West Germanic | |
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Geographic distribution | Originally between the Rhine, Alps, Elbe, and North Sea; today worldwide |
Linguistic classification | Indo-European Germanic West Germanic |
What countries are West Germanic?
- Austria.
- Belgium (slightly more than 60% majority concentrated in Flanders and the German-speaking Community of Belgium)
- Denmark.
- Germany.
- United Kingdom.
- Netherlands.
- Norway.
- Sweden.
When did German lose the th sound?
Words like Thal were permanently written with “th”, while words like denken were permanently written with “d”. In 1901 the orthography reform finally removed this distinction, replacing Thal with Tal and Thier with Tier.
What are the three important branches of primitive Germanic?
Scholars often divide the Germanic languages into three groups: West Germanic, including English, German, and Netherlandic (Dutch); North Germanic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroese; and East Germanic, now extinct, comprising only Gothic and the languages of the Vandals, Burgundians, and a …
How many West Germanic languages are there?
West Germanic languages, group of Germanic languages that developed in the region of the North Sea, Rhine-Weser, and Elbe. Out of the many local West Germanic dialects the following six modern standard languages have arisen: English, Frisian, Dutch (Netherlandic-Flemish), Afrikaans, German, and Yiddish.
What do West Germanic languages have in common?
All Germanic languages also share similarities when it comes to their sentence and word structure. They all share the same three elements, which are: the root, the inflection, and the stem-forming suffix. The root expresses the lexical meaning. The inflection, also called the ending, shows grammar form.
Which language is not West Germanic?
In their recent book, English: The Language of the Vikings, Joseph Embley Emonds and Jan Terje Faarlund attempt to make the case that from its Middle period onwards, English is a North Germanic language, descended from the Norse varieties spoken in Medieval England, rather than a West Germanic language, as …
Is Frisian Dutch?
Frisian (Frysk) is a Germanic language, spoken by an ethnic minority known as the Frisians in the northern regions of the Netherlands and Germany. It is similar to Dutch, German, Danish and most similar to English. In fact, Frisian is, along with Scottish, the closest living language to English.
Is America a Germanic country?
When it comes to language, the US is definitely Germanic. Nearly all of us speak English. No matter that Spanish is commonly spoken most second generation citizens whose parents spoke Spanish also speak English.
What caused the high german consonant shift?
The Proto-Germanic voiced dental fricative [ð], which was an allophone of /d/ in certain positions, became a plosive [d] in all positions throughout the West Germanic languages. Thus, it affected High German, Low German, Dutch, Frisian and Old English alike.
What languages are part of high German?
High German in this broader sense can be subdivided into Upper German (Oberdeutsch), Central German (Mitteldeutsch, this includes Luxembourgish, which itself is now a standard language), and High Franconian German, which is a transitional dialect between the two.
Is Dutch Low German?
Low German | |
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Linguasphere | 52-ACB |
What is the purest Germanic language?
> Afrikaans is the purest and most beautiful of the Germanic languages.
Is Russian Germanic?
The most common language group would be the Germanic languages, and the third most common is the Romance language group. … The first branch is the East Slavic branch, which includes Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. The West Slavic branch is made up of Czech, Slovak, Polish, and more.
What are the only two tenses of Germanic languages?
The reduction of the various tense and aspect combinations of the Indo-European verbal system into only two: the present tense and the past tense (also called the preterite).
What Germanic language should I learn?
German probably has the most speakers of any of the continental Germanic languages, but if you aren’t working with Germans or living in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, you won’t find much use for it. If you’re a florist or aspire to be you should definitely consider Dutch.
What language family does German belong to?
German belongs to the West Germanic group of the Indo-European language family, along with English, Frisian, and Dutch (Netherlandic, Flemish).
Is English Germanic or Latin?
British and American culture. English has its roots in the Germanic languages, from which German and Dutch also developed, as well as having many influences from romance languages such as French. (Romance languages are so called because they are derived from Latin which was the language spoken in ancient Rome.)
Which language is normally spoken furthest west?
KBC 13: Which of these languages is normally spoken furthest west? German is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol.
What language was spoken in the West?
Western American English | |
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Region | Western United States |
Language family | Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo–Frisian Anglic English North American English American English Western American English |
Early forms | Old English Middle English Early Modern English |
Dialects | California English Pacific Northwest English |
Is English a romance or a Germanic?
So, when it comes down to it, English is a Germanic language, however it has been heavily influenced by the Romance languages over the years. Some even adhere to the Middle English Creole Hypothesis wherein English underwent a simplification between Old English and Middle English.
Is English still a West Germanic language?
The Germanic branch is one of the ten or so Indo-European subfamilies. Germanic languages are English’s distant cousins, so to speak. The Germanic family itself has subgroups; English is in the West Germanic branch along with German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and a few others.
Is French Germanic?
No, French is not a Germanic language, but it is an amalgamation of of chiefly Gallic Celtic and Vulgar Latin (later forming Gallo-Romance) and Frankish. However, French as well as the other Romance languages have numerous words that are of Germanic origin.
Why is English West Germanic?
It’s called a West Germanic language because traditionally languages have been classified by their historical background. Early Old English is essentially identical to Old Frisian, which was a form of low West German (with ‘low’ also reflecting a historic prejudice on the part of Germanic philologists).
How tall are Frisians?
The Friesian’s average height is about 15.3 hands, varying between 14.2 to 17 hands high. The breed’s conformation resembles that of a draft-type horse, but the Friesian is very agile and graceful, and is often used today for dressage competition, pleasure riding, and driving.
What is Frisian descent?
Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group native to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany. They are closely related to the Dutch, Northern Germans, and the English and speak Frisian languages divided by geographical regions.
Is English a Germanic language?
German is widely considered among the easier languages for native English speakers to pick up. That’s because these languages are true linguistic siblings—originating from the exact same mother tongue. In fact, eighty of the hundred most used words in English are of Germanic origin.
Is American English more Germanic?
No. The English language is classified as a Germanic language, regardless of where it’s spoken. Indo-European languages are divided into family groups, according to common roots and the the way the words evolved over time.
Is the US more English or German?
The prevailing language of the United States is English. England had a much stronger impact on the culture and development of the United States than any other country. Now, in surveys, more white Americans claim German (15%) than English (9%) ancestry.
Why is Cincinnati so German?
German-oriented neighborhoods
Its name refers to the second largest river in Germany – the Rhine. It was built in the nineteenth century during a period of extensive German immigration because the geographical look of Cincinnati is similar to German geographical areas.
What is a consonant shift?
Definition of consonant shift
: a set of regular changes in consonant articulation in the history of a language or dialect: a : such a set affecting the Indo-European stops (see stop entry 2 sense 9) and distinguishing the Germanic languages from the other Indo-European languages — compare grimm’s law.
When did the high german consonant shift happen?
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or Second Germanic consonant shift was a phonological development ( sound change) which took place in the southern dialects of the West Germanic in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost complete before the …
Did K shift to Ʃ?
This first palatalization was unconditioned. It resulted in a cluster with a palatal lateral [ʎ], a palatal lateral on its own, or a cluster with a palatal approximant [j]. In a second palatalization, the /k/ was affricated to [tʃ] or spirantized to [ʃ].
Which German accent is the best?
The Bavarian dialect is Germany’s best-loved accent, according to a new poll from monthly magazine Daheim in Deutschland. The lilting southern Bayerisch German accent was favoured by 44 percent of those surveyed.
Where is the purest German spoken?
On the other hand, Northern Germany is considered to be the region that speaks the purest Standard German, and in everyday life, little influence of dialect is heard.
Can High German understand Low German?
There are two low German languages/dialects that very intelligible with High German: Berlinerisch and Brandenburgisch. Most native speakers just think of them as a funny regional variety.
Is Bavarian Low German?
Bavarian | |
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Pronunciation | German: [ˈbaɪʁɪʃ] |
Region | Austria, Bavaria, and South Tyrol |
Ethnicity | Austrians Bavarians South Tyroleans |
Native speakers | 14,000,000 (2016) |
Which German dialect is closest to standard German?
So for traditional dialects (High German as well as Low German dialects), Upper Saxon is certainly the closest to the standard. Upper Saxon is mutually intelligible with the standard.
What came first Dutch or German?
Dutch and German are both Germanic languages that descended from an earlier proto-Germanic language. Rather than one being a dialect of the other you might think of them as cousins who share ancestor.
Is Spanish a Germanic?
Spanish people are descended from Celts and Germanic (Goths and Swabians) peoples on the male side. On the female side they are more Neolithic Farmer (Atlantic). Spaniards are genetically very similar to the French. They also have a strong correlation with the British and Irish peoples.
Is Afrikaans a Germanic language?
Afrikaans language, also called Cape Dutch, West Germanic language of South Africa, developed from 17th-century Dutch, sometimes called Netherlandic, by the descendants of European (Dutch, German, and French) colonists, indigenous Khoisan peoples, and African and Asian slaves in the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good …
Is English North Germanic?
Much of the basic vocabulary of English was adopted from their North Germanic language, Old East Norse. As a result, English is the most North Germanic of the West Germanic languages.