Table Of Content1
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Germanic as a Family
1.1 The Germanic language family
Early references to the Germanic tribes are made by the Romans, with whom the
Germanic peoples had daily contact. The Roman military shaped the Germanic social
and political organization. Germanic mercenaries in the Roman army were numerous
along the Rhine, where the Romans had established two major provinces. The Roman
cities of Colōnia Agrippīna ‘the colony of (named after) Agrippa’ (Cologne / Köln) and
Augusta Trēverōrum ‘imperial (city) of the Treveri’ (Trèves / Trier) were along major
trade routes. Apart from the lower Rhine area (to Trier and Cologne), there was contact
between Romans and various Germanic tribes in Holland, Gaul, and Britain.
2 Germanic as a Family
Given the spread of the Germanic tribes over much of continental Europe, England, and
Scandinavia, it is not surprising that in different areas they spoke different dialects. It is
even less surprising that the most eastern of the Germanic tribes, the Goths, in the Black
Sea area, spoke rather differently from the rest of the Germanic tribes.
The fact that Gothic was attested some five centuries earlier than any of the other
Germanic languages also contributed to the split between East Germanic (Gothic) and
Northwest Germanic (the rest). Northwest Germanic in turn subdivides naturally into
North Germanic (Scandinavian) and West Germanic (German, Dutch, English).
Germanic as a Family 3
Gothic is attested in (portions of) the Bible translation ascribed to Wulfila ‘Little Wolf’
[c.369], part of a commentary on the Gospel of John, several land sale and debt
settlement deeds from Italy, and a few other fragments. There is also a variety of Gothic
that survived in the Crimea into the eighteenth century, from which roughly a hundred
entries were recorded but handed down in poor shape.
The main early representative of North Germanic is Old Norse (ON) and its
derivative Old Icelandic (OIce). Since Iceland was settled from Norway [c.874], there
are few archaic differences between Icelandic and Norwegian. The most extensive
literary texts are from Iceland and begin during the Viking era [c9].
4 Germanic as a Family
Old Norse is properly Old West Nordic, the ancestor of Icelandic, Faroese, and
Norwegian. Old East Nordic is the ancestor of Danish and Swedish.
West Germanic consists of Old English, Old Saxon, and the remainder of the
continental languages, High, Middle, and Low German. The last includes Old Low
Franconian, Dutch, and Old Frisian.
More detail will be given about each of these languages in the appropriate places.
1.2 The Indo-European ancestor
Germanic is a western branch of a large language family known as Indo-European (IE).
More properly, the ancestor language from which all of the IE languages descended is
PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN (PIE). A PROTO-LANGUAGE (Gk. prõtos ‘first’) refers to the
earliest form of a language family presupposed by all of its descendants. The
relationship between PIE and Germanic is the same as that between Proto-Germanic and
its daughter languages, Gothic, Old High German, Old English, Old Norse, etc.
The Indo-European family extends from Iceland to Chinese Turkestan and from
Scandinavia to the Near East. Other western descendants from Indo-European include
Greek, Latin, and Celtic.
Figure 1 is an approximate geographical overview of the Indo-European family.
Germanic as a Family 5
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6 Germanic as a Family
A large number of animals recur across the oldest IE languages and for that reason
can be reconstructed as roots of the proto-language. Among the best attested animals are
the wolf, bear, elk, beaver, otter, eel, salmon trout, goose, duck, and bee. These invite
the conclusion that the Indo-Europeans dwelt in a forested region of Eurasia with a
temperate climate. The absence of grouse excludes the far north, and absence of
reconstructable words for crocodile, elephant, cobra, python, camel, monkey, lion, tiger,
cat, ass would also suggest a temperate Eurasian homeland.
Other areas are excluded by the absence of certain types of vegetation, e.g. palm, vine,
olive, banana, banyan, bamboo, sandalwood, rice, lotus. These words occur only in
Germanic as a Family 7
Sanskrit (ancient India) and some other southern Indo-European languages, in or near
locations where such vegetation grows, and the words are invariably borrowed from
languages of those areas.
Some fifteen well documented tree types also suggest a temperate forested area, the
far north being excluded by absence of a common word for fir or spruce. Attested trees
include beech, birch, and oak. The problem is that most of the tree-names are shared
with Finno-Ugric (and Altaic), e.g. aspen, yew, and it is not clear whether the
correspondences are due to (distant) genetic relationship, contact, or both. The apple
was not PIE but a northern Eurasian word.
Classification of IE migrations and language groupings by culture (c.)
8 Germanic as a Family
The common Indo-European words for snow, ice, and frost support a temperate climate,
as do inherited words for the four seasons. Together with the absence of a word for
ocean or island, these considerations are consistent with a homeland in Eurasia,
northeast of the Black Sea. Additional evidence comes from languages of the Caucasus.
[T]he regions where PIE was spoken were near both the Urals — which was the old and persistent
border between neolithic and hunter-gatherer societies during the fourth and third millennia BC — and
the Caucasus. There is little doubt that PIE influenced Proto-Uralic, and loanwords into that proto-
language are counted by the dozens …. (Matasović 2012: 285)
The Anatolian branch (Hittite and its closest relatives) may have split from the rest of
Indo-European in the lower Dnieper region and settled Anatolia (modern Turkey) in M3
BCE. The European branch of Indo-Europeans expanded westward probably by way of
the Ukrainian steppes along the Dnieper c.3500 BCE.
Germanic as a Family 9
1.3 Where did the Germanic tribes come from?
Having seen that an early group of Indo-European speakers migrated westward, the
question is how the Germanic tribes ended up where they did.
The main evidence for the location of a Germanic tribe outside of Germania (loosely
translated as ‘Germanic territory’) involves the Goths. According to the sixth century
historian Jordanes, the Goths moved from Scandinavia to Scandza near the mouth of the
Vistula, then southeast in the second century and split around the Black Sea.
The usual interpretation of Jordanes’ Gothiscandza is *Gutisk andja ‘Gothic end /
coast’, possibly Gdańsk. This is based in part on the identification of the Wielbark
culture (between the Oder and the Vistula) with the Goths.
10 Germanic as a Family
There is no secure evidence for a Scandinavian origin of the Goths. The immigrating
East Germanic tribes could have split, some continuing west to Poland and East
Germany, others south to Moesia, west of the Black Sea. Rather than the point of origin
of the Goths, the Wielbark culture could have been one of their settlements.
The Germanic tribes probably moved into their respective locations from an area near
Lithuania, as indicated by several shared features. For instance, Germanic has a pronoun
*hwar-ja-z in Goth. ƕarjis ‘who, which?’ and ON hverr ‘who?’. Since this is matched by
Lithuanian kurs̃ ‘who’ (relative) < kur ̃+ jìs, it most likely constitutes an innovation
along the Baltic perimeter.
Germanic and Baltic also share an intensifying s-, as in Eng. lather / slather, Germ.
trudeln ‘roll’ / strudeln ‘whirl’, Lith. mùkti ‘escape; slip away’ : smùkti ‘slide away’.
Germanic had to be a separate Indo-European family before the fifth century BCE.
This is indicated by the Germanic change of *kanab- (cf. Pers. kanab) to OE hænep
HEMP (see the next section). Gk. kánnabis ‘hemp; hemp seed’, Lith. kanãpės, etc., were
borrowed from a non-IE language. The plant was known to the Greeks from Scythia in
c5 BCE. Herodotus [c.484–25] describes its use as new. If the word was borrowed
Description:of Colōnia Agrippīna 'the colony of (named after) Agrippa' (Cologne / Köln) relationship between PIE and Germanic is the same as that between
