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Germanic languages, branch of the Indo-European languagefamily. 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 few other tribes.

In numbers of native speakers, English, with 450 million, clearly ranks 4th among the languages of the world (after Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish); German, with some 98 million, probably ranks 10th (after Bengali, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, and Japanese). To these figures may be added those for persons with another native language who have learned one of the Germanic languages for commercial, scientific, literary, or other purposes. English is unquestionably the world’s most widely used second language.

See table for information on each of the modern standard Germanic languages.

 

                                                     

                 where spoken                       approximate number  use as a 

                                                    of native speakers  second language 

 

English          Great Britain, Ireland, United         450,000,000     extreme 

                   States, Canada, Australia, 

                   New Zealand, South Africa

German           Germany, Austria, Switzerland           98,000,000     extensive 

                   (part) 

Netherlandic     The Netherlands, Belgium                21,000,000     moderate 

  (Dutch,          (part) 

  Flemish) 

Swedish          Sweden, Finland (part)                   8,000,000     slight  

Afrikaans        South Africa (part), Namibia (part)      6,000,000     slight

Danish           Denmark                                  5,000,000     slight 

Norwegian        Norway                                   4,000,000     slight 

Frisian          The Netherlands, Germany                   400,000      -- 

Yiddish          various countries                          400,000     slight

Icelandic        Iceland                                    260,000      -- 

Faroese          Faroe Islands                               44,000      --

The source for the English-, Netherlandic-, and Yiddish-language figures is

B.E. Grimes (ed.), Ethnologue (1992); other figures, except Frisian, are from

various official country sources.

West Germanic subgroup

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,FrisianDutch (Netherlandic-Flemish), AfrikaansGerman, andYiddish.

English

English and Frisian are descended from North Sea Germanic. The most striking changes that distinguish them from the other Germanic languages are the loss of nasal sounds before the Proto-Germanic voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, and *s (contrast the following pairs of words, in which English loses the nasal but German preserves it: before fsoft/sanft; before þother/ander; before sus/uns, goose/Gans); palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k before front vowels and *j, giving modern English ch (English/German pairs: chin/Kinn, birch [Old English birce]/Birke); and palatalization of Proto-Germanic *ǥ before front vowels, giving modern English y (English/German pairs include yield/gelten, yester-[day]/gestern, yard [Old English geard]/Garten; this palatalized ǥ merged with the j [y sound] from Proto-Germanic *j: year/Jahr).

Other changes include palatalization of gg before j to Old English cg (Proto-Germanic *brugjō, pre-Old English *bruggju, Old English brycg ‘bridge’; contrast the unpalatalized ck from gg of German Brücke ‘bridge’); a front reflex of Proto-Germanic *ē1 (English/German pairs includedeed/Tat, seed/Saat, sleep/schlafen, meal/Mahl); and backing and raising of nasalized ā, from Proto-Germanic *ā and *a before nasal plus f, þ, and s (English/German pairs includebrought/brachte, thought/dachte, other/ander, and goose/Gans).

For further information on English, see English language.

Frisian

A thousand years or so ago Frisian was apparently spoken throughout a North Sea coastal area extending from the modern Netherlands province of Noord-Holland (North Holland) on up to modern German Schleswig and the adjacent offshore islands. During the following centuries the Frisian of much of this area was gradually replaced by local Dutch and Low German dialects, so that Modern Frisian is now spoken in only three remaining areas: (1) West Frisian, in the Dutch province of Friesland, including the island of Schiermonnikoog and two-thirds of the island of Terschelling (altogether some 400,000 speakers), (2) East Frisian, in the German Saterland (some 1,000 speakers; this area was apparently settled in the 12th or 13th century from the former East Frisian area to the north), and (3) North Frisian, along the west coast of German Schleswig and on the offshore islands of Sylt, Föhr, Amrum, the Halligen, and Helgoland (altogether some 8,000 speakers).

History

The earliest manuscripts written in Frisian date from the end of the 13th century, though the legal documents that they contain were probably first composed, in part, as early as the 11th century. This stage of the language, until about 1575, is known as Old Frisian. The last written document of this period dates from 1573, after which Frisian was relatively little used as a written language for some three centuries.

From the start Old Frisian shows all the features that distinguish English and Frisian from the other Germanic languages. These include loss of the nasal sound before Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, and *s (e.g., Proto-Germanic *fimf, *munþ-, and *uns became Old Frisian fīf ‘five,’ mūth ‘mouth,’ and ūs ‘us’), palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k before front vowels and *j (e.g., Proto-Germanic *kinn- and *1kj- became Old Frisian tzin ‘chin’ and lētza ‘physician’ [compare English archaic leech]), and palatalization of Proto-Germanic *ǥ before front vowels (e.g., Proto-Germanic *ǥeldan- became Old Frisian ielda ‘yield’). This merged with the j from Proto-Germanic *j, as in Proto-Germanic *1r- or Old Frisian iēr ‘year.’ In addition, Old Frisian shows palatalization of gg from Proto-Germanic *g before j (e.g., Proto-Germanic *laǥjan-, with doubling *laggjan, became Old Frisian ledza ‘to lay’); a front vowel for Proto-Germanic *ē1, as in Proto-Germanic *dē[eth], Old Frisian dēd; and backing and raising of nasalized ã from Proto-Germanic *ã and Proto-Germanic *a before nasal plus *f, *þ, *s, as in Proto-Germanic *brãxt-, *anþar-, and *gans-, which became Old Frisian brocht ‘brought,’ ōther ‘other,’ and gōs ‘goose.’

About the beginning of the 19th century it appeared that the age-old replacement of Frisian by Dutch and Low German would continue unabated and that the language would soon become extinct. But with 19th-century Romanticism a new interest in local life arose, and societies were formed for the preservation of the Frisian language and culture. Very slowly, the aims of this “Frisian movement” came to be realized, especially in the Netherlands province of Friesland, where in 1937 Frisian was accepted as an optional course in elementary schools; a Frisian Academy was founded in 1938; and in 1943 the first Frisian translation of the Bible was published. In 1955 Frisian was approved as the language of instruction in the first two years of elementary school (though only about one-fourth of all schools use it in this way), and in 1956 the use of Frisian in courts of law was approved.

Despite this gradual reemergence of Frisian, Dutch still functions as the primary standard language of Friesland. Nearly all school instruction is given in Dutch; all daily newspapers are printed in Dutch (though they contain occasional articles in Frisian); and the majority of television and radio broadcasts are in Dutch. There is a small and enthusiastic Frisian literary movement, but its works are not widely read. Furthermore, though Frisian continues to be widely used as the language of everyday oral communication, it is increasingly a “Dutch” Frisian, with numerous borrowings from standard Dutch.

The status of Frisian in the East and North Frisian areas of Germany is far more tenuous. There German performs all the functions of a standard language, and Frisian serves only as yet another local dialect, comparable to the many surrounding local dialects of Low German. No standard North Frisian or East Frisian exists.

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