English is included in widespread anda large group called Germanic languages. In this article we will look at it in detail. In turn, this branch enters into an even larger one - Indo-European languages. These include, in addition to the Germans, and others - Hittite, Indian, Iranian, Armenian, Greek, Celtic, Romance, Slavic, and so on. Indo-European languages, therefore, is a broader association.
However, in the family we are interested inits own classification. Germanic languages are divided into the following 2 subgroups: the northern (otherwise called Scandinavian) and western. They all have their own characteristics.
Sometimes distinguished Romano-Germanic languages. These include Germanic and Romance (ascending to Latin).
Languages of the West German subgroup
In West Germanic include Dutch, Frisian, High German, English, Flemish, Boer, Yiddish.
Для большинства населения Великобритании - Northern Ireland, Scotland, England - and also the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Canada is the native English language. In addition, it is distributed in Pakistan, India, South Africa as an official means of communication.
Frisian is popular in the North Sea - it is spoken by people inhabiting the Friesland Islands. Its literary variety has its basis in West Frisian dialects.
Native language for residents of Austria, Germany andSwitzerland is High German. It is also used in the northern parts of the country of Germany by the urban population as a literary. The rural inhabitants of these territories still speak "platoicch", or Low German dialect, a special dialect that was the language in the Middle Ages. It was created folk literature.
Dutch - native to the people of Holland.
Modern Germanic languages include the Boer,otherwise known as "Afrikaans", which is common in South Africa, in a significant area of it. Afrikaners, or Boers, speak this close Dutch language - the descendants of the Dutch colonists who left their homeland in the 17th century.
Flemish is very close to it.It is spoken by the population of Belgium, its northern part, and also of the Netherlands (in a certain territory). Flemish, along with French, is the official means of communication in Belgium.
Yiddish is a language developed in the 10th-12th centuries that is spoken by the Jews of Eastern Europe. Its basis is Middle High German dialects.
Languages of the North German subgroup
The following Germanic languages are referred to North Germanic: Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish.
The latter is native to the coastal population.Finland (where representatives of the Old Swedish tribes moved to the distant past), as well as the Swedish people. From the dialects existing today, the Gutnic one, which is spoken by the population of the island of Gotland, stands out sharply for its features. Swedish today consists of written and arranged in accordance with the English German words. His active dictionary is not very large.
Danish - native to the Danish people, the formeralso for several centuries the literary and state language of Norway, which, as is known, was part of the Danish state from the end of the 14th century until 1814.
Danish and Swedish relatives in the past have now diverged significantly, they are sometimes combined into a special subgroup of the so-called East Scandinavian dialects.
Norwegian language being native to the peopleNorway, distributed in the territory of this country. Its development was strongly delayed under the influence of historical conditions, since the inhabitants of the state were forced to exist under the power of the Danes for almost 400 years. Today in this country the formation of the Norwegian language is taking place, which is the same for the whole nation, occupying a position in its features, intermediate between Danish and Swedish.
Население Исландии говорит на исландском.The ancestors of the inhabitants of this island country were the Norwegians who settled on this territory in the 10th century. The Icelandic language, developing independently over the course of a millennium, acquired a whole series of new features, and also retained many of the properties characteristic of Old Norse. At the same time, the modern means of communication for the inhabitants of the Country of Fjords has largely lost these features. All these processes have led to the fact that the difference between Icelandic (New Isle) and Norwegian languages is very significant at present.
Faroese today exists on the Faroeseislands that are north of the Shetland Islands. He retained, as well as Icelandic and other groups of languages, a multitude of features of his ancestor's adverbs - Old Norse, from which he subsequently split.
Faroe, Icelandic and Norwegian unitesometimes in one family based on their origin. It is called Western Scandinavian languages. But the facts today show that the current state of Norwegian is much closer to the Danish and Swedish than to the Faroese and Icelandic.
Early information about the Germanic tribes
The history of Germanic languages today studiedpretty detailed. The first mention of the Germans belong to the 4th century BC. The traveler who provided information about them is an astronomer and geographer Pytheos (or Piteas), a Greek, a resident of the city of Massilia (which today is called Marcel). He committed about 325 BC. e. a long journey to the Amber Coast, located, apparently, at the mouth of the Elbe, as well as on the southern coast of the North and Baltic Seas. In his message, Piteas mentions the tribes of the guttons and the Teutons. Their names clearly indicate that these peoples are Old Germanic.
Messages Plutarch and Julius Caesar
The next mention of the Germans isPost Plutarch, the Greek historian, who lived in the 1-2 century of our era. He wrote about the Bastarna, which appeared on the lower Danube around 180 BC. e. But this information is very fragmentary, so they do not give us an idea of the language and way of life of the Germanic tribes. They, as reported by Plutarch, do not know either cattle breeding or farming. War for these tribes is the only thing to do.
Julius Caesar was the first Roman author to describe the Germans of the first years AD. e. He says that their whole life is in military pursuits and hunting. They do little farming.
Information Pliny the Elder
But especially valuable are the information PlinySenior, naturalist (years of life - 23-79 AD), as well as Tacitus, historian (years of life - 58-117 AD.). In his works "Annals" and "Germany" the latter gives important information not only about the existing classification of the tribes, but also about their life, culture, and social structure. Tacitus distinguishes 3 groups: istevones, hermions and ingevones. Pliny the Elder also mentioned the same groups, but attributed the Teutons and Cimbrians to the Indevons. This classification, apparently, quite accurately reflects the division in the 1st century AD. e. Germanic tribes.
Old Germanic languages: classification
The study of written records allowsunite the Germanic languages into three subgroups during the early Middle Ages: Gothic (East German), Scandinavian (North German) and West European.
East Germans include Gothic, Vandalian and Burgundy.
Burgundian
Бургундский - язык выходцев с Бургундархольма (Bornholm) - an island located in the Baltic Sea. The Burgundians settled in southeastern France in the 5th century, in an area of the same name. This ancient German language today left us with a small number of words, mostly proper names.
Vandal language
Vandal - adverb of vandals who movedthereafter through Spain to North Africa, where they left behind the name Andalusia (today it is a province). This language, as well as Burgundy, is represented mainly by proper names. Subsequently, the word "vandal" acquired the meaning of the destroyer of cultural monuments, the barbarian, since in 455 these tribes plundered and seized Rome.
Gothic language
Gothic language is represented today by several monuments. The largest extant is the Silver Scroll, a translation of the Gospels into Gothic. 187 out of 330 sheets of this manuscript have been preserved.
Ancient West Germanic Languages
The West Germanic language group is represented by the Anglo-Saxon, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Frankish, Old High German. Each of them has its own characteristics.
The last of this family includes a number of dialects. Its most important monuments include the following texts of the 8th century:
1. Gloss - small dictionaries for texts written in Latin, or translations of individual words into German, written in the margin.
2. Translations of works of religious and classical literature, created by Notker, who at the end of the 10th and the beginning of the 11th centuries led the monastic school.
3. The poem "Muspilli" (2 half of the 9th century).
4. "Song of Ludwig".
5. "Merseburg spells."
6. "Song of Hildebrand".
Frankish also has several dialects. In the course of history, they all became part of the German, except for Nizhnefranksky, which is the ancestor of the modern Dutch, Flemish and Boer.
The North Germanic language group includes Old Norse, Old Norse, Old Old, and Old Northern. All of them have their own specific features.
The last of this group of languages is sometimes called the language of runic inscriptions, since it is represented by a number of them (about 150 in total) belonging to the period of 2–9 centuries AD. e.
Ancient Old Town was also preserved in the 9th century runic monuments of epigraphy. In total, about 400 are known.
The first monuments of the Old Swedish language arealso by the 9th century AD. They are located in the province of Westerietland and are inscriptions on stones. The total number of runic inscriptions created in this language reaches 2500.
