Old Germanic branches of languages.

LANGUAGE OF THE TEUTONS

The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of the Proto-Germanic (PG) language (also called Common or Primitive Germanic, Primitive Teutonic and simply Germanic). PG is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th century B.C. The would-be Germanic tribes belonged to the western division of the IE speech community. As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, the ancient Germans or Teutons moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe.

PG is an entirely pre-historical language: it was never recorded in written form. In the 19th century it was reconstructed by methods of comparative linguistics from written evidence in descendant languages. It is believed that at the earliest stages of history PG was fundamentally one language, though dialectally coloured. In its later stages dialectal differences grew, so that towards the beginning of our era Germanic appears divided into dialectal groups and tribal dialects. Dialectal differentiation increased with the migrations and geographical expansion of the Teutons.

The first mention of Germanic tribes was made by Pitheas, a Greek historian and geographer of the 4th century B.C., in an account of a sea voyage to the Baltic Sea. In the 1st century B.C. in Commentaries on the Gallic War (Commentarii De Bello Gallico) Julius Caesar described some militant Germanic tribes who boarded on the Celts of Gaul in the North-East. The tribal names Germans and Teutons, at first applied to separate tribes, were later extended to the entire group.

In the 1st century A.D. Pliny the Elder, a prominent Roman scientist and writer, in Natural History (Naturalis Historia) made a classified list of Germanic tribes grouping them under six headings. A few decades later the Roman historian Tacitus compiled a detailed description of the life and customs of the ancient Teutons De Situ Mokibus Et Populis Germaniae; in this work he reproduced Pliny’s classification of the Germanic tribes.

Towards the beginning of our era the common period of Germanic history came to an end. The Teutons had extended over a larger territory and the PG language broke into parts. The tri-partite division of the Germanic languages proposed by 19th century philologists with a few adjustments, to Pliny’s grouping of the Old Teutonic tribes. According to this division PG split into three branches: East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic. In due course these branches split into separate Germanic languages.

East Germanic s ubgroup

This group was formed by the tribes who returned from Scandinavia at the beginning of our era. The most numerous and powerful of them were the Goths. They were among the first Teutons to leave the coast of the Baltic Sea and start on their great migrations. Around 200 A.D. they moved south-east and some time later reached the lower basin of the Danube, where they made attacks on the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium. Their western branch, the Visigotae, invaded Roman territory, participated in the assaults on Rome and moved on to southern Gaul, to found once of the first barbarian kingdoms of Medieval Europe, the Toulouse kingdom. The kingdom lasted until the 8th century though linguistically the western Goths were soon absorbed by the native population, the Romanized Celts. The eastern Goths, Ostrogotae consolidated into a powerful tribal alliance in the lower basin of the Dniester, were subjugated by the Huns under Attila, traversed the Balkans and set up a kingdom in Northern Italy, with Ravenna as its capital. The short-lived flourishing of Ostrogothic culture in the 5-6th century under Theodoric came to an end with the fall of the kingdom.

The Gothic language, now dead, has been preserved in written records of the 4-6th century. The Goths were the first of the Teutons to become Christian. In the 4th century Ulfilas, a West-Gothic bishop, made a translation of the Gospels from Greek into Gothic using a modified form of the Greek alphabet. Parts of Ulfilas’ Gospels – a manuscript of about two hundred pages, probably made in the 5th or 6th century – have been preserved and are kept now in Uppsala, Sweden. It is written on red parchment with silver and golden letters and is known as the Silver Codex. Ulfilas’ Gospels were first published in the 17th century and have been thoroughly studied by 19th and 20th century philologists. The Silver Codex is one of the earliest texts in the languages of the Germanic group; it represents a form of language very close to PG and therefore throws light on the pre-written stages of history of all the languages of the Germanic group, including English.

The other East Germanic languages, all of which are now dead, have left no written traces.

North Germanic subgroup

The Teutons who stayed in Scandinavia after the departure of the Goths gave rise to the North Germanic subgroup of languages. The North Germanic tribes lived on the southern coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula and in Northern Denmark (since the 4th century).They did not participate in the migrations and were relatively isolated, though they may have come into closer contacts with the western tribes after the Goths left the coast of the Baltic Sea. The speech of the North Germanic tribes showed little dialectal variation until the 9th century and is regarded as a sort of common North Germanic parent-language called Old Norse or Old Scandinavian. It has come down to us in runic inscriptions dated from the 3rd to the 9th century. Runic inscriptions were carved on objects made of hard material in an original Germanic alphabet known as the runic alphabet or the runes. The runes were used by North and West Germanic tribes.

The disintegration of Old Norse into separate dialects and languages began after the 9th century, when the Scandinavians started out on their sea voyages. The famous Viking Age, from about 800 to 1050 A.D., is the legendary age of Scandinavian raids and expansion overseas.

The principal linguistic differentiation in Scandinavia corresponded to the political division into Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The three kingdoms constantly fought for dominance and the relative position of the three languages altered, as one or another of the powers prevailed over its neighbours. For several hundred years Denmark was the most powerful of the Scandinavian kingdoms: it embraced southern Sweden, the greater part of the British Isles, the southern coast of the Baltic Sea up to the Gulf of Riga; by the 14th century Norway fell under Danish rule, too. Sweden regained its independence in the 16th century, while Norway remained a backward Danish colony up to the early 19th century Consequently, both Swedish and Norwegian were influenced by Danish.

The earliest written records in Old Danish, Old Norwegian, and Old Swedish date from the 13th century. In the late Middle Ages, with the growth of capitalist relations and the unification of the countries, Danish, and then Swedish developed into national literary languages. Nowadays Swedish is spoken not only by the population of Sweden; the language has extended over Finnish territory and is the second state language is Finland.

In addition to the three languages on the mainland, the North Germanic subgroup includes two more languages: Icelandic and Faroese, whose origin goes back to the Viking Age.

Beginning with the 8th century the Scandinavian sea-rovers and merchants undertook distant sea voyages and settled in many territories: Northern France, Russia, English coastal areas, the Shetlands, the Orkneys, Ireland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and North America.

Linguistically, in most areas of their expansion, the Scandinavian settlers were assimilated by the native population: in France they adopted the French language; in Northern England, in Ireland and other islands around the British Isles sooner or later the Scandinavian dialects were displaced by English. In the Faroe Islands the Norwegian dialects brought by the Scandinavians developed into a separate language called Faroese. Faroese is spoken nowadays by about 30,000 people. For many centuries all writing was done in Danish; it was not until the 18th century that the first Faroese records were made.

Iceland was practically uninhabited at the time of the first Scandinavian settlements 9th century. Their West Scandinavian dialects grew into an independent language, Icelandic. Modern Icelandic is very much like Old Icelandic and Old Norse, for it has not participated in the linguistic changes which took place in the other Scandinavian languages, probably because of its geographic isolation. At present Icelandic is spoken by over 200,000 people.

West Germanic subgroup

Around the beginning of our era the would-be West Germanic tribes dwelt in the lowlands between the Oder and the Elbe bordering on the Slavonian tribes in the East and the Celtic tribes in the South. The dialectal differentiation of West Germanic was probably quite distinct even at the beginning of our era since Pliny and Tacitus described them under three tribal names. On the eve of their great migrations of the 4th and 5th century the West Germans included several tribes. The Franconians (or Franks) occupied the lower basin of the Rhine; from there they spread up the Rhine and are accordingly subdivided into Low, Middle and High Franconians. The Angles and the Frisians, the Jutes and the Saxons inhabited the coastal area of the Modern Netherlands, Germany and the southern part of Denmark. A group of tribes known as High Germans lived in the mountainous southern regions of Germany.

In the Early Middle Ages the Franks consolidated into a powerful tribal alliance. Towards the 8th century their kingdom grew into one of the largest states in Western Europe. Under Charlemagne (768-814) the Holy Roman Empire of the Franks embraced France and half of Italy, and stretched northwards up to the North and Baltic Sea. The empire lacked ethnic and economic unity and in the 9th century broke up into parts. Its western part eventually became the basis of France. Though the names France, French are derived from the tribal names of the Franks, the Franconian dialects were not spoken there. The population, the Romanized Celts of Gaul, spoke a local variety of Latin, which developed into one of the most extensive Romance languages, French.

The eastern part, the East Franconian Empire, comprised several kingdoms: Swabia or Alemania, Bavaria, East Franconia and Saxony; to these where soon added two more kingdoms – Lorraine and Friesland. As seen from the name of the kingdoms, the East Franconian state had a mixed population consisting of several West Germanic tribes. The Franconian dialects were spoken in the extreme North of the Empire; in the later Middle Ages they developed into Dutch – the language of the Low Countries (the Netherlands) and Flemish – the language of Flanders. The earliest texts in Low Franconian date from the 10th century; 12th century records represent the earliest Old Dutch. The formation of the Dutch language stretches over a long period; it is linked up with the growth of the Netherlands into an independent bourgeois state after its liberation from Spain in the 16th century. The modern language of the Netherlands, formerly called Dutch, and its variant in Belgium, known as the Flemish dialect, are now treated as a single language, Netherlandish.It is spoken by almost 20 million people; its northern variety, used in the Netherlands has a more standardized literary form.

About three hundred years ago the Dutch language was brought to South Africa by colonists from Southern Holland. Their dialects in Africa eventually grew into a separate West Germanic language, Afrikaans. Afrikaans has incorporated elements from the speech of English and German colonists in Africa and from the tongues of the natives. Writing in Afrikaans began as late as the end of the 19th century. Today Afrikaans is the mother-tongue of over four million Afrikaans and one of the state languages in the South African Republic (alongside English).

The High German group of tribes did not go far in their migrations. Together with the Saxons the Alabamians, Bavarians and Thuringians expanded east, driving the Slavonic tribes from places of their early settlement. The High German dialects consolidated into a common language known as Old High German(OHG). The first written record in OHG date from the 8th and 9th century (glosses to Latin texts, translations from Latin and religious poems). Towards the 12th century High German (known as Middle High German) had intermixed with neighbouring tongues, especially Middle and High Franconian, and eventually developed into the literary German language. The Written Standard of New High German was established after the Reformation (16th century), though no Spoken Standard existed until the 19th century as Germany remained politically divided into a number of kingdoms and dukedoms. To this day German is remarkable for great dialectal diversity of speech.

The High German language in a somewhat modified form is the national language of Austria, the language of Liechtenstein and one of the languages in Luxemburg and Switzerland. It is also spoken in Alsace and Lorraine in France. The total number of German-speaking people approaches 100 million.

Another offshoot of High German is Yiddish. It grew from the High German dialects which were adopted by numerous Jewish communities scattered over Germany in the 11th and 12th century. These dialects blended with elements of Hebrew and Slavonic and developed into a separate West Germanic language with a spoken and literary form. Yiddish was exported from Germany to many other countries: Russia, Poland, the Baltic States and America.

At the later stage of the great migration period – in the 5th century – a group of West Germanic tribes started out on their invasion of the British Isles. The invaders came from the lowlands near the North Sea: the Angles, part of the Saxons and Frisians, and probably the Jutes. Their dialects in the British Isles developed into the English language. The territory of English was at first confined to what is now known as England proper. From the 13th to the 17th century it extended to other parts of the British 19 Isles. In the succeeding centuries English spread overseas to other continents. The first English written records have come down from the 7th century, which is the earliest date in the history of writing in the West Germanic subgroup.

Language of the Teutons

The Teutons had a high level written language. Yet this written language had a very limited use. The oldest written signs are called runes. Originally “runes” meant “secret, mystery” and was used to denote inscriptions believed to be magic. Later the word “runes” was applied to the signs of letters used to make these inscriptions. The runes were employed by many Romanic tribes, especially in Scandinavia. They were used as letters in an alphabet, each to denote a separate sound, besides a rune could also denote a word beginning with that sound and it was called by that word.

O.E.      N.E.

 e.g. þ [θ] ~ [ð]        þorn      thorn

[w]                  wynn              joy

Þ [f]                feoh       cattle

 

In some inscriptions the runes were found arranged in a fixed order which made up a sort of alphabetical order. After the first six letters this alphabet is now commonly known as “futhork” (runic alphabet).

The runic alphabet is a specifically Germanic alphabet not to be found in other languages. The letters are angular, straight lines are preferred, curved lines avoided. This is due to the fact that runic inscriptions were cut in stone, bone, or wood. The shapes of some letters resemble those of the ancient Greek or Latin alphabets. Others have not been traced to any known alphabet. The order of the runes in the alphabet was original. The number of runes varied in different Old Germanic dialects. There were 28 runes in the Old English alphabet (GB). 16 or sometimes 24 were found on the continent and it reached a maximum of 33 in Northumbria (8th century).

The runes were never used for everyday writing or for putting down poetry or prose works. Their only function was to make short inscriptions on objects: rings, coins, amulets.Only the priests could read them.

Just when and where the runic alphabet was created is not known. It is supposed that it originated at some time in the 2nd and 3rd century A.D., somewhere on the Rhine or the Danube, where Germanic tribes came into contact with Roman culture. The earliest runic inscriptions belong to this time. The runic alphabet was used by different Germanic tribes eventually the runic alphabet underwent many changes: new letters were added, some of the original ones were dropped.

There were two more alphabets used by Germanic tribes: Gothic and Latin. Ulfila’s Gothic alphabet (4th century) is the alphabet of Ulfila’s Gothic translation of the Bible, a peculiar alphabet based on the Greek alphabet, with some mixture of Latin and Runic letters. In modern editions of the Gothic text a Latin transcription of the Gothic alphabet is used.

The latest alphabet to be used by Germanic tribes is the Latin alphabet. It superseded both the Runic ant the Gothic alphabet when a new technique of writing was introduced, namely that of spreading some colour or paint on a surface instead of cutting or engraving the letters. The material used for writing was either parchment or papyrus. Introduction of the Latin alphabet accompanied the spread of Christianity and of Latin language Christian religious texts.

The Latin alphabet was certainly not adequate to represent all sounds of Germanic languages. Thus, to denote the dental fricative the Runic letter [Þ] which had once been derived from Latin D, was used.