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'King' and its cognates are common Germanic words, should we add those to the table? Cameron Nedland 14:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Should "Scanian" really be placed under "Swedish"? The history of the dialect is muddled, and there are several Scanian regionalists who could get offended, but I'd say it's similar to Bokmål. Bokmål is geneologically (or however it's spelled) West Norse, but has turned generally East Norse due to heavy impact from Danish. Scanian is geneologically Danish, but has turned generally Swedish due to heavy impact from it. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed Lombardic from its absurd position straddling E & WGMc and it has been reverted. The reason for removing it was quite simple and has been discussed before. Every major handbook on the history of German says Lombardic is West Germanic. Some editors of this page hold the opinion (as they're entitled to do) that it either is or might be EGmc. However, they are quite unable to support this so far with even a single source. never mind a match for the dozen or I listed some time ago on this Talk page. Since the EGmc claim flies in the face of the unanimous view in the handbooks that Lombardic is West Germanic, it really has no place on this page at all - if there were anything to it, the Lombardic page would be the place - let alone in a table which attempts to summarise the accepted view of the relationship of the Gmc languages. The idea that the note (whose claim, after all, would also seems to be untrue) somehow excuses this doesn't count as a reason to revert in my view.
I appreciate that people are attached to their opinions, but if you can't back them up with citations, what basis have you got for objecting to their removal from this page in favour of a view thoroughly supported in the published literature? -- Pfold 21:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Who doesn't consider them Germanic languages and why don't they? This looks completely arbitrary. Jacob Haller 15:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Is 'dead' in the table standing for the adjective or for the substantive (the man with the scythe/the status 'exitus')? The last is in Modern High German (der)'Tod' only the first is 'tot'. -- Pistazienfresser ( talk) 19:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed when looking in Swedish that there are some French(Romansche) based words like 'Historie', Have these words been adopted from French into Swedish or are they of a Germanic origin? 80.192.246.56 ( talk) 17:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Falcon-Eagle2007 80.192.246.56 ( talk) 17:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
In the list of examples en:"many" is shown as meaning de:"Manch". This is wrong IMHO. The 1:1 translation of en:"many" into German is de:"viele" where de:"Manch" means en:"some". 92.226.196.13 ( talk) 18:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe it is rather misleading to say that Afrikaans has "a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages" in the article, because I would not say that it is greater than many other Germanic languages. The non-Germanic influx into Afrikaans is certainly much less than English has experienced and I would say less than Dutch. Afrikaans began diverging from Dutch in the 17th Century and so escaped much of the French influence that Dutch was subjected to since that period, for example. Certainly there has been an influx, but to suggest it is significantly more than other Germanic languages have experienced is misleading. Booshank ( talk) 20:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It's true that Gutnish is now "practically a dialect of Swedish" but the same applies to Low German and Scots - and these languages are not declared for "extinct". Shouldn't therefore the entry concerning Gutnish be corrected? Thanks. Freigut ( talk) 16:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Where did these come from? They look doubtful. Leushenko ( talk) 16:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
the map is very distorted; the north is inclined towards the left: it gives a wrong perception of Europe as it is in reality. The results: France seems almost at the same latitudes than Germany on the map, which is far from reality! Maybe it would be better to find a map that is not so much distorted to give a better perception of how Europe really is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 ( talk) 21:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Because the map has Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales coloured the same as England it could give the false impression that the various Celtic languages found in these countries are Germanic or that Germanic languages are the only ones spoken in these places. In contrast, Belgium doesn't have the entire area within its border coloured like this and so accounts for French being spoken in addition to Dutch. There is also the problem of the map not being labeled with dates despite being in the history section. From the way it looks I've assumed it represents the spread of Germanic languages currently spoken in Europe, but if it's supposed to represent the spread Germanic languages much earlier than ~1850 then it becomes very flawed with respect to Celtic languages. 02:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meltyman ( talk • contribs)
The map is wrong in many places. East Frisian is only spoken in a tiny portion of Lower Saxony and not on the North Sea Coast. Frisian is spoken in northern Germany and not southern Denmark as it shows. It also has the island of Ruegen the wrong color as the rest of Germany. The map implies that only English is spoken in Ireland and Scotland. Not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.82.146.129 ( talk) 14:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
The map "The present-day distribution of the Germanic languages in Europe" is wrong about the northern part of Norway: A large majority, also in the counties of Troms and Finnmark, speak Norwegian. (It is only in the two municipalities of Karasjok and Kautokeino that Sami speaking people is a majority of native speakers.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.215.163.110 ( talk) 20:13, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Linguistic evidence actually shows that Crimean Gothic is a West Germanic language, contrary to traditional belief. Shouldn't this somehow be altered in the article? I do not have a written source at hand, regrettably, I'm only going by what's been told to me by Harald Bjorvand, professor of germanistic linguistics at the University of Oslo. Does anyone else have a written source? I believe the misconception has arisen due to geographical reasons, seeing as Crimean Gothic was a germanic language spoken in an area assosicated with the Goths.-- Alexlykke ( talk) 19:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
|I find it worth noting the range and depth of the phenomenon that is Germanic loanwords. Other than the Classical languages of Latin and Greek I believe the Germanic languages to be among the most influential in terms of vocabulary and loanwords. If you look to almost any European language you will soon find a Germanic loan in its vocabulary. It is worth considering the historical implications that this has had.
I believe it originates from the Germanic speakers as being in the right place at the right time after the Roman era. They were the most widespread tribes in the area other than the Roman descendants and the Celts, so the new technologies and cultural practices that emerged in the post-Roman period were largely named by these speakers. These words soon became easy to pass on to new peoples in Europe and along with the return of interest in the Classical languages the Germanic tongues became the most prolific givers of words.
While not as pure a group of languages as say, the Baltic tongues (who are the closest to Proto Indo-European), I think this again warrants mention in the article. I'm not going to add such a section yet until I see some opinions.| CormanoSanchez ( talk) 01:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
|I am merely suggesting such a section. I don't think I possess the proper number of sources and material to write it on my own without unintentionally violating policy. But I am open to any other editor with more experience to create such a section| CormanoSanchez ( talk) 17:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
|Proposed section outline:
Historical context: brief discussion of range of Germanic loans and numbers. I'm sure there are many linguists and other academics who realize the size and influence of Germanic loanwords so their input would be appreciated as proper sources for citations.
Perhaps a brief history of certain important loans throughout the centuries and to which languages.
A mention of the idea of ersatz (which is already in brief on the German language page) and the formation of certain word roots which have been used to preserve words.
Historical implications: What the amount of Germanic loans means, especially in the case of English, and historical examples of their effects on other languages.
Again, all these parts of the section would be supported by the writings of linguists and academics who understand and possess the evidence of the loans.|
CormanoSanchez (
talk) 18:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Could it be stated that a common feature of germanic (separating it from other IE languages) is the option of a zero-article? I am not sure about this by any means, it just occurred to me how rather than Latin or Sanskrit who have no articles ever... French/Spanish (for example) seem to need them excessively (course, compared to germanic languages). It seems that generalness in Romance languages is handled much more differently... I don't know about Celtic languages, for example... (only that they don't have indefinite pronouns)
Any ideas as to what's going on here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Retailmonica ( talk • contribs) 17:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Yiddish is a Germanic language derived from Middle High German and closely related to modern German, and it is spoken by 3 million people. I was surprised to see it missing from this page, other than in a footnote. I would follow WP:SOFIXIT, but I fear I'd make a mess of including it as I'm not that familiar with linguistics. Fences and windows ( talk) 22:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused about the placing of Scots in the timeline/tree.
The northern part of the Kingdom of Northumbria was incorporated into Scotland right at the start of the Middle English period, so surely this would be where the split was?
Certainly, the big language change of the time was the Norman invasion of England, and as the Scots-speaking Lothian (modern East and Mid Lothian and Borders regions) was never part of the conquered Norman territory it's unlikely that "Middle English" per se was ever spoken there.
McClure's definition of it coming from Northumbrian Old English and the Oxford description of it seem to support the classification of it as having an evolution independent of what is recognised as Middle English. Prof Wrong ( talk) 21:18, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm adding the info here, in case anyone wants to make use of it. Since no-one ever bothered to link to it, I assume there isn't much need for a separate article. If anyone here wants to restore it, please do so, and link appropriately from this or other articles. kwami ( talk) 00:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
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This page offers a comparison between those words belonging to some languages of the Germanic branch ( English, German, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish), words of common origin, that still maintain the same meaning. The list only considers English words having a German equivalent with the same Proto-Germanic stem, or English words hailing from Old Norse language; those latter are CAPITALIZED. The goal of this work is to show the words' phonetic evolution of the Germanic languages, because in every line is reported the original Proto-Germanic term, if it is known. The words in (brackets) are equivalents without the same Proto-Germanic stem; if the box is empty, no equivalent has been found; if there are three dots in the box, the English word has more than an equivalent but no one shares the stem.
Main source: Oxford English Dictionary, ed. 1964 |
The internal grouping of the West Germanic languages is still unresolved (see e.g. Ringe's recent book "From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic"), but the tree as (formerly) given, which splits Anglo-Frisian against Old High German/Old Saxon/Old Low Franconian is certainly wrong. The proper division is almost certainly between OHG and all the other languages (Ringe's "Northern West Germanic" grouping). The basic reason for this is that the Northern West Germanic languages share a number of innovations that are not present in OHG:
The second item -- the development of Class III weak verbs -- seems particularly important as it is such a specific change and because the developments in northern WG vs. OHG were radically different. According to Ringe, Class III was actually two different classes in Proto-Germanic: (1) a stative class with endings -ja/-ai in the present and no linking vowel in the past; (2) a "factitive" class with endings -ā/-ai in the present and a linking vowel -a in the past. It's likely that both of these classes persisted down through Proto-West-Germanic. Essentially what happened is:
Benwing ( talk) 02:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Low Franconian and Low Saxon are two separate groups. The language of the Hanseatic League was Low German and this included the Low Franconian and Low Saxon varieties. Historically, there were no two separate languages, but there was a so-called dialect continuum.
Making a difference between High German and the Low German (including Dutch) is already questionable in both ways, but separating the Low German in two different categories (Dutch and Low German) is simply incorrect.
Frisian | English | Dutch | German |
---|---|---|---|
dei | day | dag | Tag |
rein | rain | regen | Regen |
wei | way | weg | Weg |
neil | nail | nagel | Nagel |
tsiis | cheese | kaas | Käse |
tsjerke | church | kerk | Kirche |
tegearre | together | samen | zusammen |
wiet | wet | nat | nass |
sibbe | sibling | verwante | Verwandte |
kaai | key | sleutel | Schlüssel |
ha west | have been | ben geweest | bin gewesen |
twa skiep | two sheep | twee schapen | zwei Schafe |
yndie(d) | indeed | inderdaad | in der Tat |
ús | us | ons | uns |
hynder | horse | paard | Pferd |
brea | bread | brood | Brot |
hier | hair | haar | Haar |
ear | ear | oor | Ohr |
doar | door | deur | Tür |
grien | green | groen | Grün |
stiel | steel | staal | Stahl |
read | red | rood | Rot |
giel ( Sf. Jeel) | yellow | geel | Gelb |
swiet | sweet | zoet | süβ |
troch | through | door | durch |
hawwe | have | hebben | haben |
tinke | thinking | denken | denken |
lyts | little | klein | klein |
In this table you will find English and Frisian on the one side, and German and Dutch on the other side. The so-called Low Saxon or Low German varieties should be somewhere between the Dutch and German language. I propose you merge Low Franconian and Low Saxon, otherwise you need at least three new linguistic groups for Frisian as well. Kind regards -- Kening Aldgilles ( talk) 00:41, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
Hello Kening. I've been out of the country for 5 weeks and just got back. Can you explain more clearly what your concerns are with the current layout and what you want it to look like instead? However, before proposing anything I'd suggest you look somewhat more into the actual linguistic reasons why the Germanic languages are grouped as they are. You are arguing primarily on surface similarities of various words in the modern languages, which is not a valid way of grouping languages historically and suggests you don't have a background in historical linguistics. Benwing ( talk) 00:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
Hello!
I translated File:Einteilung der Germanen nach Maurer.de.svg from German to English File:Einteilung der Germanen nach Maurer.en.svg – as far as I could. It illustrates the subdivion of the Germanic languages and peoples according to :de:Friedrich Maurer.
Would someone like to check if the names of peoples and languages are correct? Especially my translation of "Germanen" (Latin "Germani", i.e. members of a Germanic people). According to the English wiktionary, it is "Germans", too...
The other translations (English and Latin ones) are taken from the English wikipedia, and I think that they are correct. Thanks in advance. -- MaEr ( talk) 08:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Norwegian is placed as a descendant of the Old East Norse, therefore, the Old West Norse should be moved one space to accommodate the Old Norwegian. Also, Old Gutnish should be occupying both the Early Middle ages and the Middle ages spaces. Mmasalleras ( talk) 13:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Madagascar shouldn't be coloured on the map because English is no longer official there (and actually not very known). Aaker ( talk) 21:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
One new study reports that English could/should be classified as North Germanic. http://www.apollon.uio.no/english/articles/2012/4-english-scandinavian.html Inge ( talk) 13:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm no expert in this field, but as a Scot it doesn't required you to be an expert to know that Scots English dialects display a huge amount of Norse vocabulary- and a few grammatical features. At what point people want to start drawing lines isn't clear to me, but the considerable Scandinavian history & influence in/on Scotland is undeniable. 92.40.253.86 ( talk) 11:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
If one understands dialect to mean variant forms of one language used in a a more or less circumscribable area, Franconian (and others) is as much a dialect of German as Yorkshire is a dialect of English. The only Lowland Scots that I have ever read was used by Mary Queen of Scots in her letters. It is so similar to English that it is quite easy to read. It is much easier to read than, say, Beowulf or even Wulfstan's Sermon to the English (11th cent.). I find it difficult think of it as anything other than a language with the same history of development, so a dialect of English. Pamour ( talk) 13:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest the Lowland Scots of Burns would tax you a bit more, as a Glaswegian (a dialect largely fairly light on Scots vocab)I can't make head nor tail of it.
And I agree with CodeCat, that in linguistics a dialect is merely a variation that is/has been at point on a continuum. If you really want to push it, you can measure mutual intelligibility... but often it seems that arguments around "language" versus "dialect" are emotionally-driven political identity arguments rather than scientific ones. 92.40.253.86 ( talk) 11:11, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Surely the standardised dialects aren't the best yardstick for taxonomy? This paragraph is also very bad at getting across what it actually means. If you are familiar with comparative linguistics, a few readings gets you there, but I fear it'll read like gibberish to someone new to the subject. 92.40.253.86 ( talk) 11:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Why is such a backdoor application such as http://www.ethnologue.com used as a reference. Many of their contentions about language are primitive at best. It just a shoddy product and yet it is cited as if it has some authority and as if it is viable research which it is clearly not. It is the intellectual equivalent of using already soiled toilet paper in a bathroom environment... Is its use on Wikipedia the result of someone furthering their business interest in this less than standard product? Stevenmitchell ( talk) 02:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia! 88.90.184.135 ( talk) 21:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
According to this diagram, Fife is a multilingual area while Lewis isn't. As anyone who has even visited these places could tell you, let alone lived in them, this is grossly inaccurate. Lewis is an English-speaking island, with a significant number of Gaelic speakers. Fife speaks English and is monolingual. Similarly, any attempts to claim that Lothian and Borders, in 2013, speak "Scots" is misguided. The language is much closer to English than it is to the Scots of 70 years back, when it was genuinely a distinct and distinctive dialect (if not a separate language). Given these offensively gross errors, I'm exceedingly loathe to trust anything plotted on this chart at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.184.135 ( talk) 21:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Added 'Pop Goes the Weasel' and 'Able was I ere I saw Elba' as further examples. I've never heard the two examples that were previously the only ones cited, but I am sure the two I added are better known. Furthermore, both are already referenced within Wikipedia. Meaning of Fife ( talk) 23:34, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any mention of Flemish/Vlaams in the Article. Is there an assumption that Nederlands is a common language between the Dutch and the Belgians? Even between the Flemish provinces there are variations in dialectic words and between Dutch and Flemish even the basic alphabet has phonic differences e.g. "g" takes on a different sounding. The diminutive in Dutch is an "icke" whereas in Vlaams more likely "tje" Also the influence of the Monarchy/Aristocracy also sees a lot of borrowed French words adapted into Flemish e.g. a small present would be cadeautje but in Dutch geschenk 74.103.167.2 ( talk) 15:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC) CED (Not scientific input - just a Celt raising a few questions) Both examples are actually reversed. Also, besides the obvious pronunciation and day-to-day seperateness of 2 nations, both everyday languages are relatively similar and mutually intelligible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.213.38.233 ( talk) 00:20, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Why there is no such way for South Germanic languages?
I think the diachronic table needs to be replaced by something explicitly based on a published source. As it stands the table is in breach of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. There are problems which cannot be fixed simply by editorial tweaking:
I don't see how the job can be done in a table - I think we need to source a suitable diagram, or, if we can't find a copyright-free diagram that represents current thinking, create a new diagram based on a single published source. Something like the one on p. 49 of Keller's The German Language, say. -- Pfold ( talk) 11:32, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
The article needs serious rewriting. I'm a fan of historical linguistics or philology, but there's way too much historical information and it's sprinkled through every section in the article, without regard for whether it's actually helpful. We need more information on the phonology, morphology, and syntax of modern Germanic languages.
For instance, the Phonology section should discuss the phonemic inventories and phonological features of modern Germanic languages, like Slavic languages § Common features and Indo-Aryan languages § Phonology. The sound changes that happened between Proto-Germanic and the old Germanic languages belong in another section, because they don't really help a reader understand how modern English, Dutch, Standard German, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic are different. The real differences between the modern Germanic languages have to do with presence or absence of phonemes (the dorsal fricative /x/ and semivowel /w/, postalveolars, affricates, front rounded vowels) and different phonological features (pitch accent, vowel length, diphthongs, different features of fortis and lenis obstruents, greater or lesser vowel reduction). More on these things is needed.
The Characteristics section is also confusing. We need to distinguish between features that happen to be important for classifying the Germanic languages as a separate branch of the Indo-European family, and features that are actually rare or unique to the Germanic languages as compared with other languages around the world. The Germanic consonant shift isn't a unique feature, because it results in the same voiced and voiceless stops and fricatives that are found in other language families around the world. Similarly, large vowel inventories are found in other language families, and so is vowel reduction and a present-past contrast. Probably some features listed are typologically distinctive, but I'm not sure which.
I may work on fixing these problems, but help would be appreciated. — Eru· tuon 06:58, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
There were never a vikingish language:
In Bósa saga ok Herrauðs is to read:
There is, however, no such thing as a former Norseman, mentioned in the sources. Dan Koehl ( talk) 22:49, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Egil Skallagrimsson saga: Björn var farmaður mikill, var stundum í víking, en stundum í kaupferðum; Björn var hinn gervilegasti maður. (english: Björn was a great traveller; sometimes as viking, sometimes as tradesman.
So, a Norseman could be a viking for some time, and he could be a tradesman (or a baker, or a shepherd) for some time. But not all tradesmen, bakers, shepherds and vikings were Norseman.
Norseman spoke norse, but norse vikings did not speak vikingish, and norse shepherds did not speak shepherdish or bakerish.
Norsemen had norse culture, but there was no norse viking, baker or shepherd culture.
I think its important to remind people today about the term Norsemen, an accepted term by historians and archelogists, referring to people from the north, present Scandinavia. This term does not have any certain time limit, the Norsemen were norse in years, 400, 500, 657, 749, 803, 950, 1066 and 1100. Norsemen is a true ethnical group, for some reason neglected on Wikipedia. Whenever the word viking is mentioned, it can correctly be replaced by the term Norsemen in 95% of the cases. Norsemen are described in other Wikipedia languages, and since the english Wikipedia should be written from a global point of view, the term Norse and Norsemen should not be treated different.
The first documented use of the word viking is made by Orosius, written in latin, and translated into old english. There is to read about Alexander the Great´s father, Philip II of Macedonia: Philippus vero post longam obsidionem, ut pecuniam quam obsidendo exhauserat, praedando repararet, piraticam adgressus est. translated into: ac he scipa gegaderade, and i vicingas wurdon. In this time the word pirat was not used in the english language, the latin piraticam was directly translated to vicingus.
Interestingly enough, theres stories in the sagas, describing arabic piates, and they were in the sagas referred to, as vikings. = Vikings could be arabs practising piracy, and vikings could be macedonian kings practising piracy, but peaceful norse farmers, and their wifes, were never, ever, described as vikings before 1900.
For over 1 000 years, viking was nothing else than an old-english translation of the latin word pirate.
A macedonian king will never, ever, become scandinavian. An arabic pirat will never become scandinavian.
But a norseman was scandinavian, and the present scandinavians are descendants of Norsemen, according to historians and archelogists.
The sentence The linguistic contact of the Viking settlers of the Danelaw with the Anglo-Saxons left traces in the English language reflects a very poor knowledge in what viking actually means. As well as poor knowledge in the term Norsemen.
'Viking is a controversial term, Norsemen is not. For some reason, some people absolutely wants to call my ancestors vikings, which is historically incorrect and besides, unpolite. The Scandinavians as a an ethnic group, is more or less the same as Norsemen, Theres no problem whatsoever to use the correct term.
Dan Koehl (
talk) 23:19, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Quebec official language is French, so shouldn't be colored on the map as a germanic language territory.
Never heard of anyone recognizing it as a separate language on the same level and comparable to German, Swedish or English. Its a dialect of Dutch. Ernio48 ( talk) 19:13, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
From this map, one gets the impression that central Europe was populated from the North. I strongly doubt this. I do however know that Finnish-Ugrian languages came from the East, split up in Russia and became the Magyars and Finnish which at least explains why Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are related. In any case, was Scandinavia Populated from south to north. (With a possible excepton of the Sami peole, who came from the East, I think). Boeing720 ( talk) 23:32, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Frisian | English | Dutch | German | Danish | Swedish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
dei | day | dag | Tag | dag | dag |
rein | rain | regen | Regen | regn | regn |
wei | way | weg | Weg | vej | väg |
neil | nail | nagel | Nagel | nagel | nagel |
tsiis | cheese | kaas | Käse | ost | ost |
tsjerke | church | kerk | Kirche | kirke | kyrka |
tegearre | together | samen | zusammen | sammen | tilsammans |
wiet | wet | nat | nass | våd | våt |
sibbe | sibling | verwante | Verwandte | søskende | syskon |
kaai | key | sleutel | Schlüssel | nøgle | nyckel |
ha west | have been | ben geweest | bin gewesen | har været | har varit |
twa skiep | two sheep | twee schapen | zwei Schafe | to får | två får |
yndie(d) | indeed | inderdaad | in der Tat | sandelig | verkligen |
ús | us | ons | uns | os | oss |
hynder | horse | paard | Pferd | hest | häst |
brea | bread | brood | Brot | brød | bröd |
hier | hair | haar | Haar | hår | hår |
ear | ear | oor | Ohr | øre | öra |
doar | door | deur | Tür | dør | dörr |
grien | green | groen | Grün | grøn | grön |
stiel | steel | staal | Stahl | stål | stål |
read | red | rood | Rot | rød | röd |
giel ( Sf. Jeel) | yellow | geel | Gelb | gul | gul |
swiet | sweet | zoet | süβ | sød | söt |
troch | through | door | durch | igennem | genom |
hawwe | have | hebben | haben | ha | ha |
tinke | thinking | denken | denken | tænke | tänka |
lyts | little | klein | klein | lille | liten |
Just for possible use or interest Boeing720 ( talk) 23:59, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
User:Pfold Under the Indo-European languages exists fife subgroups
All five groups are equally related to the Indo-European base. (All Indo-European languages have the same classes of words (although some are discussed as words of classes or not, like atricles and numbers)
This applies also to the Greek language. (The alphabet used has nothing to do with linguistic relations). About the lead-sentence which mentions all sub-branches of the Indo-European languages - either it has to mention all five, or only state "Germanic languages is one of five Indo-European branches" - or something in line with that. Boeing720 ( talk) 00:35, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Reply also to another user. (IF using Italic, then is Germanic larger; if using Romance, then they are larger than Germanic. The sentence listed all sub-branches from the largest to the smallest. Forgot Hellenistic languages - iow. Greek language, and made a blur of the sorting order by gathered speakers. Boeing720 ( talk) 00:50, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
But in Europe there are three major sub-branches today , Italic cannot be used about "native speakers today"
Indo-European languages are divided into the following five sub-groups (of which this article deals with one of them - Germanic languages)
All of these sub-branches (except perhaps Hellenistic) can be divided further. Balto-Slavic , can be split in at least North-Slavic (Russian, Polish), South-Slavic (Bulgaian, Slovenian) Baltic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian). Romance languages can be divided into Italic languages and Iberian languages. And we also have West-Germanic and East-Germanic and somewhere also Scandinavian languagers etc. Any objections so far ?
Then we have - regarding this article, Germanic languages an early lead sentence (with germanic languages = it )
Since this clearly is a comparing statement, must the comparison be true. But fist - the Hellenistc subbranch is totally forgotten. Although there is no doubts about modern Greek as being an Indo-European , Hellenistc language (without relation to any of the other four sub-branches). If we must continue to compare the five sub-branches, must we also mention either "Hellenistic languages" or "Greek". Objections this far ? But putting the Germanic languages behind Italic languages, in a question of size, number of current day speakers, is wrong. If however avoid Italic languages (which is a sub-branch of a sub-branch really) and use all languages based on Latin - or Romance languages, then the sentence will possibly be true.
Proposal: Either just mentioning Germanic Languages to be one out of five sub-branches of Indo-European languages - or change the sentence in question to
And preferably by using a source which can especially show that Germanic languages is smaller than Romance languages. In any case is Italic languages only a part of the larger Romance language. And Hellenistic languages (=Greek) are forgotten. How this blur emerged is a good question. Boeing720 ( talk) 13:23, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. This sentence has no reference. According to this study, mutually intelligibilty between West Frisian and North Frisian is at 38%. Furthermore, there are different ISO codes for the Frisian languages. Sarcelles ( talk) 11:41, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Is "Teutonic languages" a synonym -- or an outdated synonym -- for Germanic languages? -- Neitram ( talk) 18:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
I edited the article to say that V2 word order is "largely absent" in English rather than "no longer present" as the article itself already provides numerous counterexamples. I think this may be worth expanding on though, as to me it seems that what is really meant here is that "V2 word order typically sounds unnatural or archaic in modern English, and in some cases may be grammatically incorrect."
I don't know if there's a good source for this anywhere though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A443:F91D:1:E57F:8EF5:E864:13FC ( talk) 21:32, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Quebec should not be colored dark red. English is not its primary language (as we correctly note on the map on the English language) page. Funnyhat ( talk) 19:16, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
There is a mistake in /info/en/?search=Germanic_languages#Classification. Modern German and Yiddish are a descendents of Old High German, not Central German. The rest appears correct. Azerty82 ( talk) 21:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect German groups. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Germanic groups. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Germanic group. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:52, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect German group. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:52, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to be blunt, but the diachronic table simply does not belong in this article.
I'm sure a lot of work has gone in to this table, but that's not enough to justify its inclusion. No amount of tweaking is going to rescue it from from WP:OR. -- Pfold ( talk) 18:21, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
It might help us trim the vocab comparison table if we knew what exactly the purpose of it was. There are a number of cases where the languages in fact use different words, die, starve, for example, or head vs. cognates of Kopf. What is it we are trying to show with this table? Is it sound changes? Common vocab (which would eliminate the two examples I just gave)? Variety? At the moment the thing is far too long to be of any real use and attracts constant additions of some additional word that looks similar in some number of Germanic languages. It might be best to just select a small number of particularly representative items (pronouns and numbers for instance).-- Ermenrich ( talk) 15:33, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Why not add a Proto-Germanic reconstruction? It would make sense to show how all the forms are related.-- Berig (talk) 05:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
what about Faroese? It’s very similar to Icelandic and about as widely spoken as Luxembourgish I would assume. I’m also not sure we need Afrikaans.—- Ermenrich ( talk) 19:24, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
I've fiddled around with it some more - let me know if you think there's anything else we should add or subtract. If we could find a word that has "-dg-" in English and -kk- in German that also exists in Norse and Gothic that would be great. The obvious words like "ridge", "bridge", "midge", and "edge" all seem to be missing in Gothic.
I was also thinking a clear example of rhoticism might be nice, such as "to hear".-- Ermenrich ( talk) 22:02, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
What about Plautdietsch as representative of Low Saxon? It's based on East Low German (and indeed very similar to the Platt I've heard from old folks who still grew up speaking Low Prussian), and much less influenced by Standard German than Low German as spoken in present-day northern Germany. – Austronesier ( talk) 16:21, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Would it perhaps make sense to include numbers 1-10 (or twelve) and maybe some multiples of ten in a separate table?-- Ermenrich ( talk) 13:32, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
@ Alcaios, Austronesier, Pfold, and Berig: the section on language at Germanic peoples is currently much better sourced and written than this article, despite not yet even covering everything that probably should be covered there. That article is oversized however. I wonder if we could move that text here and then cut it down in size and scope there. However, given the different organization of the two articles, we need to figure out exactly how we want to do that first.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 18:03, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
@ UsagiDreams: there is a consensus on this page not to include every Germanic language. We only include one version of Frisian, one version of Low German, one High German language, and one version of Norwegian, although two are official in Norway. This has nothing to do with being a bigot, it has to do with showing our readers variety within the Germanic family. Scots and English are similar enough that they would often be exactly the same (the same reason we don't include Afrikaans).-- Ermenrich ( talk) 18:52, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
In the Article is a Vocabulary comparison Table where it is assumed that the "Standargerman" spelling is called just German! That is much too imprecise.
Westfrisian and Lowgerman get their own table columns even though almost no one speaks this language any more. the bavarian language, on the other hand, is alive! 320luca ( talk) 16:52, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
EDIT: An even better Word would be "neuhochdeutsche Schriftsprache" in case of German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 320luca ( talk • contribs) 23:10, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
The discussions at the article Southtyroleans (created by the OP of this discussion) need the attention of the editors of this page.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 16:23, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
The infobox map European Germanic languages includes Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and Manx which are Celtic rather than Germanic languages. Perhaps understandably since they are not Germanic languages they are not mentioned anywhere in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.66.115.96 ( talk) 08:24, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Elfdalian should be under Daleclarian dialects on the family tree Cinnamon338 ( talk) 13:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
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'King' and its cognates are common Germanic words, should we add those to the table? Cameron Nedland 14:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Should "Scanian" really be placed under "Swedish"? The history of the dialect is muddled, and there are several Scanian regionalists who could get offended, but I'd say it's similar to Bokmål. Bokmål is geneologically (or however it's spelled) West Norse, but has turned generally East Norse due to heavy impact from Danish. Scanian is geneologically Danish, but has turned generally Swedish due to heavy impact from it. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed Lombardic from its absurd position straddling E & WGMc and it has been reverted. The reason for removing it was quite simple and has been discussed before. Every major handbook on the history of German says Lombardic is West Germanic. Some editors of this page hold the opinion (as they're entitled to do) that it either is or might be EGmc. However, they are quite unable to support this so far with even a single source. never mind a match for the dozen or I listed some time ago on this Talk page. Since the EGmc claim flies in the face of the unanimous view in the handbooks that Lombardic is West Germanic, it really has no place on this page at all - if there were anything to it, the Lombardic page would be the place - let alone in a table which attempts to summarise the accepted view of the relationship of the Gmc languages. The idea that the note (whose claim, after all, would also seems to be untrue) somehow excuses this doesn't count as a reason to revert in my view.
I appreciate that people are attached to their opinions, but if you can't back them up with citations, what basis have you got for objecting to their removal from this page in favour of a view thoroughly supported in the published literature? -- Pfold 21:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Who doesn't consider them Germanic languages and why don't they? This looks completely arbitrary. Jacob Haller 15:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Is 'dead' in the table standing for the adjective or for the substantive (the man with the scythe/the status 'exitus')? The last is in Modern High German (der)'Tod' only the first is 'tot'. -- Pistazienfresser ( talk) 19:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed when looking in Swedish that there are some French(Romansche) based words like 'Historie', Have these words been adopted from French into Swedish or are they of a Germanic origin? 80.192.246.56 ( talk) 17:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Falcon-Eagle2007 80.192.246.56 ( talk) 17:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
In the list of examples en:"many" is shown as meaning de:"Manch". This is wrong IMHO. The 1:1 translation of en:"many" into German is de:"viele" where de:"Manch" means en:"some". 92.226.196.13 ( talk) 18:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe it is rather misleading to say that Afrikaans has "a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages" in the article, because I would not say that it is greater than many other Germanic languages. The non-Germanic influx into Afrikaans is certainly much less than English has experienced and I would say less than Dutch. Afrikaans began diverging from Dutch in the 17th Century and so escaped much of the French influence that Dutch was subjected to since that period, for example. Certainly there has been an influx, but to suggest it is significantly more than other Germanic languages have experienced is misleading. Booshank ( talk) 20:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It's true that Gutnish is now "practically a dialect of Swedish" but the same applies to Low German and Scots - and these languages are not declared for "extinct". Shouldn't therefore the entry concerning Gutnish be corrected? Thanks. Freigut ( talk) 16:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Where did these come from? They look doubtful. Leushenko ( talk) 16:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
the map is very distorted; the north is inclined towards the left: it gives a wrong perception of Europe as it is in reality. The results: France seems almost at the same latitudes than Germany on the map, which is far from reality! Maybe it would be better to find a map that is not so much distorted to give a better perception of how Europe really is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.59.166 ( talk) 21:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Because the map has Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales coloured the same as England it could give the false impression that the various Celtic languages found in these countries are Germanic or that Germanic languages are the only ones spoken in these places. In contrast, Belgium doesn't have the entire area within its border coloured like this and so accounts for French being spoken in addition to Dutch. There is also the problem of the map not being labeled with dates despite being in the history section. From the way it looks I've assumed it represents the spread of Germanic languages currently spoken in Europe, but if it's supposed to represent the spread Germanic languages much earlier than ~1850 then it becomes very flawed with respect to Celtic languages. 02:45, 20 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meltyman ( talk • contribs)
The map is wrong in many places. East Frisian is only spoken in a tiny portion of Lower Saxony and not on the North Sea Coast. Frisian is spoken in northern Germany and not southern Denmark as it shows. It also has the island of Ruegen the wrong color as the rest of Germany. The map implies that only English is spoken in Ireland and Scotland. Not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.82.146.129 ( talk) 14:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
The map "The present-day distribution of the Germanic languages in Europe" is wrong about the northern part of Norway: A large majority, also in the counties of Troms and Finnmark, speak Norwegian. (It is only in the two municipalities of Karasjok and Kautokeino that Sami speaking people is a majority of native speakers.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.215.163.110 ( talk) 20:13, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Linguistic evidence actually shows that Crimean Gothic is a West Germanic language, contrary to traditional belief. Shouldn't this somehow be altered in the article? I do not have a written source at hand, regrettably, I'm only going by what's been told to me by Harald Bjorvand, professor of germanistic linguistics at the University of Oslo. Does anyone else have a written source? I believe the misconception has arisen due to geographical reasons, seeing as Crimean Gothic was a germanic language spoken in an area assosicated with the Goths.-- Alexlykke ( talk) 19:35, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
|I find it worth noting the range and depth of the phenomenon that is Germanic loanwords. Other than the Classical languages of Latin and Greek I believe the Germanic languages to be among the most influential in terms of vocabulary and loanwords. If you look to almost any European language you will soon find a Germanic loan in its vocabulary. It is worth considering the historical implications that this has had.
I believe it originates from the Germanic speakers as being in the right place at the right time after the Roman era. They were the most widespread tribes in the area other than the Roman descendants and the Celts, so the new technologies and cultural practices that emerged in the post-Roman period were largely named by these speakers. These words soon became easy to pass on to new peoples in Europe and along with the return of interest in the Classical languages the Germanic tongues became the most prolific givers of words.
While not as pure a group of languages as say, the Baltic tongues (who are the closest to Proto Indo-European), I think this again warrants mention in the article. I'm not going to add such a section yet until I see some opinions.| CormanoSanchez ( talk) 01:30, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
|I am merely suggesting such a section. I don't think I possess the proper number of sources and material to write it on my own without unintentionally violating policy. But I am open to any other editor with more experience to create such a section| CormanoSanchez ( talk) 17:27, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
|Proposed section outline:
Historical context: brief discussion of range of Germanic loans and numbers. I'm sure there are many linguists and other academics who realize the size and influence of Germanic loanwords so their input would be appreciated as proper sources for citations.
Perhaps a brief history of certain important loans throughout the centuries and to which languages.
A mention of the idea of ersatz (which is already in brief on the German language page) and the formation of certain word roots which have been used to preserve words.
Historical implications: What the amount of Germanic loans means, especially in the case of English, and historical examples of their effects on other languages.
Again, all these parts of the section would be supported by the writings of linguists and academics who understand and possess the evidence of the loans.|
CormanoSanchez (
talk) 18:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Could it be stated that a common feature of germanic (separating it from other IE languages) is the option of a zero-article? I am not sure about this by any means, it just occurred to me how rather than Latin or Sanskrit who have no articles ever... French/Spanish (for example) seem to need them excessively (course, compared to germanic languages). It seems that generalness in Romance languages is handled much more differently... I don't know about Celtic languages, for example... (only that they don't have indefinite pronouns)
Any ideas as to what's going on here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Retailmonica ( talk • contribs) 17:04, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Yiddish is a Germanic language derived from Middle High German and closely related to modern German, and it is spoken by 3 million people. I was surprised to see it missing from this page, other than in a footnote. I would follow WP:SOFIXIT, but I fear I'd make a mess of including it as I'm not that familiar with linguistics. Fences and windows ( talk) 22:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused about the placing of Scots in the timeline/tree.
The northern part of the Kingdom of Northumbria was incorporated into Scotland right at the start of the Middle English period, so surely this would be where the split was?
Certainly, the big language change of the time was the Norman invasion of England, and as the Scots-speaking Lothian (modern East and Mid Lothian and Borders regions) was never part of the conquered Norman territory it's unlikely that "Middle English" per se was ever spoken there.
McClure's definition of it coming from Northumbrian Old English and the Oxford description of it seem to support the classification of it as having an evolution independent of what is recognised as Middle English. Prof Wrong ( talk) 21:18, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I'm adding the info here, in case anyone wants to make use of it. Since no-one ever bothered to link to it, I assume there isn't much need for a separate article. If anyone here wants to restore it, please do so, and link appropriately from this or other articles. kwami ( talk) 00:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
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This page offers a comparison between those words belonging to some languages of the Germanic branch ( English, German, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish), words of common origin, that still maintain the same meaning. The list only considers English words having a German equivalent with the same Proto-Germanic stem, or English words hailing from Old Norse language; those latter are CAPITALIZED. The goal of this work is to show the words' phonetic evolution of the Germanic languages, because in every line is reported the original Proto-Germanic term, if it is known. The words in (brackets) are equivalents without the same Proto-Germanic stem; if the box is empty, no equivalent has been found; if there are three dots in the box, the English word has more than an equivalent but no one shares the stem.
Main source: Oxford English Dictionary, ed. 1964 |
The internal grouping of the West Germanic languages is still unresolved (see e.g. Ringe's recent book "From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic"), but the tree as (formerly) given, which splits Anglo-Frisian against Old High German/Old Saxon/Old Low Franconian is certainly wrong. The proper division is almost certainly between OHG and all the other languages (Ringe's "Northern West Germanic" grouping). The basic reason for this is that the Northern West Germanic languages share a number of innovations that are not present in OHG:
The second item -- the development of Class III weak verbs -- seems particularly important as it is such a specific change and because the developments in northern WG vs. OHG were radically different. According to Ringe, Class III was actually two different classes in Proto-Germanic: (1) a stative class with endings -ja/-ai in the present and no linking vowel in the past; (2) a "factitive" class with endings -ā/-ai in the present and a linking vowel -a in the past. It's likely that both of these classes persisted down through Proto-West-Germanic. Essentially what happened is:
Benwing ( talk) 02:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
Low Franconian and Low Saxon are two separate groups. The language of the Hanseatic League was Low German and this included the Low Franconian and Low Saxon varieties. Historically, there were no two separate languages, but there was a so-called dialect continuum.
Making a difference between High German and the Low German (including Dutch) is already questionable in both ways, but separating the Low German in two different categories (Dutch and Low German) is simply incorrect.
Frisian | English | Dutch | German |
---|---|---|---|
dei | day | dag | Tag |
rein | rain | regen | Regen |
wei | way | weg | Weg |
neil | nail | nagel | Nagel |
tsiis | cheese | kaas | Käse |
tsjerke | church | kerk | Kirche |
tegearre | together | samen | zusammen |
wiet | wet | nat | nass |
sibbe | sibling | verwante | Verwandte |
kaai | key | sleutel | Schlüssel |
ha west | have been | ben geweest | bin gewesen |
twa skiep | two sheep | twee schapen | zwei Schafe |
yndie(d) | indeed | inderdaad | in der Tat |
ús | us | ons | uns |
hynder | horse | paard | Pferd |
brea | bread | brood | Brot |
hier | hair | haar | Haar |
ear | ear | oor | Ohr |
doar | door | deur | Tür |
grien | green | groen | Grün |
stiel | steel | staal | Stahl |
read | red | rood | Rot |
giel ( Sf. Jeel) | yellow | geel | Gelb |
swiet | sweet | zoet | süβ |
troch | through | door | durch |
hawwe | have | hebben | haben |
tinke | thinking | denken | denken |
lyts | little | klein | klein |
In this table you will find English and Frisian on the one side, and German and Dutch on the other side. The so-called Low Saxon or Low German varieties should be somewhere between the Dutch and German language. I propose you merge Low Franconian and Low Saxon, otherwise you need at least three new linguistic groups for Frisian as well. Kind regards -- Kening Aldgilles ( talk) 00:41, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
Hello Kening. I've been out of the country for 5 weeks and just got back. Can you explain more clearly what your concerns are with the current layout and what you want it to look like instead? However, before proposing anything I'd suggest you look somewhat more into the actual linguistic reasons why the Germanic languages are grouped as they are. You are arguing primarily on surface similarities of various words in the modern languages, which is not a valid way of grouping languages historically and suggests you don't have a background in historical linguistics. Benwing ( talk) 00:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
Hello!
I translated File:Einteilung der Germanen nach Maurer.de.svg from German to English File:Einteilung der Germanen nach Maurer.en.svg – as far as I could. It illustrates the subdivion of the Germanic languages and peoples according to :de:Friedrich Maurer.
Would someone like to check if the names of peoples and languages are correct? Especially my translation of "Germanen" (Latin "Germani", i.e. members of a Germanic people). According to the English wiktionary, it is "Germans", too...
The other translations (English and Latin ones) are taken from the English wikipedia, and I think that they are correct. Thanks in advance. -- MaEr ( talk) 08:39, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Norwegian is placed as a descendant of the Old East Norse, therefore, the Old West Norse should be moved one space to accommodate the Old Norwegian. Also, Old Gutnish should be occupying both the Early Middle ages and the Middle ages spaces. Mmasalleras ( talk) 13:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
Madagascar shouldn't be coloured on the map because English is no longer official there (and actually not very known). Aaker ( talk) 21:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
One new study reports that English could/should be classified as North Germanic. http://www.apollon.uio.no/english/articles/2012/4-english-scandinavian.html Inge ( talk) 13:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm no expert in this field, but as a Scot it doesn't required you to be an expert to know that Scots English dialects display a huge amount of Norse vocabulary- and a few grammatical features. At what point people want to start drawing lines isn't clear to me, but the considerable Scandinavian history & influence in/on Scotland is undeniable. 92.40.253.86 ( talk) 11:17, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
If one understands dialect to mean variant forms of one language used in a a more or less circumscribable area, Franconian (and others) is as much a dialect of German as Yorkshire is a dialect of English. The only Lowland Scots that I have ever read was used by Mary Queen of Scots in her letters. It is so similar to English that it is quite easy to read. It is much easier to read than, say, Beowulf or even Wulfstan's Sermon to the English (11th cent.). I find it difficult think of it as anything other than a language with the same history of development, so a dialect of English. Pamour ( talk) 13:16, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
I'd suggest the Lowland Scots of Burns would tax you a bit more, as a Glaswegian (a dialect largely fairly light on Scots vocab)I can't make head nor tail of it.
And I agree with CodeCat, that in linguistics a dialect is merely a variation that is/has been at point on a continuum. If you really want to push it, you can measure mutual intelligibility... but often it seems that arguments around "language" versus "dialect" are emotionally-driven political identity arguments rather than scientific ones. 92.40.253.86 ( talk) 11:11, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Surely the standardised dialects aren't the best yardstick for taxonomy? This paragraph is also very bad at getting across what it actually means. If you are familiar with comparative linguistics, a few readings gets you there, but I fear it'll read like gibberish to someone new to the subject. 92.40.253.86 ( talk) 11:05, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
Why is such a backdoor application such as http://www.ethnologue.com used as a reference. Many of their contentions about language are primitive at best. It just a shoddy product and yet it is cited as if it has some authority and as if it is viable research which it is clearly not. It is the intellectual equivalent of using already soiled toilet paper in a bathroom environment... Is its use on Wikipedia the result of someone furthering their business interest in this less than standard product? Stevenmitchell ( talk) 02:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia! 88.90.184.135 ( talk) 21:55, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
According to this diagram, Fife is a multilingual area while Lewis isn't. As anyone who has even visited these places could tell you, let alone lived in them, this is grossly inaccurate. Lewis is an English-speaking island, with a significant number of Gaelic speakers. Fife speaks English and is monolingual. Similarly, any attempts to claim that Lothian and Borders, in 2013, speak "Scots" is misguided. The language is much closer to English than it is to the Scots of 70 years back, when it was genuinely a distinct and distinctive dialect (if not a separate language). Given these offensively gross errors, I'm exceedingly loathe to trust anything plotted on this chart at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.90.184.135 ( talk) 21:53, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Added 'Pop Goes the Weasel' and 'Able was I ere I saw Elba' as further examples. I've never heard the two examples that were previously the only ones cited, but I am sure the two I added are better known. Furthermore, both are already referenced within Wikipedia. Meaning of Fife ( talk) 23:34, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any mention of Flemish/Vlaams in the Article. Is there an assumption that Nederlands is a common language between the Dutch and the Belgians? Even between the Flemish provinces there are variations in dialectic words and between Dutch and Flemish even the basic alphabet has phonic differences e.g. "g" takes on a different sounding. The diminutive in Dutch is an "icke" whereas in Vlaams more likely "tje" Also the influence of the Monarchy/Aristocracy also sees a lot of borrowed French words adapted into Flemish e.g. a small present would be cadeautje but in Dutch geschenk 74.103.167.2 ( talk) 15:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC) CED (Not scientific input - just a Celt raising a few questions) Both examples are actually reversed. Also, besides the obvious pronunciation and day-to-day seperateness of 2 nations, both everyday languages are relatively similar and mutually intelligible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.213.38.233 ( talk) 00:20, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
Why there is no such way for South Germanic languages?
I think the diachronic table needs to be replaced by something explicitly based on a published source. As it stands the table is in breach of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. There are problems which cannot be fixed simply by editorial tweaking:
I don't see how the job can be done in a table - I think we need to source a suitable diagram, or, if we can't find a copyright-free diagram that represents current thinking, create a new diagram based on a single published source. Something like the one on p. 49 of Keller's The German Language, say. -- Pfold ( talk) 11:32, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
The article needs serious rewriting. I'm a fan of historical linguistics or philology, but there's way too much historical information and it's sprinkled through every section in the article, without regard for whether it's actually helpful. We need more information on the phonology, morphology, and syntax of modern Germanic languages.
For instance, the Phonology section should discuss the phonemic inventories and phonological features of modern Germanic languages, like Slavic languages § Common features and Indo-Aryan languages § Phonology. The sound changes that happened between Proto-Germanic and the old Germanic languages belong in another section, because they don't really help a reader understand how modern English, Dutch, Standard German, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic are different. The real differences between the modern Germanic languages have to do with presence or absence of phonemes (the dorsal fricative /x/ and semivowel /w/, postalveolars, affricates, front rounded vowels) and different phonological features (pitch accent, vowel length, diphthongs, different features of fortis and lenis obstruents, greater or lesser vowel reduction). More on these things is needed.
The Characteristics section is also confusing. We need to distinguish between features that happen to be important for classifying the Germanic languages as a separate branch of the Indo-European family, and features that are actually rare or unique to the Germanic languages as compared with other languages around the world. The Germanic consonant shift isn't a unique feature, because it results in the same voiced and voiceless stops and fricatives that are found in other language families around the world. Similarly, large vowel inventories are found in other language families, and so is vowel reduction and a present-past contrast. Probably some features listed are typologically distinctive, but I'm not sure which.
I may work on fixing these problems, but help would be appreciated. — Eru· tuon 06:58, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
There were never a vikingish language:
In Bósa saga ok Herrauðs is to read:
There is, however, no such thing as a former Norseman, mentioned in the sources. Dan Koehl ( talk) 22:49, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Egil Skallagrimsson saga: Björn var farmaður mikill, var stundum í víking, en stundum í kaupferðum; Björn var hinn gervilegasti maður. (english: Björn was a great traveller; sometimes as viking, sometimes as tradesman.
So, a Norseman could be a viking for some time, and he could be a tradesman (or a baker, or a shepherd) for some time. But not all tradesmen, bakers, shepherds and vikings were Norseman.
Norseman spoke norse, but norse vikings did not speak vikingish, and norse shepherds did not speak shepherdish or bakerish.
Norsemen had norse culture, but there was no norse viking, baker or shepherd culture.
I think its important to remind people today about the term Norsemen, an accepted term by historians and archelogists, referring to people from the north, present Scandinavia. This term does not have any certain time limit, the Norsemen were norse in years, 400, 500, 657, 749, 803, 950, 1066 and 1100. Norsemen is a true ethnical group, for some reason neglected on Wikipedia. Whenever the word viking is mentioned, it can correctly be replaced by the term Norsemen in 95% of the cases. Norsemen are described in other Wikipedia languages, and since the english Wikipedia should be written from a global point of view, the term Norse and Norsemen should not be treated different.
The first documented use of the word viking is made by Orosius, written in latin, and translated into old english. There is to read about Alexander the Great´s father, Philip II of Macedonia: Philippus vero post longam obsidionem, ut pecuniam quam obsidendo exhauserat, praedando repararet, piraticam adgressus est. translated into: ac he scipa gegaderade, and i vicingas wurdon. In this time the word pirat was not used in the english language, the latin piraticam was directly translated to vicingus.
Interestingly enough, theres stories in the sagas, describing arabic piates, and they were in the sagas referred to, as vikings. = Vikings could be arabs practising piracy, and vikings could be macedonian kings practising piracy, but peaceful norse farmers, and their wifes, were never, ever, described as vikings before 1900.
For over 1 000 years, viking was nothing else than an old-english translation of the latin word pirate.
A macedonian king will never, ever, become scandinavian. An arabic pirat will never become scandinavian.
But a norseman was scandinavian, and the present scandinavians are descendants of Norsemen, according to historians and archelogists.
The sentence The linguistic contact of the Viking settlers of the Danelaw with the Anglo-Saxons left traces in the English language reflects a very poor knowledge in what viking actually means. As well as poor knowledge in the term Norsemen.
'Viking is a controversial term, Norsemen is not. For some reason, some people absolutely wants to call my ancestors vikings, which is historically incorrect and besides, unpolite. The Scandinavians as a an ethnic group, is more or less the same as Norsemen, Theres no problem whatsoever to use the correct term.
Dan Koehl (
talk) 23:19, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Quebec official language is French, so shouldn't be colored on the map as a germanic language territory.
Never heard of anyone recognizing it as a separate language on the same level and comparable to German, Swedish or English. Its a dialect of Dutch. Ernio48 ( talk) 19:13, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
From this map, one gets the impression that central Europe was populated from the North. I strongly doubt this. I do however know that Finnish-Ugrian languages came from the East, split up in Russia and became the Magyars and Finnish which at least explains why Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are related. In any case, was Scandinavia Populated from south to north. (With a possible excepton of the Sami peole, who came from the East, I think). Boeing720 ( talk) 23:32, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Frisian | English | Dutch | German | Danish | Swedish |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
dei | day | dag | Tag | dag | dag |
rein | rain | regen | Regen | regn | regn |
wei | way | weg | Weg | vej | väg |
neil | nail | nagel | Nagel | nagel | nagel |
tsiis | cheese | kaas | Käse | ost | ost |
tsjerke | church | kerk | Kirche | kirke | kyrka |
tegearre | together | samen | zusammen | sammen | tilsammans |
wiet | wet | nat | nass | våd | våt |
sibbe | sibling | verwante | Verwandte | søskende | syskon |
kaai | key | sleutel | Schlüssel | nøgle | nyckel |
ha west | have been | ben geweest | bin gewesen | har været | har varit |
twa skiep | two sheep | twee schapen | zwei Schafe | to får | två får |
yndie(d) | indeed | inderdaad | in der Tat | sandelig | verkligen |
ús | us | ons | uns | os | oss |
hynder | horse | paard | Pferd | hest | häst |
brea | bread | brood | Brot | brød | bröd |
hier | hair | haar | Haar | hår | hår |
ear | ear | oor | Ohr | øre | öra |
doar | door | deur | Tür | dør | dörr |
grien | green | groen | Grün | grøn | grön |
stiel | steel | staal | Stahl | stål | stål |
read | red | rood | Rot | rød | röd |
giel ( Sf. Jeel) | yellow | geel | Gelb | gul | gul |
swiet | sweet | zoet | süβ | sød | söt |
troch | through | door | durch | igennem | genom |
hawwe | have | hebben | haben | ha | ha |
tinke | thinking | denken | denken | tænke | tänka |
lyts | little | klein | klein | lille | liten |
Just for possible use or interest Boeing720 ( talk) 23:59, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
User:Pfold Under the Indo-European languages exists fife subgroups
All five groups are equally related to the Indo-European base. (All Indo-European languages have the same classes of words (although some are discussed as words of classes or not, like atricles and numbers)
This applies also to the Greek language. (The alphabet used has nothing to do with linguistic relations). About the lead-sentence which mentions all sub-branches of the Indo-European languages - either it has to mention all five, or only state "Germanic languages is one of five Indo-European branches" - or something in line with that. Boeing720 ( talk) 00:35, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Reply also to another user. (IF using Italic, then is Germanic larger; if using Romance, then they are larger than Germanic. The sentence listed all sub-branches from the largest to the smallest. Forgot Hellenistic languages - iow. Greek language, and made a blur of the sorting order by gathered speakers. Boeing720 ( talk) 00:50, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
But in Europe there are three major sub-branches today , Italic cannot be used about "native speakers today"
Indo-European languages are divided into the following five sub-groups (of which this article deals with one of them - Germanic languages)
All of these sub-branches (except perhaps Hellenistic) can be divided further. Balto-Slavic , can be split in at least North-Slavic (Russian, Polish), South-Slavic (Bulgaian, Slovenian) Baltic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian). Romance languages can be divided into Italic languages and Iberian languages. And we also have West-Germanic and East-Germanic and somewhere also Scandinavian languagers etc. Any objections so far ?
Then we have - regarding this article, Germanic languages an early lead sentence (with germanic languages = it )
Since this clearly is a comparing statement, must the comparison be true. But fist - the Hellenistc subbranch is totally forgotten. Although there is no doubts about modern Greek as being an Indo-European , Hellenistc language (without relation to any of the other four sub-branches). If we must continue to compare the five sub-branches, must we also mention either "Hellenistic languages" or "Greek". Objections this far ? But putting the Germanic languages behind Italic languages, in a question of size, number of current day speakers, is wrong. If however avoid Italic languages (which is a sub-branch of a sub-branch really) and use all languages based on Latin - or Romance languages, then the sentence will possibly be true.
Proposal: Either just mentioning Germanic Languages to be one out of five sub-branches of Indo-European languages - or change the sentence in question to
And preferably by using a source which can especially show that Germanic languages is smaller than Romance languages. In any case is Italic languages only a part of the larger Romance language. And Hellenistic languages (=Greek) are forgotten. How this blur emerged is a good question. Boeing720 ( talk) 13:23, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Frisian is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. This sentence has no reference. According to this study, mutually intelligibilty between West Frisian and North Frisian is at 38%. Furthermore, there are different ISO codes for the Frisian languages. Sarcelles ( talk) 11:41, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Is "Teutonic languages" a synonym -- or an outdated synonym -- for Germanic languages? -- Neitram ( talk) 18:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
I edited the article to say that V2 word order is "largely absent" in English rather than "no longer present" as the article itself already provides numerous counterexamples. I think this may be worth expanding on though, as to me it seems that what is really meant here is that "V2 word order typically sounds unnatural or archaic in modern English, and in some cases may be grammatically incorrect."
I don't know if there's a good source for this anywhere though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A443:F91D:1:E57F:8EF5:E864:13FC ( talk) 21:32, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Quebec should not be colored dark red. English is not its primary language (as we correctly note on the map on the English language) page. Funnyhat ( talk) 19:16, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
There is a mistake in /info/en/?search=Germanic_languages#Classification. Modern German and Yiddish are a descendents of Old High German, not Central German. The rest appears correct. Azerty82 ( talk) 21:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect German groups. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Germanic groups. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Germanic group. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:52, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect German group. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Utopes ( talk / cont) 22:52, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to be blunt, but the diachronic table simply does not belong in this article.
I'm sure a lot of work has gone in to this table, but that's not enough to justify its inclusion. No amount of tweaking is going to rescue it from from WP:OR. -- Pfold ( talk) 18:21, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
It might help us trim the vocab comparison table if we knew what exactly the purpose of it was. There are a number of cases where the languages in fact use different words, die, starve, for example, or head vs. cognates of Kopf. What is it we are trying to show with this table? Is it sound changes? Common vocab (which would eliminate the two examples I just gave)? Variety? At the moment the thing is far too long to be of any real use and attracts constant additions of some additional word that looks similar in some number of Germanic languages. It might be best to just select a small number of particularly representative items (pronouns and numbers for instance).-- Ermenrich ( talk) 15:33, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Why not add a Proto-Germanic reconstruction? It would make sense to show how all the forms are related.-- Berig (talk) 05:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
what about Faroese? It’s very similar to Icelandic and about as widely spoken as Luxembourgish I would assume. I’m also not sure we need Afrikaans.—- Ermenrich ( talk) 19:24, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
I've fiddled around with it some more - let me know if you think there's anything else we should add or subtract. If we could find a word that has "-dg-" in English and -kk- in German that also exists in Norse and Gothic that would be great. The obvious words like "ridge", "bridge", "midge", and "edge" all seem to be missing in Gothic.
I was also thinking a clear example of rhoticism might be nice, such as "to hear".-- Ermenrich ( talk) 22:02, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
What about Plautdietsch as representative of Low Saxon? It's based on East Low German (and indeed very similar to the Platt I've heard from old folks who still grew up speaking Low Prussian), and much less influenced by Standard German than Low German as spoken in present-day northern Germany. – Austronesier ( talk) 16:21, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Would it perhaps make sense to include numbers 1-10 (or twelve) and maybe some multiples of ten in a separate table?-- Ermenrich ( talk) 13:32, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
@ Alcaios, Austronesier, Pfold, and Berig: the section on language at Germanic peoples is currently much better sourced and written than this article, despite not yet even covering everything that probably should be covered there. That article is oversized however. I wonder if we could move that text here and then cut it down in size and scope there. However, given the different organization of the two articles, we need to figure out exactly how we want to do that first.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 18:03, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
@ UsagiDreams: there is a consensus on this page not to include every Germanic language. We only include one version of Frisian, one version of Low German, one High German language, and one version of Norwegian, although two are official in Norway. This has nothing to do with being a bigot, it has to do with showing our readers variety within the Germanic family. Scots and English are similar enough that they would often be exactly the same (the same reason we don't include Afrikaans).-- Ermenrich ( talk) 18:52, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
In the Article is a Vocabulary comparison Table where it is assumed that the "Standargerman" spelling is called just German! That is much too imprecise.
Westfrisian and Lowgerman get their own table columns even though almost no one speaks this language any more. the bavarian language, on the other hand, is alive! 320luca ( talk) 16:52, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
EDIT: An even better Word would be "neuhochdeutsche Schriftsprache" in case of German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 320luca ( talk • contribs) 23:10, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
The discussions at the article Southtyroleans (created by the OP of this discussion) need the attention of the editors of this page.-- Ermenrich ( talk) 16:23, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
The infobox map European Germanic languages includes Irish, Welsh, Cornish, and Manx which are Celtic rather than Germanic languages. Perhaps understandably since they are not Germanic languages they are not mentioned anywhere in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.66.115.96 ( talk) 08:24, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Elfdalian should be under Daleclarian dialects on the family tree Cinnamon338 ( talk) 13:30, 27 March 2024 (UTC)