- Yiddish (a language based on Eastern-Central dialects of late Middle High German/Early New High German)

↑ Hawkins, John A. (1987). "Germanic languages". In Bernard Comrie (ed.). The World's Major Languages. Oxford University Press. pp. 68–76. ISBN 0-19-520521-9.
↑ Crystal 2006, pp. 424–426.

Crystal, David (2006). "Chapter 9: English worldwide". In Denison, David; Hogg, Richard M. (eds.). A History of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. pp. 420–439. ISBN 978-0-511-16893-2.