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The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people [nb 1] mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English, is also the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers.
- West Germanic Languages
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the...
- List of Germanic Languages
The Germanic languages include some 58 (SIL estimate)...
- East Germanic Languages
The East Germanic languages, also called the Oder-Vistula...
- Limburgish
A Limburgish speaker, recorded in Slovakia. Limburgish...
- West Germanic Languages
- Overview
- Linguistic characteristics of the protolanguage
Germanic languages, branch of the Indo-European language family. 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 third among the languages of the world (after Mandarin and Spanish); German, with some 98 million, probably ranks 10th (after Hindi, 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.
The earliest historical evidence for Germanic is provided by isolated words and names recorded by Latin authors beginning in the 1st century bce. From approximately 200 ce there are inscriptions carved in the 24-letter runic alphabet. The earliest extensive Germanic text is the (incomplete) Gothic Bible, translated about 350 ce by the Visigothic bishop Ulfilas (Wulfila) and written in a 27-letter alphabet of the translator’s own design. Later versions of the runic alphabet were used sparingly in England and Germany but more widely in Scandinavia—in the latter area down to early modern times. All extensive later Germanic texts, however, use adaptations of the Latin alphabet.
See table for the names and approximate dates of the earliest recorded Germanic languages.
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Languages & Alphabets
The special characteristics of the Germanic languages that distinguish them from other Indo-European languages result from numerous phonological and grammatical changes.
1. : german. 2. : of, relating to, or characteristic of the Germanic-speaking peoples. 3. : of, relating to, or constituting Germanic. Germanic. 2 of 2. noun. : a branch of the Indo-European language family containing English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian, the Scandinavian languages, and Gothic see Indo-European Languages Table.
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.
Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Germanic languages . Germanic languages, Branch of the Indo-European language family, comprising languages descended from Proto-Germanic.
The Germanic languages are a group of Indo-European languages. They came from one language, Proto-Germanic, which was first spoken in Scandinavia in the Iron Age. Today, the Germanic languages are spoken by around 515 million people as a first language. [1] . English is the most spoken Germanic language, with 360-400 million native speakers. [2]
Sep 30, 2023 · Introduction. You’ve probably heard about language families, and today, we’re talking about the Germanic languages. Imagine, long, long ago, there was a language called Proto-Germanic, spoken around 500 BCE to the 5th century CE. Over time, it split into different branches, like how a family tree has many branches.
