View source for Germanic languages

{{Short description|Branch of the Indo-European language family}}
{{Distinguish|text=the [[German language]]}}
{{More citations needed |date=May 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox language family
| name          = Germanic
| speakers      = {{c.|515 million}}
| region        = Worldwide, principally [[Europe]] ([[Central Europe]], [[Northern Europe]], and [[Western Europe]]), [[Africa]] ([[East Africa]] and [[Southern Africa]]), the [[Americas]] ([[Anglo-America]], the [[Dutch Caribbean]], and [[Suriname]]), [[Asia]] ([[South Asia]] and [[Southeast Asia]]), and [[Oceania]]
| familycolor   = Indo-European
| protoname     = [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]]
| child1        = [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]]
| child2        = [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]]
| child3        = [[East Germanic languages|East Germanic]] [[Extinct language|{{Extinct}}]]
| iso2          = gem
| iso5          = gem
| glotto        = germ1287
| glottorefname = Germanic
| lingua        = 52- (phylozone)
| map           = Germanic languages with dialects revised.png
| mapcaption    = European Germanic languages
| map2          = Germanic languages.svg
| mapalt2       = world map showing countries where a Germanic language is the primary or official language
| mapcaption2   = ''World map showing countries and territories where at least one Germanic language is the primary or official language''<br />
{{legend|#800000|Countries or territories where the [[first language]] of most of the population is a Germanic language}}
{{legend|#ff0000|Countries or territories where a Germanic language is an official language but not a [[first language|primary language]]}}
{{legend|#f6c0f1|Countries or territories where a Germanic language has no official status but is notable, i.e. used in some areas of life and/or spoken among a local minority}}
}}

{{Indo-European topics}}

The '''Germanic languages''' are a branch of the [[Indo-European languages|Indo-European]] [[language family]] spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people{{refn|group=nb|Estimates of native speakers of the Germanic languages vary from 450 million{{sfnp|König|van der Auwera|1994}} through 500 million and up to more than 520 million. Much of the uncertainty is caused by the rapid spread of the [[English language]] and conflicting estimates of its native speakers. Here used is the most probable estimate (currently 515 million) as determined by ''Statistics'' section below.}} mainly in [[Europe]], [[Northern America]], [[Oceania]], and [[Southern Africa]]. The most widely spoken Germanic language, [[English language|English]], is also the world's most [[List of languages by total number of speakers|widely spoken language]] with an estimated 2 billion speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]], spoken in [[Iron Age Scandinavia]], [[History of Germany#Iron Age|Iron Age Northern Germany]]<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Andrew |editor-last=Bell-Fialkoll |title=The Role of Migration in the History of the Eurasian Steppe: Sedentary Civilization v. "Barbarian" and Nomad |year=2000 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=0-312-21207-0 |page=117}}</ref> and along the [[North Sea]] and Baltic coasts.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Germanic-languages/The-emergence-of-Germanic-languages | title=Germanic languages - Proto-Germanic, Indo-European, Germanic Dialects &#124; Britannica | access-date=29 December 2023 | archive-date=29 December 2023 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231229223738/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Germanic-languages/The-emergence-of-Germanic-languages | url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[West Germanic languages]] include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: [[English language|English]] with around 360–400 million native speakers;<ref name="NE100">{{cite web |url=http://www.ne.se/spr%C3%A5k/v%C3%A4rldens-100-st%C3%B6rsta-spr%C3%A5k-2010 |title=Världens 100 största språk 2010 |work=[[Nationalencyklopedin]] |trans-title=The world's 100 largest languages in 2010 |year=2010 |access-date=12 February 2014 |language=sv |archive-date=6 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006155303/http://www.ne.se/spr%C3%A5k/v%C3%A4rldens-100-st%C3%B6rsta-spr%C3%A5k-2010 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{refn|group=nb|There are various conflicting estimates of L1/native users of English, from 360 million up to 430 million and more. English is a current ''[[lingua franca]]'', which is spreading rapidly, often replacing other languages throughout the world, thus making it difficult to provide one definitive number. It is a rare case of a language with many more secondary speakers than natives.}} [[German language|German]], with over 100 million native speakers;<ref>SIL Ethnologue (2006). 95 million speakers of [[Standard German]]; 105 million including Middle and Upper [[German dialects]]; 120 million including [[Low German]] and [[Yiddish]].</ref> and [[Dutch language|Dutch]], with 24 million native speakers. Other West Germanic languages include [[Afrikaans]], an offshoot of Dutch originating from the [[Afrikaners]] of [[South Africa]], with over 7.1 million native speakers;<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/language/afr |title=Afrikaans |access-date=3 August 2016 |archive-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203164557/http://www.ethnologue.com/language/afr |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Low German]], considered a separate collection of [[Standard language|unstandardized]] dialects, with roughly 4.35–7.15 million native speakers and probably 6.7–10 million people who can understand it <ref name="Taaltelling Nedersaksisch">{{cite report |title=Taaltelling Nedersaksisch. Een enquête naar het gebruik en de beheersing van het Nedersaksisch in Nederland |trans-title=Lower Saxon Language Census. A survey of the use and proficiency of Low Saxon in the Netherlands |first=Henk |last=Bloemhoff |year=2005 |language=nl |department=Nedersaksisch Instituut |publisher=Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen |location=Groningen |url=https://www.stellingia.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Taaltelling-Nedersaksisch-1.pdf |url-status=dead |access-date=30 December 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241125200300/https://www.stellingia.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Taaltelling-Nedersaksisch-1.pdf |archive-date=25 November 2024 |isbn=90-6466-1324 |ol=OL31709135M |lccn=2006364430 |oclc=230137295 }}</ref>{{rp|p=88}}<ref name="ins-bremen.de">[https://www.ins-bremen.de/fileadmin/ins-bremen/user_upload/umfrage2016/broschuere-umfrage.pdf Status und Gebrauch des Niederdeutschen 2016] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116170501/https://www.ins-bremen.de/fileadmin/ins-bremen/user_upload/umfrage2016/broschuere-umfrage.pdf |date=16 January 2021 }}, A. Adler, C. Ehlers, R. Goltz, A. Kleene, A. Plewnia (2016)</ref><ref name="ndsethnologue">[https://www.ethnologue.com/language/nds Saxon, Low] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180102170443/https://www.ethnologue.com/language/nds |date=2 January 2018 }} ''Ethnologue''.</ref> (at least 2.2 million in [[Germany]] (2016)<ref name="ins-bremen.de"/> and 2.15 million in the Netherlands (2003));<ref>The Other Languages of Europe: Demographic, Sociolinguistic, and Educational Perspectives by Guus Extra, Durk Gorter; Multilingual Matters, 2001 – 454; page 10.</ref><ref name="Taaltelling Nedersaksisch"/>{{rp|p=88}} [[Yiddish]], once used by approximately 13 million [[Jews]] in pre-[[World War II]] Europe,<ref name=yivo-yiddish /> now with approximately 1.5 million native speakers; [[Scots language|Scots]], with 1.5 million native speakers; [[Limburgish language|Limburgish varieties]] with roughly 1.3 million speakers along the [[Netherlands|Dutch]]–[[Belgium|Belgian]]–[[Germany|German]] border; and the [[Frisian languages]] with over 500,000 native speakers in the Netherlands and Germany.

The largest [[North Germanic languages]] are [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Danish language|Danish]], and [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], which are in part mutually intelligible and have a combined total of about 20 million native speakers in the [[Nordic countries]] and an additional five million second language speakers; since the Middle Ages, however, these languages have been strongly influenced by [[Middle Low German]], a West Germanic language, and Low German words account for about 30–60% of their vocabularies according to various estimates. Other extant North Germanic languages are [[Faroese language|Faroese]], [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]], and [[Elfdalian]], which are more conservative languages with no significant Low German influence, more complex grammar and limited mutual intelligibility with other North Germanic languages today.<ref name="Holmberg">Holmberg, Anders and Christer Platzack (2005). "The Scandinavian languages". In ''The Comparative Syntax Handbook,'' eds [[Guglielmo Cinque]] and Richard S. Kayne. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [http://www.dur.ac.uk/anders.holmberg/resources/The%20Scandinavian%20Languages.pdf Excerpt at Durham University] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071203191740/http://www.dur.ac.uk/anders.holmberg/resources/The%20Scandinavian%20Languages.pdf |date=3 December 2007 }}.</ref>

The [[East Germanic languages|East Germanic branch]] included [[Gothic language|Gothic]], [[Burgundians#Language|Burgundian]] and [[Vandalic language|Vandalic]]. The last to die off was [[Crimean Gothic]], spoken until the late 18th century in some isolated areas of [[Crimea]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/gotol/100 |title=1 Cor. 13:1–12 |website=lrc.la.utexas.edu |access-date=3 August 2016 |archive-date=23 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323174037/https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/gotol/100 |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[SIL International|SIL]] ''[[Ethnologue]]'' lists 48 different living Germanic languages, 41 of which belong to the Western branch and six to the Northern branch; it places [[Riograndenser Hunsrückisch German]] in neither of the categories, but it is often considered a German dialect by linguists.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/germanic |title=Germanic |work=Ethnologue |access-date=3 August 2016 |archive-date=18 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130718070735/https://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/germanic |url-status=live }}</ref> The total number of Germanic languages throughout history is unknown as some of them, especially the East Germanic languages, disappeared during or after the [[Migration Period]]. Some of the West Germanic languages also did not survive past the Migration Period, including [[Lombardic language|Lombardic]]. As a result of [[World War II]] and subsequent [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)|mass expulsion of Germans]], the German language [[History of German language|suffered]] a significant loss of ''[[Sprachraum]]'', as well as moribundity and extinction of several of its dialects. In the 21st century, German dialects are dying out{{refn|group=nb|This phenomenon is not restricted to German but constitutes [[Standard language|a common linguistic development]] affecting all modern-day living major languages with a complex set of dialects. As local dialects increasingly cease to be used, they are usually replaced by a standardized version of the language.}} as [[Standard German]] gains primacy.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.welt.de/kultur/plus170665604/Das-Aussterben-der-deutschen-Dialekte.html|title=Sprache und Mundart: Das Aussterben der deutschen Dialekte|first=Matthias|last=Heine|newspaper=Die Welt|date=16 November 2017 |access-date=4 October 2018|archive-date=23 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323174052/https://www.welt.de/kultur/plus170665604/Das-Aussterben-der-deutschen-Dialekte.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic, also known as Common Germanic, which was spoken in about the middle of the 1st millennium BC in [[Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe|Iron Age Scandinavia]] and [[History of Germany#Iron Age|Iron Age Northern Germany]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Germanic-peoples |title=Germanic peoples |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=31 March 2025}}</ref> Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, notably has a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the [[consonant]] change known as "[[Grimm's law]]." Early varieties of Germanic entered history when the [[Germanic tribes]] moved south from [[Scandinavia]] and [[northern Germany]] in the 2nd century BC to settle in the area of today's western Germany and along the Baltic coasts.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/the-early-germanic-peoples-a-historical-overview-from-ancient-sources |title=The Early Germanic Peoples: A Historical Overview from Ancient Sources |website=The Archaeologist |date=18 May 2024 |access-date=31 March 2025}}</ref>

==Modern status==
[[File:Europe germanic-languages 2.PNG|upright=1.35|thumb|
[[Germanic-speaking Europe|The present-day distribution of the Germanic languages in Europe]]:<br />
'''[[North Germanic languages]]'''
{{legend|#00FFFF|[[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]}}
{{legend|#1FC5FC|[[Faroese language|Faroese]]}}
{{legend|#0080FF|[[Norwegian language|Norwegian]]}}
{{legend|#0000FF|[[Danish language|Danish]]}}
{{legend|#004080|[[Swedish language|Swedish]]}}
'''[[West Germanic languages]]'''
{{legend|#FD7B24|[[Scots language|Scots]]}}
{{legend|#FCA503|[[English language|English]]}}
{{legend|#E9D803|[[Frisian languages|Frisian]]}}
{{legend|#F0F702|[[Dutch language|Dutch]]}}
{{legend|#80FF00|[[Low German]]}}
{{legend|#00FF00|[[Central German]]}}
{{legend|#008000|[[Upper German]]}}
Dots indicate areas where it is common for native non-Germanic speakers to also speak a neighbouring Germanic language, lines indicate areas where it is common for native Germanic speakers to also speak a non-Germanic or other neighbouring Germanic language.|alt=]]

===West Germanic languages===
English is an [[official language]] of [[Belize]], Canada, Nigeria, [[Falkland Islands]], [[Saint Helena]], [[Malta]], New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Philippines, Jamaica, [[Dominica]], [[Guyana]], [[Trinidad and Tobago]], [[American Samoa]], [[Palau]], [[St. Lucia]], [[Grenada]], [[Barbados]], [[St. Vincent and the Grenadines]], Puerto Rico, [[Guam]], Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, India, [[Papua New Guinea]], [[Namibia]], [[Vanuatu]], the [[Solomon Islands]] and former British colonies in Asia, Africa and Oceania. Furthermore, it is the ''[[de facto]]'' language of the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, as well as a recognized language in [[Nicaragua]]<ref>The [[Miskito Coast]] used to be a part of [[British Empire]]</ref> and Malaysia.

German is a language of Austria, Belgium, Germany, [[Liechtenstein]], [[Luxembourg]] and Switzerland; it also has regional status in Italy, Poland, Namibia and Denmark. German also continues to be spoken as a minority language by [[German diaspora|immigrant communities]] in North America, South America, Central America, Mexico and Australia. A German dialect, [[Pennsylvania Dutch language|Pennsylvania Dutch]], is still used among various populations in the American state of [[Pennsylvania]] in daily life. A group of Alemannic German dialects commonly referred to as [[Alsatian dialect|Alsatian]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.olcalsace.org/de/definition-der-regionalsprache|title=Office pour la langue et les cultures d'Alsace et de Moselle|website=olcalsace.org|access-date=19 January 2023|archive-date=19 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230119191620/https://www.olcalsace.org/de/definition-der-regionalsprache|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://hal.science/hal-02069471/document|access-date=14 July 2021|last=Pierre Vogler|title=Le dialecte alsacien : vers l'oubli|website=hal.science|archive-date=19 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230119191619/https://hal.science/hal-02069471/document|url-status=live}}</ref> is spoken in [[Alsace]], part of modern France.

Dutch is an official language of [[Aruba]], Belgium, [[Curaçao]], the Netherlands, [[Sint Maarten]], and [[Suriname]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://taalunieversum.org/inhoud/feiten-en-cijfers|title=Feiten en cijfers – Taalunieversum|website=taalunieversum.org|access-date=11 April 2015|archive-date=6 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221006231723/http://taalunieversum.org/inhoud/feiten-en-cijfers|url-status=live}}</ref> The Netherlands also [[Dutch Empire|colonized]] [[Netherlands Indies|Indonesia]], but Dutch was scrapped as an official language after [[Indonesian independence]]. Today, it is only used by older or traditionally educated people. Dutch was until 1983 an official language in South Africa but evolved into and was replaced by [[Afrikaans]], a [[mutual intelligibility|partially mutually intelligible]]<ref>Dutch-speakers can understand Afrikaans with some difficulty, but Afrikaans-speakers have a harder time understanding Dutch because of the simplified grammar of Afrikaans, compared to that of Dutch, http://www.let.rug.nl/~gooskens/pdf/publ_litlingcomp_2006b.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200501/http://www.let.rug.nl/~gooskens/pdf/publ_litlingcomp_2006b.pdf |date=4 March 2016 }}</ref> [[daughter language]] of Dutch.

Afrikaans is one of the 12 [[languages of South Africa|official languages in South Africa]] and is a ''[[lingua franca]]'' of Namibia. It is used in other [[Southern African]] nations, as well.

[[Low German]] is a collection of very diverse dialects spoken in the northeast of the Netherlands and northern Germany. Some dialects like [[East Pomeranian]] have been imported to South America.<ref name="farese">{{Cite web |url=http://www.farese.edu.br/pages/artigos/pdf/ismael/A%20co-oficializa%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20da%20L%20Pomer.pdf |title=A co-oficialização da língua pomerana |access-date=11 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121221183002/http://www.farese.edu.br/pages/artigos/pdf/ismael/A%20co-oficializa%C3%A7%C3%A3o%20da%20L%20Pomer.pdf |archive-date=21 December 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Scots language|Scots]] is one of the 3 official languages of scotland and is spoken by over 1.5 million people, mostly in the [[Scottish Lowlands|Lowlands]] of Scotland but also in the [[Northern Isles|northen isles]] ([[Orcadian dialect|Orcadian]], [[Shetland dialect|Shetlandic]]) and parts of [[Ulster]] (where the local dialect is known as [[Ulster Scots dialects|Ulster Scots]]).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ListeDeclarations.asp?NT=148&CV=1&NA=&PO=999&CN=999&VL=1&CM=9&CL=ENG |title=List of declarations made with respect to treaty No.&nbsp;148 |publisher=Conventions.coe.int |access-date=9 September 2012 |archive-date=9 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110709023931/http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/ListeDeclarations.asp?NT=148&CV=1&NA=&PO=999&CN=999&VL=1&CM=9&CL=ENG |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Frisian languages|Frisian]] is spoken among half a million people who live on the southern fringes of the [[North Sea]] in the Netherlands and Germany.

Luxembourgish is a [[Moselle Franconian dialects|Moselle Franconian]] dialect that is spoken mainly in the [[Grand Duchy of Luxembourg]], where it is considered to be an official language.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/society-and-culture/languages/introduction-letzebuergesch.html|title=An intro to 'Lëtzebuergesch'|access-date=18 April 2023|language=en|archive-date=12 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230412141332/https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/society-and-culture/languages/introduction-letzebuergesch.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Similar varieties of Moselle Franconian are spoken in small parts of Belgium, France, and Germany.

Yiddish, once a native language of some 11 to 13 million people, remains in use by some 1.5 million speakers in Jewish communities around the world, mainly in North America, Europe, Israel, and other regions with [[Jewish population by country|Jewish populations]].<ref name=yivo-yiddish>{{cite web |last=Dovid Katz |title=YIDDISH |url=http://yivo.org/downloads/Yiddish.pdf |work=[[YIVO]] |access-date=20 December 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120322162722/http://yivo.org/downloads/Yiddish.pdf |archive-date=22 March 2012}}</ref>

Limburgish [[variety (linguistics)|varieties]] are spoken in the [[Province of Limburg (1815–1839)|Limburg]] and [[Rhineland]] regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border.

===North Germanic languages===
In addition to being the official language in Sweden, [[Swedish language|Swedish]] is also spoken natively by the [[Finland Swedes|Swedish-speaking minority]] in Finland, which is a large part of the population [[List of municipalities of Finland in which Finnish is not the sole official language|along the coast of western and southern]] Finland. Swedish is also one of the two official languages in Finland, along with [[Finnish language|Finnish]], and the only official language in [[Åland]]. Swedish is also spoken by some people in Estonia.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Koyfman |first=Steph |date=29 April 2018 |title=How Many People Speak Swedish, And Where Is It Spoken? |url=https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-swedish-and-where-is-it-spoken |access-date=11 June 2024 |website=Babbel Magazine |language=en |archive-date=25 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240225215934/https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-swedish-and-where-is-it-spoken |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Danish language|Danish]] is an official language of Denmark and in its overseas territory of the [[Faroe Islands]], and it is a ''lingua franca'' and language of education in its other overseas territory of [[Greenland]], where it was one of the official languages until 2009. Danish, a locally recognized minority language, is also natively spoken by the Danish minority in the German state of [[Schleswig-Holstein]]. Danish was an official language of Iceland when it was a territory ruled by [[Denmark–Norway]]; though its official status was terminated in 1944, it is still widely used and is a mandatory subject in school, taught as a second foreign language after English.<ref>{{cite web |title=Iceland And The Rest Of The World |url=http://www.grapevine.is/Features/ReadArticle/Iceland-And-The-Rest-Of-The-World-Analysis |publisher=The Reykjavík Grapevine |access-date=15 April 2014 |page=1 |format=PDF |quote=Icelandic towns were essentially turning Danish; the merchant class was Danish and well off Icelanders started speaking their language.}}</ref>

[[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] is the official language of Norway (both [[Bokmål]] and [[Nynorsk]]). Norwegian is also the official language in the overseas territories of Norway such as [[Svalbard]], [[Jan Mayen]], [[Bouvet island]], [[Queen Maud Land]], and [[Peter I island]].

[[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] is the official language of [[Iceland]].

[[Faroese language|Faroese]] is the official language of the Faroe Islands, and is also spoken by some people in Denmark.

===Statistics===
{{Pie chart
| thumb = right
| caption = Germanic languages by share (West Germanic in yellow-red shades and North Germanic in blue shades):{{refn|group=nb|It uses the lowest estimate for English (360 million).}}
| label1 = English
| value1 = 69.9
| color1 = LightYellow
| label2 = German
| value2 = 19.4
| color2 = Yellow
| label3 = Dutch
| value3 = 4.5
| color3 = Orange
| label4 = Afrikaans
| value4 = 1.4
| color4 = OrangeRed
| label5 = Other West Germanic
| value5 = 1
| color5 = DarkRed
| label6 = Swedish
| value6 = 1.8
| color6= Cyan
| label7 = Danish
| value7 = 1.1
| color7 = DodgerBlue
| label8 = Norwegian
| value8 = 1
| color8 = Blue
| label9 = Other North Germanic
| value9 = 0.1
| color9 = DarkBlue
}}

[[File:Nordic Bronze Age.png|thumb|upright=1.2|Area of the [[Nordic Bronze Age]] culture, ca 1200 BC]]

{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left:1em"
|+ Germanic languages by number of native speakers
|-
! Language !! Native speakers (millions){{refn|group=nb|Estimates for English, German and Dutch are less precise than these for the rest of the Germanic languages. These three languages are the most widely spoken ones; the rest are largely concentrated in specific places (excluding Yiddish and Afrikaans), so precise estimates are easier to get.}}
|-
! [[English language|English]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 360–400<ref name="NE100" />
|-
! [[German language|German]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 100<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10128380/German-should-be-a-working-language-of-EU-says-Merkels-party.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10128380/German-should-be-a-working-language-of-EU-says-Merkels-party.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=German 'should be a working language of EU', says Merkel's party|first=Jeevan|last=Vasagar|date=18 June 2013|via=The Telegraph }}{{cbignore}}</ref>{{refn|group=nb|Estimate includes most [[High German]] dialects classified into the German language spectrum, while leaves some out like the [[Yiddish language]]. [[Low German]] is regarded separately.}}
|-
! [[Dutch language|Dutch]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 24<ref name="taalgebied">{{cite web |url=http://taalunieversum.org/taal/feiten_en_weetjes/#feitencijfers |title=Nederlands, wereldtaal |access-date=7 April 2011 |publisher=Nederlandse Taalunie |year=2010 |archive-date=21 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021192842/http://taalunieversum.org/taal/feiten_en_weetjes/#feitencijfers |url-status=live }}</ref>
|-
! [[Swedish language|Swedish]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 11.1<ref name="NE">[[Nationalencyklopedin]] "Världens 100 största språk 2007" The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007</ref>
|-
! [[Afrikaans]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 8.1<ref>{{Cite web |orig-date=April 2015 |date=October 2023 |title=Afrikaans - Worldwide distribution |url=https://www.worlddata.info/languages/afrikaans.php |access-date=3 April 2024 |website=Worlddata.info |language=en |archive-date=3 April 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240403212057/https://www.worlddata.info/languages/afrikaans.php |url-status=live }}</ref>{{unreliable source?|certain=yes|reason=Self-published source. See Special:PermanentLink/1244711437#worlddata.info|date=September 2024}}
|-
! [[Danish language|Danish]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 5.5<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dan|title=Danish|website=ethnologue.com|access-date=18 June 2014|archive-date=8 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210208132654/https://www.ethnologue.com/language/dan|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 5.3<ref>{{cite web |title=Befolkningen |url=https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/faktaside/befolkningen |website=ssb.no |language=no |access-date=29 November 2018 |archive-date=23 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323174146/https://www.ssb.no/befolkning/faktaside/befolkningen |url-status=live }}</ref>
|-
! [[Low German]]
| style="text-align: right;" |3.8<ref>{{cite web |title=Status und Gebrauch des Niederdeutschen 2016 |url=https://www.ins-bremen.de/fileadmin/ins-bremen/user_upload/umfrage2016/broschuere-umfrage.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210116170501/https://www.ins-bremen.de/fileadmin/ins-bremen/user_upload/umfrage2016/broschuere-umfrage.pdf |archive-date=16 January 2021 |access-date=13 March 2021 |website=ins-bremen.de |page=40 }}</ref><ref name="Taaltelling Nedersaksisch" />{{rp|p=78}}
|-
! [[Yiddish]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 1.5{{sfnp|Jacobs|2005}}
|-
! [[Scots language|Scots]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 1.5<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/sco|title=Scots|website=Ethnologue|access-date=12 March 2015|archive-date=27 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210327010335/https://www.ethnologue.com/language/sco|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! [[Frisian languages]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 0.5<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/fry|title=Frisian|website=Ethnologue|access-date=18 June 2014|archive-date=22 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210322022417/https://www.ethnologue.com/language/fry|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! [[Luxembourgish]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 0.4<ref>See [[Luxembourgish|Luxembourgish language]].</ref>
|-
! [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 0.3<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.statice.is/?PageID=1390|title=Statistics Iceland|website=Statistics Iceland|access-date=18 June 2014|archive-date=26 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200526135129/https://www.statice.is/?PageID=1390|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! [[Faroese language|Faroese]]
| style="text-align: right;" | 0.07<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/fao|title=Faroese|website=ethnologue.com|access-date=18 June 2014|archive-date=23 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323174207/https://www.ethnologue.com/language/fao|url-status=live}}</ref>
|-
! Other Germanic languages
| style="text-align: right;" | 0.01{{refn|group=nb|All other Germanic languages, including [[Gutnish language|Gutnish]], [[Dalecarlian dialects]] (among them [[Elfdalian language|Elfdalian]]) and any other minor languages.}}
|-
! Total
| style="text-align: right;" | est. 515{{refn|group=nb|Estimates of native speakers of the Germanic languages vary from 450 million{{sfnp|König|van der Auwera|1994}} through 500 million and up to more than 520 million. Much of the uncertainty is caused by the rapid spread of the [[English language]] and conflicting estimates of its native speakers. Here used is the most probable estimate as determined by ''Statistics'' section.}}
|}

==History==
{{Germanic tribes (750BC-1AD)}}
[[File:Old norse, ca 900.PNG|thumb|250px|The approximate extent of Germanic languages in the early 10th century:
{{legend|#ff0000|'''[[w:Old West Norse|Old West Norse]]'''}}
{{legend|#FF8040|'''[[w:Old East Norse|Old East Norse]]'''}}
{{legend|#ff00ff|'''[[w:Old Gutnish|Old Gutnish]]'''}}
{{legend|#ffff00|'''[[w:Old English|Old English]]''' ([[w:West Germanic languages|West Germanic]])}}
{{legend|#00ff00|Continental West Germanic languages ([[Old Frisian]], [[Old Saxon]], [[Old Dutch]], [[Old High German]]).}}
{{legend|#0000ff|'''[[w:Crimean Gothic|Crimean Gothic]]''' ([[w:East Germanic|East Germanic]])}}]]

All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical [[Proto-Germanic language|Proto-Germanic]], united by subjection to the sound shifts of [[Grimm's law]] and [[Verner's law]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Germanic languages {{!}} Definition, Language Tree, & List {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Germanic-languages |access-date=11 June 2024 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en |archive-date=29 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231229072734/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Germanic-languages |url-status=live }}</ref> These probably took place during the [[Pre-Roman Iron Age]] of Northern Europe {{Circa|500 BC}}. Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after {{Circa|500 BC}},{{sfnp|Ringe|2006|p=67}} and [[Proto-Norse]] from the 2nd century AD and later is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic from [[Proto-Indo-European]] suggest a common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the [[Nordic Bronze Age]].

From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic varieties are divided into three groups: [[West Germanic languages|West]], [[East Germanic languages|East]], and [[North Germanic languages|North]] Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions.

The western group would have formed in the late [[Jastorf culture]], and the eastern group may be derived from the 1st-century [[Old Gutnish|variety]] of [[Gotland]], leaving southern Sweden as the original location of the northern group. The earliest period of [[Elder Futhark]] (2nd to 4th centuries) predates the division in regional script variants, and linguistically essentially still reflects the [[Common Germanic]] stage. The [[Vimose inscriptions]] include some of the oldest datable Germanic inscriptions, starting in {{Circa|160 AD}}.

The earliest coherent Germanic text preserved is the 4th-century [[Gothic language|Gothic]] translation of the [[New Testament]] by [[Ulfilas]]. Early testimonies of West Germanic are in [[Old Frankish]]/[[Old Dutch]] (the 5th-century [[Bergakker inscription]]), [[Old High German]] (scattered words and sentences 6th century and coherent texts 9th century), and [[Old English language|Old English]] (oldest texts 650, coherent texts 10th century). North Germanic is only attested in scattered runic inscriptions, as [[Proto-Norse language|Proto-Norse]], until it evolves into [[Old Norse]] by about 800.

Longer runic inscriptions survive from the 8th and 9th centuries ([[Eggjum stone]], [[Rök stone]]), longer texts in the Latin alphabet survive from the 12th century ({{Lang|is|[[Íslendingabók]]}}), and some [[skaldic poetry]] dates back to as early as the 9th century.

By about the 10th century, the varieties had diverged enough to make [[mutual intelligibility]] difficult. The linguistic contact of the [[Viking]] settlers of the [[Danelaw]] with the [[Anglo-Saxons]] left traces in the English language and is suspected to have facilitated the collapse of Old English grammar that, combined with the influx of [[Romance languages|Romance]] [[Old French]] vocabulary after the [[Norman Conquest]], resulted in [[Middle English]] from the 12th century.

The East Germanic languages were marginalized from the end of the Migration Period. The [[Burgundians]], [[Goths]], and [[Vandals]] became linguistically assimilated by their respective neighbors by about the 7th century, with only [[Crimean Gothic language|Crimean Gothic]] lingering on until the 18th century.

During the early Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Middle English on one hand and by the [[High German consonant shift]] on the continent on the other, resulting in [[Upper German]] and [[Low German|Low Saxon]], with graded intermediate [[Central German]] varieties. By early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from [[Highest Alemannic German|Highest Alemannic]] in the South to [[Northern Low Saxon]] in the North, and, although both extremes are considered German, they are hardly mutually intelligible. The southernmost varieties had completed the second sound shift, while the northern varieties remained unaffected by the consonant shift.

The North Germanic languages, on the other hand, remained unified until well past 1000 AD, and in fact the mainland Scandinavian languages still largely retain mutual intelligibility into modern times. The main split in these languages is between the mainland languages and the island languages to the west, especially [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]], which has maintained the grammar of Old Norse virtually unchanged, while the mainland languages have diverged greatly.

==Distinctive characteristics==
Germanic languages possess a number of defining features compared with other Indo-European languages.

Some of the best-known are the following:
# The [[sound change]]s known as [[Grimm's law]] and [[Verner's law]], which shifted the values of all the Indo-European stop consonants (for example, original *{{IPA|/t d dʰ/}} became Germanic *{{IPA|/θ t d/}} in most cases; compare ''three'' with [[Latin]] {{lang|la|tres}}, ''two'' with Latin {{lang|la|duo}}, ''do'' with [[Sanskrit]] {{transliteration|sa|dhā-}}). The recognition of these two sound laws were seminal events in the understanding of the regular nature of linguistic sound change and the development of the [[comparative method (linguistics)|comparative method]], which forms the basis of modern [[historical linguistics]].
# The development of a strong [[stress (language)|stress]] on the first syllable of the word, which triggered significant phonological reduction of all other syllables. This is responsible for the reduction of most of the basic English, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish words into monosyllables, and the common impression of modern English and German as consonant-heavy languages. Examples are Proto-Germanic {{lang|gem-x-proto|*strangiþō}} → ''strength'', {{lang|gem-x-proto|*aimaitijō}} → ''ant'', {{lang|gem-x-proto|*haubudą}} → ''head'', {{lang|gem-x-proto|*hauzijaną}} → ''hear'', {{lang|gem-x-proto|*harubistaz}} → German {{lang|de|Herbst}} "autumn, harvest", {{lang|gem-x-proto|*hagatusjō}} → German {{lang|de|Hexe}} "witch, hag".
# A change known as [[Germanic umlaut]], which modified vowel qualities when a high front vocalic segment ({{IPA|/i/}}, {{IPA|/iː/}} or {{IPA|/j/}}) followed in the next syllable. Generally, back vowels were fronted, and front vowels were raised. In many languages, the modified vowels are indicated with an [[Umlaut (diacritic)|umlaut]] mark (e.g., {{lang|de|ä ö ü}} in German, pronounced {{IPA|/ɛ(ː) œ ~ øː ʏ ~ yː/}}, respectively). This change resulted in pervasive alternations in related words — prominent in modern German and present to a lesser extent in modern English (e.g., ''mouse/mice'', ''goose/geese'', ''broad/breadth'', ''tell/told'', ''old/elder'', ''foul/filth'', ''gold/gild''<ref>These alternations are no longer easily distinguishable from vowel alternations due to earlier changes (e.g. [[Indo-European ablaut]], as in ''write/wrote/written'', ''sing/sang/sung'', ''hold/held'') or later changes (e.g. vowel shortening in [[Middle English]], as in ''wide/width'', ''lead/led'').</ref>).
# Large numbers of vowel qualities. English has around 11–12 vowels in most dialects (not counting diphthongs), [[Standard Swedish]] has 17 [[Monophthong|pure vowels (monophthongs)]],{{sfnp|Wang|Ding|Tao|Li|2012|p=657}} standard German and Dutch 14, and [[Danish language|Danish]] at least 11.{{sfnp|Basbøll|Jacobsen|2003}} The Amstetten dialect of [[Bavarian German]] has 13 distinctions among long vowels alone, one of the largest such inventories in the world.<ref>{{SOWL|290}}</ref>
# ''[[V2 word order|Verb second]]'' (V2) word order, which is uncommon cross-linguistically. Exactly one noun phrase or adverbial element must precede the verb; in particular, if an adverb or prepositional phrase precedes the verb, then the subject must immediately follow the finite verb. In modern English, this survives to a lesser extent, known as "inversion": examples include some constructions with ''here'' or ''there'' (''Here comes the sun; there are five continents''), verbs of speech after a quote (''"Yes", said John''), sentences beginning with certain conjunctions (''Hardly had he said this when...; Only much later did he realize...'') and sentences beginning with certain adverbs of motion to create a sense of drama (''Over went the boat; out ran the cat; [[Pop Goes The Weasel]]''). It is more common in other modern Germanic languages.{{example needed|date=April 2023}}

Other significant characteristics are:
# The reduction of the various [[grammatical tense|tense]] and [[grammatical aspect|aspect]] combinations of the Indo-European verbal system into only two: the [[present tense]] and the [[past tense]] (also called the [[preterite]]).
# The development of a new class of [[Germanic weak verb|weak verbs]] that use a dental [[suffix]] ({{IPA|/d/}}, {{IPA|/t/}} or {{IPA|/ð/}}) instead of [[Apophony|vowel alternation]] ([[Indo-European ablaut]]) to indicate past tense. The vast majority of verbs in all Germanic languages are weak; the remaining verbs with vowel ablaut are the [[Germanic strong verb|strong verbs]]. The distinction has been lost in Afrikaans.
# A distinction in [[definiteness]] of a [[noun phrase]] that is marked by different sets of inflectional endings for [[adjectives]], the so-called strong and weak inflections. A similar development happened in the [[Balto-Slavic languages]]. This distinction has been lost in modern English but was present in [[Old English]] and remains in all other Germanic languages to various degrees.
# Some words with etymologies that are difficult to link to other Indo-European families but with variants that appear in almost all Germanic languages. See [[Germanic substrate hypothesis]].
#[[Discourse marker|Discourse particles]], which are a class of short, unstressed words which speakers use to express their attitude towards the utterance or the hearer. This word category seems to be rare outside of the Germanic languages. An example would be the word 'just', which the speaker can use to express surprise.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Harbert, Wayne.|title=The Germanic languages|date=2007|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-511-26991-2|location=Cambridge|pages=32–35|oclc=252534420}}</ref>

Some of the characteristics present in Germanic languages were not present in Proto-Germanic but developed later as [[areal feature]]s that spread from language to language:
* Germanic umlaut only affected the [[North Germanic languages|North]] and [[West Germanic languages]] (which represent all modern Germanic languages) but not the now-extinct [[East Germanic languages]], such as [[Gothic language|Gothic]], nor Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor of all Germanic languages.
* The large inventory of vowel qualities is a later development, due to a combination of Germanic umlaut and the tendency in many Germanic languages for pairs of long/short vowels of originally identical quality to develop distinct qualities, with the length distinction sometimes eventually lost. Proto-Germanic had only five distinct vowel qualities, although there were more actual vowel phonemes because length and possibly nasality were phonemic. In modern German, long-short vowel pairs still exist but are also distinct in quality.
* Proto-Germanic probably had a more general S-O-V-I word order. However, the tendency toward V2 order may have already been present in latent form and may be related to [[Wackernagel's law]], an Indo-European law dictating that sentence [[clitic]]s must be placed second.<ref>According to [[Donald Ringe]], cf. {{Harvcoltxt|Ringe|2006|p=295}}</ref>

Roughly speaking, Germanic languages differ in how conservative or how progressive each language is with respect to an overall trend toward [[analytic language|analyticity]]. Some, such as [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] and, to a lesser extent, German, have preserved much of the complex [[inflectional morphology]] inherited from Proto-Germanic (and in turn from [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]]). Others, such as English, [[Swedish language|Swedish]], and [[Afrikaans]], have moved toward a largely analytic type.

==Linguistic developments==

The subgroupings of the Germanic languages are defined by shared innovations. It is important to distinguish innovations from cases of linguistic conservatism. That is, if two languages in a family share a characteristic that is not observed in a third language, that is evidence of common ancestry of the two languages ''only if'' the characteristic is an innovation compared to the family's [[proto-language]].

The following innovations are common to the [[Northwest Germanic]] languages (all but [[Gothic language|Gothic]]):
* The lowering of /u/ to /o/ in initial syllables before /a/ in the following syllable: {{lang|gem-x-proto|*budą}} → ''bode'', Icelandic {{lang|is|boðs}} "messages" ("a-Umlaut", traditionally called ''Brechung'')
* "Labial umlaut" in unstressed medial syllables (the conversion of /a/ to /u/ and /ō/ to /ū/ before /m/, or /u/ in the following syllable){{sfnp|Campbell|1983|p=139}}
* The conversion of /ē<sub>1</sub>/ into /ā/ (vs. Gothic /ē/) in stressed syllables.<ref>But see {{Harvcoltxt|Cercignani|1972}}</ref> In unstressed syllables, West Germanic also has this change, but North Germanic has shortened the vowel to /e/, then raised it to /i/. This suggests it was an areal change.
* The raising of final /ō/ to /u/ (Gothic lowers it to /a/). It is kept distinct from the nasal /ǭ/, which is not raised.
* The [[monophthongization]] of /ai/ and /au/ to /ē/ and /ō/ in non-initial syllables (however, evidence for the development of /au/ in medial syllables is lacking).
* The development of an intensified demonstrative ending in /s/ (reflected in English "this" compared to "the")
* Introduction of a distinct ablaut grade in Class VII [[Germanic strong verb|strong verbs]], while Gothic uses [[reduplication]] (e.g. Gothic ''haihait''; ON, OE ''hēt'', preterite of the Gmc verb ''*haitan'' "to be called")<ref>See also {{Harvcoltxt|Cercignani|1979}}</ref> as part of a comprehensive reformation of the Gmc Class VII from a reduplicating to a new ablaut pattern, which presumably started in verbs beginning with vowel or /h/{{sfnp|Bethge|1900|p=361}} (a development which continues the general trend of de-reduplication in Gmc{{sfnp|Schumacher|2005|p=603f}}); there are forms (such as OE dial. ''heht'' instead of ''hēt'') which retain traces of reduplication even in West and North Germanic

The following innovations are also common to the [[Northwest Germanic]] languages but represent [[areal feature|areal changes]]:
* Proto-Germanic /z/ > /r/ (e.g. Gothic ''dius''; ON ''dȳr'', OHG ''tior'', OE ''dēor'', "wild animal"); note that this is not present in [[Proto-Norse]] and must be ordered after [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]] loss of final /z/
* [[Germanic umlaut]]

The following innovations are common to the [[West Germanic languages]]:
* Loss of final /z/. In single-syllable words, Old High German retains it (as /r/), while it disappears in the other West Germanic languages.
* Change of [ð] (fricative allophone of /d/) to stop [d] in all environments.
* Change of /lþ/ to stop /ld/ (except word-finally).{{sfnp|Campbell|1983|p=169}}
* [[West Germanic gemination]] of consonants, except ''r'', before /j/. This only occurred in short-stemmed words due to [[Sievers' law]]. Gemination of /p/, /t/, /k/ and /h/ is also observed before liquids.
* Labiovelar consonants become plain velar when non-initial.
* A particular type of ''umlaut'' /e-u-i/ > /i-u-i/.
* Changes to the 2nd person singular past-tense: Replacement of the past-singular stem vowel with the past-plural stem vowel, and substitution of the ending ''-t'' with ''-ī''.
* Short forms (''*stān, stēn'', ''*gān, gēn'') of the verbs for "stand" and "go"; but note that [[Crimean Gothic]] also has ''gēn''.
* The development of a [[gerund]].

The following innovations are common to the [[Ingvaeonic]] subgroup of the [[West Germanic languages]],  affecting mainly English, Frisian, and to a lesser extent Low German (all of which are Ingvaeonic), as well as Dutch, but not High German:
* The so-called [[Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law]], with loss of /n/ before voiceless fricatives: e.g. ''*munþ'', ''*gans'' > Old English ''mūþ, gōs'' > "mouth, goose", but German ''Mund, Gans''.
* The loss of the Germanic [[reflexive pronoun]] {{lang|gem-x-proto|*se-}}. Dutch has reclaimed the reflexive pronoun {{lang|nl|zich}} from Middle High German {{lang|gmh|sich}}.
* The reduction of the three Germanic [[verb]]al [[plural]] forms into one form ending in ''-þ''.
* The development of Class III weak verbs into a relic class consisting of four verbs (''*sagjan'' "to say", ''*hugjan'' "to think", ''*habjan'' "to have", ''*libjan'' "to live"; cf. the numerous Old High German verbs in ''-ēn'').
* The split of the Class II weak verb ending ''*-ō-'' into ''*-ō-/-ōja-'' (cf. Old English ''-ian'' < ''-ōjan'', but Old High German ''-ōn'').
* Development of a plural ending '''*-ōs''' in a-stem nouns (note, Gothic also has ''-ōs'', but this is an independent development, caused by [[terminal devoicing]] of ''*-ōz''; [[Old Frisian]] has ''-ar'', which is thought to be a late borrowing from [[Danish language|Danish]]). Cf. modern English plural ''-(e)s'', but German plural ''-e''.
* Possibly, the [[monophthong]]ization of Germanic ''*ai'' to ''ē/ā'' (this may represent independent changes in Old Saxon and [[Anglo-Frisian]]).

The following innovations are common to the [[Anglo-Frisian]] subgroup of the [[Ingvaeonic languages]]:
* Raising of nasalized ''a, ā'' into ''o, ō''.
* [[Anglo-Frisian brightening]]: Fronting of non-nasal ''a, ā'' to ''æ,ǣ'' when not followed by ''n'' or ''m''.
* [[Metathesis (linguistics)|Metathesis]] of ''CrV'' into ''CVr'', where ''C'' represents any consonant and ''V'' any vowel.
* [[Monophthongization]] of ''ai'' into ''ā''.

==Common linguistic features==
===Phonology===
The oldest Germanic languages all share a number of features, which are assumed to be inherited from Proto-Germanic. Phonologically, it includes the important sound changes known as [[Grimm's law]] and [[Verner's law]], which introduced a large number of [[fricative]]s; late [[Proto-Indo-European]] had only one, /s/.

The main vowel developments are the merging (in most circumstances) of long and short /a/ and /o/, producing short /a/ and long /ō/. That likewise affected the [[diphthong]]s, with PIE /ai/ and /oi/ merging into /ai/ and PIE /au/ and /ou/ merging into /au/. PIE /ei/ developed into long /ī/. PIE long /ē/ developed into a vowel denoted as /ē<sub>1</sub>/ (often assumed to be phonetically {{IPA|[æː]}}), while a new, fairly uncommon long vowel /ē<sub>2</sub>/ developed in varied and not completely understood circumstances. Proto-Germanic had no [[front rounded vowel]]s, but all Germanic languages except for [[Gothic language|Gothic]] subsequently developed them through the process of [[i-umlaut]].

Proto-Germanic developed a strong stress accent on the first syllable of the root, but remnants of the original free PIE accent are visible due to Verner's law, which was sensitive to this accent. That caused a steady erosion of vowels in unstressed syllables. In Proto-Germanic, that had progressed only to the point that absolutely-final short vowels (other than /i/ and /u/) were lost and absolutely-final long vowels were shortened, but all of the early literary languages show a more advanced state of vowel loss. This ultimately resulted in some languages (like Modern English) losing practically all vowels following the main stress and the consequent rise of a very large number of monosyllabic words.

====Table of outcomes====
The following table shows the main outcomes of Proto-Germanic vowels and consonants in the various older languages. For vowels, only the outcomes in stressed syllables are shown. Outcomes in unstressed syllables are quite different, vary from language to language and depend on a number of other factors (such as whether the syllable was medial or final, whether the syllable was [[open syllable|open]] or [[closed syllable|closed]] and (in some cases) whether the preceding syllable was [[light syllable|light]] or [[heavy syllable|heavy]]).

Notes:
* ''C-'' means before a vowel (word-initially, or sometimes after a consonant).
* ''-C-'' means between vowels.
* ''-C'' means after a vowel (word-finally or before a consonant). Word-final outcomes generally occurred ''after'' deletion of final short vowels, which occurred shortly after Proto-Germanic and is reflected in the history of all written languages except for [[Proto-Norse]].
* The above three are given in the order ''C-'', ''-C-'', ''-C''. If one is omitted, the previous one applies. For example, ''f, -[v]-'' means that ''[v]'' occurs after a vowel regardless of what follows.
* Something like ''a(…u)'' means "''a'' if /u/ occurs in the next syllable".
* Something like ''a(n)'' means "''a'' if /n/ immediately follows".
* Something like ''(n)a'' means "''a'' if /n/ immediately precedes".

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"
|+ Development of Germanic sounds
! Proto-Germanic{{sfnp|Ringe|2006}}{{sfnp|König|van der Auwera|1994}} !! (Pre-)Gothic<ref group=lower-alpha name="pre-gothic">The [[Gothic language#Alphabet and transliteration|Gothic writing system]] uses the spelling {{angbr|ai}} to represent vowels that derive primarily from four different sources:
# Proto-Germanic /ai/
# Proto-Germanic {{IPA|/eː/}} and {{IPA|/æː/}} before vowels
# Proto-Germanic /e/ and /i/ before /h/, /hʷ/ and /r/
# Greek {{IPA|/ɛ/}}.
The spelling {{angbr|au}} is similarly used to represent vowels primarily deriving from the following four sources:
# Proto-Germanic /au/
# Proto-Germanic {{IPA|/oː/}} and {{IPA|/uː/}} before vowels
# Proto-Germanic /u/ before /h/, /hʷ/ and /r/
# Greek {{IPA|/ɔ/}}.
It is generally agreed that the outcome of case 2 was pronounced {{IPA|[ɛː/ɔː]}} in Gothic, distinct from the vowels written {{angbr|e}} and {{angbr|o}}, which were pronounced {{IPA|[eː/oː]}}. Likewise, it is generally agreed that the outcomes of cases 3 and 4 were pronounced {{IPA|[ɛ]}} and {{IPA|[ɔ]}} in Gothic.  However, there is some argument over whether the outcomes of case 1 were still pronounced as diphthongs {{IPA|[ai/au]}}, as in Proto-Germanic, or had merged with case 2 as monophthongs {{IPA|[ɛː/ɔː]}}. There is some historical evidence (particularly from Latin spelling variations of ''Gaut-'' vs. ''Gōt-'', used to represent the name of the Goths) that the Proto-Germanic diphthongs had changed into monophthongs shortly before (i.e., within a century of) the time of [[Wulfila]], who designed the [[Gothic alphabet]] and wrote the [[Gothic Bible]] c. 360 AD. This accords with the fact that Wulfila used the same symbols {{angbr|ai/au}} to represent all the outcomes, despite the fact that the spellings {{angbr|aj/aw}} were available to unambiguously represent diphthongs (and, in fact, alternate with {{angbr|ai/au}} in a number of nominal and verbal paradigms). The use of the spelling {{angbr|ai}} to represent a monophthong {{IPA|[ɛ(ː)]}} was evidently in imitation of 4th century Greek, where {{angbr|ai}} likewise stood for {{IPA|[ɛː]}}, and {{angbr|au}} was apparently created by analogy. Consistent with many sources, such as {{Harvcoltxt|Bennett|1980}}, the phonology described here is that of "Pre-Gothic" (i.e., the phonology of Gothic just before the monophthongization of /ai/ and /au/).</ref>{{sfnp|Bennett|1980}}{{sfnp|Wright|1919}} !! Old Norse{{sfnp|Gordon|1927}} !! Old English{{sfnp|Campbell|1959}}{{sfnp|Diamond|1970}}{{sfnp|Lass|Anderson|1975}}{{sfnp|Lass|1994}}{{sfnp|Mitchell|Robinson|1992}}{{sfnp|Robinson|1992}}{{sfnp|Wright|Wright|1925}} !! Old High German{{sfnp|Wright|1906}}{{sfnp|Waterman|1976}}<!-- !! Old Saxon{{sfnp|Helfenstein|1870}} !! Old Low Franconian !! Old Frisian -->
|- style="border-top: 3px solid;"
! a
| rowspan=2 | a || a, ɔ(...u)<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut">In Old Norse, non-rounded vowels become rounded when a /u/ or /w/ follows in the next syllable, in a process known as [[Old Norse#U-umlaut|u-umlaut]].  Some vowels were affected similarly, but only by a following /w/; this process is sometimes termed ''w-umlaut''. These processes operated after [[i-umlaut]].  ''U-umlaut'' (by a following /u/ or /w/) caused /a/, /ja/ (broken /e/), /aː/, and /e/ to round to /ɔ/ (written ''ǫ''), /jɔ/ (written ''jǫ''), /ɔː/ (written ''ǫ́'' and later unrounded again to /aː/), and /ø/, respectively.  The vowels /i/ and /ai/ rounded to /y/ and /ey/, respectively, only before /w/.  Short /a/ become /ø/ by a combination of i-umlaut and w-umlaut.</ref> || æ, a(...a),<ref group=lower-alpha name="a-umlaut">A process known as [[a-mutation]] or ''a-umlaut'' caused short /u/ to lower to /o/ before a non-high vowel (usually /a/) in the following syllable.  All languages except Gothic were affected, although there are various exceptions in all the languages.  Two similar process later operated:
* In Old High German, /iu/ (from Proto-Germanic /eu/,/iu/) became /io/ before a non-high vowel in the next syllable.
* In Old English, /æ/ (from Proto-Germanic /a/) became /a/ before /a/ in the next syllable.
All of these processes were blocked in an i-umlaut context (i.e. by a following /j/).</ref> a/o(n), æ̆ă(h,rC,lC)<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-breaking">The diphthongal results are due to [[Old English breaking]].  In general, front vowels break into diphthongs before some subset of ''h'', ''w'', ''rC'', and ''lC'', where ''C'' is a consonant.  The diphthong /æa/ is written ''ea''; /eo/ is written ''eo''; /iu/ is written ''io''; and /iy/ is written ''ie''. All diphthongs umlaut to /iy/ ''ie''. All diphthongs occur both long and short. Note that there is significant dispute about the actual pronunciation of ''io'' and (especially) ''ie''. Their interpretation as /iu/ and /iy/, respectively, follows Lass (1994), ''Old English: A historical linguistic companion''.</ref> || a
|-
! a(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut">All languages except Gothic were affected by [[i-umlaut]].  This was the most significant of the various [[Diaeresis (diacritic)#Umlaut|umlaut]] processes operating in the Germanic languages, and caused back vowels to become fronted, and front vowels to be raised, when /i/, /iː/ or /j/ followed in the next syllable.  The term ''i-umlaut'' actually refers to two separate processes that both were triggered in the same environment.  The earlier process raised /e/ and /eu/ to /i/ and /iu/, respectively, and may have operated still in Proto-Germanic (with its effects in Gothic obscured due to later changes).  The later process affected all back vowels and some front vowels; it operated independently in the various languages, occurring at differing times with differing results.  Old English was the earliest and most-affected language, with nearly all vowels affected.  Old High German was the last language to be affected; the only written evidence of the process is with short /a/, which is umlauted to /e/.  However, later evidence suggests that other back vowels were also affected, perhaps still sub-phonemically in Old High German times.  These are indicated with a [[diaeresis (diacritic)|diaeresis]] or "umlaut" symbol (two dots) placed over the affected vowels.</ref>
| e, ø(...u)<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut" /> || e, æ, ĭy̆(h,rC,lC)<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-breaking" /> || e, a(hs,ht,Cw)
|-
! ãː
| rowspan=2 | aː  || aː || oː || aː
|-
! ãː(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| æː || eː || äː
|-
! æː
| rowspan=2 | eː, ɛː(V) || aː || æː, æa(h)<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-breaking" /> || aː
|-
! æː(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| æː || æː || äː
|-
! e
| rowspan=2 | i, ɛ(h,hʷ,r) || ja,<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-breaking">Proto-Germanic /e/ usually became Old Norse /ja/ by a process known as [[vowel breaking]].</ref> jø(...u),<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut" /> (w,r,l)e, (w,r,l)ø(...u)<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut" /> || e, ĕŏ(h,w,rC)<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-breaking" /> || e, i(...u)
|-
! e(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| i, y(...w)<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut" /> || i || i
|-
! eː
| eː, ɛː(V) || eː || eː || {{not a typo|ie}}
|-
! i
| i, ɛ(h,hʷ,r) || i, y(...w)<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut" /> || i, ĭŭ(h,w,rC)<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-breaking" /> || i
|-
! iː
| iː || iː || iː, iu(h) || iː
|-
! oː
| rowspan=2 | oː, ɔː(V) || oː || oː || uo
|-
! oː(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| øː || eː || üö
|-
! u
| rowspan=2 | u, ɔ(h,hʷ,r) || u, o(...a)<ref group=lower-alpha name="a-umlaut" /> || u, o(...a)<ref group=lower-alpha name="a-umlaut" /> || u, o(...a)<ref group=lower-alpha name="a-umlaut" />
|-
! u(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| y || y || ü
|-
! uː
| rowspan=2 | uː, ɔː(V) || uː || uː || uː
|-
! uː(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| yː || yː || üː
|-
! ai
| rowspan=2 | ai<ref group=lower-alpha name="pre-gothic" /> || ei, ey(...w),<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-u-umlaut" /> aː(h,r)<ref group=lower-alpha name="norse-ai">Before Proto-Germanic /x/, /xʷ/ or /r/, but not before Proto-Germanic /z/ (which only merged with /r/ much later in North Germanic). Cf. Old Norse ''árr'' (masc.) "messenger" < PG *airuz, ''ár'' (fem.) "oar" < PG *airō, vs. ''eir'' (fem.) "honor" < PG *aizō, ''eir'' (neut.) "bronze" < PG *aizan. (All four become ''ār'' in Old English; in Gothic, they become, respectively, ''airus'', (unattested), ''*aiza'', ''*aiz''.) Cf. {{cite web |last1=Köbler |first1=Gerhard |title=Altenglisches Wörterbuch |url=http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/altenglischeswoerterbuch/AENG-A.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030418155218/http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/altenglischeswoerterbuch/AENG-A.pdf |archive-date=18 April 2003 |url-status=live}}</ref> || aː || rowspan=2 | ei, eː(r,h,w,#)<ref group=lower-alpha name="ohg-ai">Before /r/, /h/ (including when derived from Proto-Germanic /xʷ/) or /w/, or word-finally.</ref>
|-
! ai(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| ei, æː(h,r) || æː
|-
! au
| rowspan=2 | au<ref group=lower-alpha name="pre-gothic" /> || au, oː(h) || æa || ou, oː(h,T)<ref group=lower-alpha name="ohg-au">Before /h/ (including when derived from Proto-Germanic /xʷ/) or before any [[dental consonant]], i.e. /s/,/z/,/þ/,/t/,/d/,/r/,/l/,/n/.</ref>
|-
! au(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| ey, øː(h) || iy || öü, öː(h,T)<ref group=lower-alpha name="ohg-au" />
|-
! eu
| rowspan=2 | iu || juː, joː(T)<ref group=lower-alpha name="dental">Before any [[dental consonant]], i.e. /s/,/z/,/þ/,/t/,/d/,/r/,/l/,/n/.</ref> || eo || rowspan=2 | io, iu(...i/u)<ref group=lower-alpha name="a-umlaut" />
|-
! eu(...i)<ref group=lower-alpha name="i-umlaut" />
| yː || iy
|-
! p
| p || p || p || pf-, -ff-, -f
|-
! t
| t || t || t || ts-, -ss-, -s<ref group=lower-alpha name="german-s">The result of the [[High German consonant shift]] produced a different sort of ''s'' than the original Proto-Germanic ''s''.  The former was written {{angbr|z}} and the latter {{angbr|s}}.  It is thought that the former was a [[dental consonant|dental]] /s/, somewhat like in English, while the latter was an "[[voiceless apicoalveolar fricative|apicoalveolar]]" sound as in modern European Spanish, sounding somewhere between English /s/ and /ʃ/.{{Harvcoltxt|Joos|1952}}) Modern standard German has /ʃ/ for this sound in some contexts, e.g. initially before a consonant (''schlimm'' cf. English ''slim''; ''Stand'' /ʃtant/, cf. English ''stand''), and after /r/ (''Arsch'', cf. English ''arse'' or ''ass''). A number of modern southern German dialects have /ʃ/ for this sound before all consonants, whether or not word-initially.</ref>
|-
! k
| k || k || k, tʃ(i,e,æ)-, -k-, -(i)tʃ-, -tʃ(i)-<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-palatal">Old English [[Palatalization (sound change)|palatalizes]] /k,g,ɣ/ to /tʃ,dʒ,j/ near a front vowel.  The sounds /k/ and /ɣ/ palatalized initially before any front vowel.  Elsewhere /ɣ/ palatalized before /j/ or ''before or after'' any front vowel, where /k/ and /g/ (which occurred only in the combinations /gg/, /ng/) palatalized before /j/, or either before or after /i,iː/.</ref> || k-, -xx-, -x
|-
! kʷ
| kʷ || kv, -k || kw-, -k-, -(i)tʃ-, -tʃ(i)-<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-palatal" /> || kw-, -xx-, -x
|-
! b-, -[β]-<ref group=lower-alpha name="voiced">Voiced fricatives were originally allophones of voiced stops, when occurring after a vowel or after certain consonants (and for /g/, also initially — hard [g] occurred only in the combinations /gg/, /ng/).  In Old Norse and Old English, voiceless fricatives became voiced between vowels (and finally after a vowel in Old Norse); as a result, voiced fricatives were reanalyzed as allophones of voiceless fricatives.  In Old High German, all voiced fricatives hardened into stops.</ref>
| b-, -[β]-, -f || b-, -[v]- || b-, -[v]-, -f || b
|-
! d-, -[ð]-<ref group=lower-alpha name="voiced" />
| d-, -[ð]-, -þ || d-, -[ð]- || d || t
|-
! [ɣ]-, -[ɣ]-<ref group=lower-alpha name="voiced" />
| g-, -[ɣ]-, -[x] || g-, -[ɣ]- || g-, j(æ,e,i)-, -[ɣ]-, -j(æ,e,i)-, -(æ,e,i)j-<ref group=lower-alpha name="oe-palatal" /> || g
|-
! f
| f || f, -[v]- || f, -[v]-, -f || f, p
|-
! þ
| þ || þ, -[ð]- || þ, -[ð]-, -þ || d
|-
! x
| h || h, -∅- || h, -∅-, -h || h
|-
! xʷ
| hʷ || xv, -∅- || hw, -∅-, -h || hw, -h-
|-
! s
| s || s-, -[z]- || s-, -[z]-, -s || ṣ-, -[ẓ]-, -ṣ<ref group=lower-alpha name="german-s" />
|-
! z
| -z-, -s || r || -r-, -∅ || -r-, -∅
|-
! r<ref group=lower-alpha name="r">In the early periods of the various languages, the sound written /r/ may have been strongly [[velarized]], as in modern [[American English]] (Lass 1994); this is one possible explanation for the various processes were triggered by ''h'' (probably {{IPA|[x]}}) and ''r''.</ref>
| r || r || r || r
|-
! l
| l || l || l || l
|-
! n
| n || n-, -∅(s,p,t,k),<ref group=lower-alpha name="lost-n">Old English and Old Norse lose /n/ before certain consonants, with the previous vowel lengthened (in Old Norse, the following consonant is also lengthened).</ref> -∅<ref group=lower-alpha>/n/ lost finally and before /s,p,t,k/, but not before other consonants.</ref> || n, -∅(f,s,þ)<ref group=lower-alpha name="lost-n" /> || n
|-
! m
| m || m || m || m
|-
! j<ref group=lower-alpha name="jw">Proto-Germanic /j/ and /w/ were often lost between vowels in all languages, often with /j/ or /w/ later reappearing to break the hiatus, and not always corresponding to the sound previously present.  After a consonant, Gothic consistently preserved /j/ and /w/, but most languages deleted /j/ (after triggering [[i-umlaut]]), and /w/ sometimes disappeared.  The loss of /j/ after a consonant occurred in the various languages at different times and to differing degrees.  For example, /j/ was still present in most circumstances in written Old Saxon, and was still present in Old Norse when a short vowel preceded and a back vowel followed; but in Old English and Old High German, /j/ only remained after an /r/ preceded by a short vowel.</ref>
| j || ∅-, -j-, -∅ || j || j
|-
! w<ref group=lower-alpha name="jw" />
| w || ∅-, v-(a,e,i), -v-, -∅ || w || w
|}

{{Reflist|group=lower-alpha}}

===Morphology===
The oldest Germanic languages have the typical complex inflected morphology of old [[Indo-European language]]s, with four or five noun cases; verbs marked for person, number, tense and mood; multiple noun and verb classes; few or no articles; and rather free word order. The old Germanic languages are famous for having only two tenses (present and past), with three PIE past-tense aspects (imperfect, aorist, and perfect/stative) merged into one and no new tenses (future, pluperfect, etc.) developing. There were three moods: indicative, subjunctive (developed from the PIE [[optative mood]]) and imperative. Gothic verbs had a number of archaic features inherited from PIE that were lost in the other Germanic languages with few traces, including dual endings, an inflected passive voice (derived from the PIE [[mediopassive voice]]), and a class of verbs with reduplication in the past tense (derived from the PIE perfect). The complex tense system of modern English (e.g. ''In three months, the house will still be being built'' or ''If you had not acted so stupidly, we would never have been caught'') is almost entirely due to subsequent developments (although paralleled in many of the other Germanic languages).

Among the primary innovations in Proto-Germanic are the [[preterite present verb]]s, a special set of verbs whose present tense looks like the past tense of other verbs and which is the origin of most [[modal verb]]s in English; a past-tense ending; (in the so-called "weak verbs", marked with ''-ed'' in English) that appears variously as /d/ or /t/, often assumed to be derived from the verb "to do"; and two separate sets of adjective endings, originally corresponding to a distinction between indefinite semantics ("a man", with a combination of PIE adjective and pronoun endings) and definite semantics ("the man", with endings derived from PIE ''n''-stem nouns).

Note that most modern Germanic languages have lost most of the inherited inflectional morphology as a result of the steady attrition of unstressed endings triggered by the strong initial stress. (Contrast, for example, the [[Balto-Slavic languages]], which have largely kept the Indo-European [[pitch accent]] and consequently preserved much of the inherited morphology.) [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]] and to a lesser extent modern German best preserve the Proto–Germanic inflectional system, with four noun cases, three genders, and well-marked verbs. English and Afrikaans are at the other extreme, with almost no remaining inflectional morphology.

The following shows a typical masculine ''a''-stem noun, Proto-Germanic ''*fiskaz'' ("fish"), and its development in the various old literary languages:

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Declension of ''a''-stem noun ''*fiskaz'' "fish" in various languages{{sfnp|Ringe|2006}}{{sfnp|Lass|1994}}{{sfnp|Helfenstein|1870}}
! colspan=2 | !! Proto-Germanic !! Gothic !! Old Norse !! Old High German !! Middle High German !! Modern German !! Old English !! Old Saxon !! Old Frisian
|-
! width="80" rowspan="6" | Singular
! Nominative
| *fisk-az || fisk-s || rowspan=2 | fisk-r || rowspan=3 | visk || rowspan=3 | visch || rowspan=3 | Fisch || rowspan=3 | fisc || rowspan=3 | fisc || rowspan=3 | fisk
|-
! Vocative
| *fisk || fisk
|-
! Accusative
| *fisk-ą || fisk || fisk
|-
! Genitive
| *fisk-as, -is || fisk-is || fisk-s || visk-es || visch-es || Fisch-es<ref>In speech, the genitive is usually replaced with ''vom'' + dative, or with the dative alone after prepositions.</ref> || fisc-es < fisc-æs || fisc-as, -es || fisk-is, -es
|-
! Dative
| *fisk-ai || fisk-a || fisk-i || visk-a || visch-e || Fisch-(e)<ref>The use of ''-e'' in the dative has become increasingly uncommon, and is found only in a few fixed phrases (e.g. ''zu Hause'' "at home") and in certain archaizing literary styles.</ref> || fisc-e < fisc-æ || fisc-a, -e || fisk-a, -i, -e
|-
! Instrumental
| *fisk-ō || fisk-a || — || visk-u || — || — || fisc-e < fisc-i<ref>Of questionable etymology.  Possibly an old locative.</ref> || fisc-u || —
|-
! width="80" rowspan="5" | Plural
! Nominative, Vocative
| *fisk-ôs, -ôz || fisk-ōs || fisk-ar || visk-a || rowspan=3 | visch-e || rowspan=3 | Fisch-e || rowspan=2 | fisc-as || rowspan=2 | fisc-ōs, -ās || rowspan=2 | fisk-ar, -a
|-
! Accusative
| *fisk-anz || fisk-ans || fisk-a || visk-ā
|-
! Genitive
| *fisk-ǫ̂ || fisk-ē || fisk-a || visk-ō || fisc-a || fisc-ō, -ā || fisk-a
|-
! Dative
| *fisk-amaz || fisk-am || fisk-um, -om || visk-um || visch-en || Fisch-en || fisc-um || fisc-un, -on || fisk-um, -on, -em
|-
! Instrumental
| *fisk-amiz || — || — || — || — || — || — || — || —
|}

====Strong vs. weak nouns and adjectives====

Originally, adjectives in Proto-Indo-European followed the same declensional classes as nouns. The most common class (the ''o/ā'' class) used a combination of ''o''-stem endings for masculine and neuter genders and ''ā''-stems ending for feminine genders, but other common classes (e.g. the ''i'' class and ''u'' class) used endings from a single vowel-stem declension for all genders, and various other classes existed that were based on other declensions. A quite different set of "pronominal" endings was used for pronouns, [[determiner (linguistics)|determiners]], and words with related semantics (e.g., "all", "only").

An important innovation in Proto-Germanic was the development of two separate sets of adjective endings, originally corresponding to a distinction between indefinite semantics ("a man") and definite semantics ("the man"). The endings of indefinite adjectives were derived from a combination of pronominal endings with one of the common vowel-stem adjective declensions – usually the ''o/ā'' class (often termed the ''a/ō'' class in the specific context of the Germanic languages) but sometimes the ''i'' or ''u'' classes. Definite adjectives, however, had endings based on ''n''-stem nouns. Originally both types of adjectives could be used by themselves, but already by Proto-Germanic times a pattern evolved whereby definite adjectives had to be accompanied by a [[determiner (linguistics)|determiner]] with definite semantics (e.g., a [[definite article]], [[demonstrative pronoun]], [[possessive pronoun]], or the like), while indefinite adjectives were used in other circumstances (either accompanied by a word with indefinite semantics such as "a", "one", or "some" or unaccompanied).

In the 19th century, the two types of adjectives – indefinite and definite – were respectively termed "strong" and "weak", names which are still commonly used. These names were based on the appearance of the two sets of endings in modern German. In German, the distinctive case endings formerly present on nouns have largely disappeared, with the result that the load of distinguishing one case from another is almost entirely carried by determiners and adjectives. Furthermore, due to regular sound change, the various definite (''n''-stem) adjective endings coalesced to the point where only two endings (''-e'' and ''-en'') remain in modern German to express the sixteen possible inflectional categories of the language (masculine/feminine/neuter/plural crossed with nominative/accusative/dative/genitive – modern German merges all genders in the plural). The indefinite (''a/ō''-stem) adjective endings were less affected by sound change, with six endings remaining (''-, -e, -es, -er, -em, -en''), cleverly distributed in a way that is capable of expressing the various inflectional categories without too much ambiguity. As a result, the definite endings were thought of as too "weak" to carry inflectional meaning and in need of "strengthening" by the presence of an accompanying determiner, while the indefinite endings were viewed as "strong" enough to indicate the inflectional categories even when standing alone. (This view is enhanced by the fact that modern German largely uses weak-ending adjectives when accompanying an indefinite article, and hence the indefinite/definite distinction no longer clearly applies.) By analogy, the terms "strong" and "weak" were extended to the corresponding noun classes, with ''a''-stem and ''ō''-stem nouns termed "strong" and ''n''-stem nouns termed "weak".

However, in Proto-Germanic – and still in [[Gothic language|Gothic]], the most conservative Germanic language – the terms "strong" and "weak" are not clearly appropriate. For one thing, there were a large number of noun declensions. The ''a''-stem, ''ō''-stem, and ''n''-stem declensions were the most common and represented targets into which the other declensions were eventually absorbed, but this process occurred only gradually. Originally the ''n''-stem declension was not a single declension but a set of separate declensions (e.g., ''-an'', ''-ōn'', ''-īn'') with related endings, and these endings were in no way any "weaker" than the endings of any other declensions. (For example, among the eight possible inflectional categories of a noun — singular/plural crossed with nominative/accusative/dative/genitive — masculine ''an''-stem nouns in Gothic include seven endings, and feminine ''ōn''-stem nouns include six endings, meaning there is very little ambiguity of "weakness" in these endings and in fact much less than in the German "strong" endings.) Although it is possible to group the various noun declensions into three basic categories — vowel-stem, ''n''-stem, and other-consonant-stem (a.k.a. "minor declensions") — the vowel-stem nouns do not display any sort of unity in their endings that supports grouping them together with each other but separate from the ''n''-stem endings.

It is only in later languages that the binary distinction between "strong" and "weak" nouns become more relevant. In [[Old English]], the ''n''-stem nouns form a single, clear class, but the masculine ''a''-stem and feminine ''ō''-stem nouns have little in common with each other, and neither has much similarity to the small class of ''u''-stem nouns. Similarly, in Old Norse, the masculine ''a''-stem and feminine ''ō''-stem nouns have little in common with each other, and the continuations of the masculine ''an''-stem and feminine ''ōn/īn''-stem nouns are also quite distinct. It is only in [[Middle Dutch]] and modern German that the various vowel-stem nouns have merged to the point that a binary strong/weak distinction clearly applies.

As a result, newer grammatical descriptions of the Germanic languages often avoid the terms "strong" and "weak" except in conjunction with German itself, preferring instead to use the terms "indefinite" and "definite" for adjectives and to distinguish nouns by their actual stem class.

In English, both sets of adjective endings were lost entirely in the late [[Middle English]] period.

==Classification==<!-- This section is linked from [[American and British English differences]] -->
{{main|List of Germanic languages}}

Note that divisions between and among subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent [[variety (linguistics)|varieties]] being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not. Within the Germanic language family are [[East Germanic]], [[West Germanic]], and [[North Germanic]]. However, East Germanic languages became extinct several centuries ago.{{When|date=July 2022}}

[[File:Germanic Languages Map Europe.png|thumb|upright=1.35|right|Germanic languages and main dialect groups]]
All living Germanic languages belong either to the [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]] or to the [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]] branch.
The West Germanic group is the larger by far, further subdivided into [[Anglo-Frisian]] on one hand and [[Continental West Germanic]] on the other. Anglo-Frisian notably includes English and all its [[English language|variants]], while Continental West Germanic includes German ([[Standard German|standard register]] and [[German dialects|dialects]]), as well as Dutch ([[Standard Dutch|standard register]] and [[Dutch dialects|dialects]]). East Germanic includes most notably the extinct Gothic and Crimean Gothic languages.

Modern classification looks like this. For a full classification, see [[List of Germanic languages]].

{{tree list}}
* '''Germanic'''
** [[West Germanic languages|West Germanic]]
*** [[High German languages]] (includes [[Standard German]] and [[German dialects|its dialects]])
**** [[Upper German]]
***** [[Alemannic German]] (includes [[Alsatian dialect|Alsatian]] and [[Swiss German]])
***** [[Bavarian language|Bavarian]]
****** [[Mòcheno language]]
****** [[Cimbrian language|Cimbrian]]
****** [[Hutterite German]]
**** [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]]
**** [[High Franconian]] (a transitional dialect between Upper and Central German)
**** [[Central German]]
***** [[East Central German]]
****** [[Wymysorys language|Wymysorys]]
***** [[West Central German]]
****** [[Luxembourgish language|Luxembourgish]]
****** [[Pennsylvania Dutch language|Pennsylvania Dutch]]
****** [[Hunsrik language|Hunsrik]]
*** [[Low German]]
**** [[West Low German]]
**** [[East Low German]]
**** [[Plautdietsch]] (Mennonite Low German)
*** [[Low Franconian languages|Low Franconian]]
**** [[Dutch language|Dutch]] and [[Dutch dialects|its dialects]]
**** [[Afrikaans]] (a separate [[standard language]])
**** [[Limburgish language|Limburgish]] (an [[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages|official minority *language]])
*** [[Anglo-Frisian languages|Anglo-Frisian]]
**** [[Anglic languages|Anglic]] (or English)
***** [[English language|English]] and [[English dialects|its dialects]]
***** [[Scots language|Scots]] in Scotland and [[Ulster]]
**** [[Frisian languages|Frisian]]
*****[[West Frisian language|West Frisian]]
*****[[East Frisian language|East Frisian]]
******[[Saterland Frisian language|Saterland Frisian]] (last remaining dialect of East Frisian)
*****[[North Frisian language|North Frisian]]
** [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]]
*** West Scandinavian
**** [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] (of Western branch origin, but heavily influenced by the Eastern branch)
**** [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]
**** [[Faroese language|Faroese]]
**** [[Elfdalian language|Elfdalian]]
*** East Scandinavian
**** [[Danish language|Danish]]
**** [[Swedish language|Swedish]]
***** [[Dalecarlian dialects]]
*** [[Modern Gutnish|Gutnish]]
** [[East Germanic languages|East Germanic]] 
*** [[Gothic language|Gothic]] {{extinct}}
*** [[Burgundian language (Germanic)|Burgundian]] {{extinct}}
*** [[Vandalic language|Vandalic]] {{extinct}}
*** [[Crimean Gothic]] {{extinct}}
{{tree list/end}}

== Writing ==
=== BC ===
[[File:Germanic – Romance language border map (early Middle Ages – early twentieth century).svg|thumb|upright=1.59|right|Germanic – Romance language border:<ref>{{cite book|last=van Durme|first=Luc|chapter=Genesis and Evolution of the Romance-Germanic Language Border in Europe|editor-last1=Treffers-Daller|editor-first1=Jeanine|editor-last2=Willemyns|editor-first2=Roland|title=Language Contact at the Romance–Germanic Language Border|year=2002|publisher=Multilingual Matters|isbn=9781853596278|url=http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~rwillemy/229_LanguageContact2002.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200916212242/http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~rwillemy/229_LanguageContact2002.pdf|archive-date=16 September 2020|url-status=live|page=13}}</ref> <br/> • Early Middle Ages {{color box|Green}} <br/> • Early Twentieth Century {{color box|Red}}]]

The earliest evidence of Germanic languages comes from names recorded in the 1st century by [[Tacitus]] (especially from his work ''[[Germania (book)|Germania]]''), but the earliest Germanic writing occurs in a single instance in the 2nd century BC on the [[Negau helmet]], written in [[Old Italic script]].{{sfnp|Todd|1992}}

=== AD ===
From roughly the 1st to the 2nd century AD, or possibly even before AD (as per the dating of the [[Hole Runestone]]: 50 BC to 275 AD),<ref>{{cite web |title=Inscribed sandstone fragments of Hole, Norway: radiocarbon dates provide insight into rune-stone traditions |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/inscribed-sandstone-fragments-of-hole-norway-radiocarbon-dates-provide-insight-into-runestone-traditions/52AF86395C4454EF01F436465EC5DE22 |website=cambridge.org |access-date=2025-04-26}}</ref> certain speakers of early Germanic varieties developed the [[Elder Futhark]], an early form of the [[runic alphabet]]. Early runic inscriptions also are largely limited to personal names and difficult to interpret.

The [[Gothic runic inscriptions|Gothic language was initially written with Elder runes]], but starting from the 4th century, such was superseded by the [[Gothic alphabet]], developed by Bishop [[Ulfilas]] for his translation of the [[Bible]] in the 4th century.<ref>[[Fausto Cercignani|Cercignani, Fausto]], ''The Elaboration of the Gothic Alphabet and Orthography'', in "Indogermanische Forschungen", 93, 1988, pp. 168–185.</ref>

Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke and read [[Latin]], in addition to their native Germanic varieties, began writing the Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters. However, throughout the [[Viking Age]] and [[Middle Ages]], runic writing remained in common use and development in Scandinavia, acting as the people's writing system alongside the state's Latin script, first diminishing properly when the printing press was introduced; however, the runic tradition survived regionally, especially in the Swedish province of [[Dalarna]] – see [[Dalecarlian runes]].

=== Modern writing ===
Modern Germanic languages mostly use an alphabet derived from the [[Latin Alphabet]]. In print, German used to be predominately set in [[blackletter]] [[typeface]]s (e.g., [[fraktur (typeface)|fraktur]] or [[schwabacher]]) [[Antiqua–Fraktur dispute|until]] the 1940s, while ''[[Kurrent]]'' and, since the early 20th century, ''[[Sütterlin]]'' were formerly used for German handwriting. Yiddish is written using an adapted [[Hebrew alphabet]].

== Vocabulary comparison ==
The table compares cognates in several different Germanic languages. In some cases, the meanings may not be identical in each language.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|- <!--Do not add a language to this table without first discussing it on the talk page. The languages shown here have been carefully selected to show a maximum number of differences.-->
! colspan="5" |[[West Germanic]]
! colspan="4" | [[North Germanic]]
! rowspan="2"| [[East Germanic|East<br /> Germanic]]
! rowspan="3"|[[Proto-Germanic language|Reconstructed<br /> Proto-Germanic]]<ref>Forms follow Orel 2003. þ represents IPA [θ], χ IPA [x], ȝ IPA [γ], đ IPA [ð], and ƀ IPA [β].</ref>
|-
! colspan="2" | [[Anglo-Frisian]]
! colspan="3"| Continental
! colspan="2"|West
! colspan="2"|East
|-
! [[English language|English]]
! [[West Frisian language|West Frisian]]
! [[Dutch language|Dutch]]
! [[Low German]]<ref>Low German forms follow the dictionary of {{cite book |last=Reuter |first=Fritz |title=Das Fritz-Reuter-Wörterbuch |publisher=Digitales Wörterbuch Niederdeutsch (dwn) |url=http://www.niederdeutsche-literatur.de/dwn/index-frw.php |year=1905 |access-date=22 October 2021 |archive-date=22 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211022160128/http://www.niederdeutsche-literatur.de/dwn/index-frw.php |url-status=live }}</ref>
! [[German language|German]]
! [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]]
! [[Norwegian language|Norwegian<br />(Nynorsk)]]
! [[Swedish language|Swedish]]
! [[Danish language|Danish]]
! [[Gothic language|Gothic †]]
|-
| apple || apel || appel || Appel || Apfel ||  epli || eple || äpple || æble || ''apel''<ref>Attested in this form in Crimean Gothic. See Winfred Lehmann, ''A Gothic Etymological Dictionary'' (Brill: Leiden, 1986), p. 40.</ref> || *ap(u)laz 
|-
| can || kinne || kunnen || känen || können || kunna || kunne, kunna || kunna || kunne || kunnan || *kanna
|-
| daughter || dochter || dochter || Dochter || Tochter ||  dóttir || dotter || dotter || datter  || dauhtar || *đuχtēr
|- 
| dead || dea || dood || dod || tot || dauður || daud || död || død || dauþs ||  *đauđaz
|-
| deep || djip || diep || deip || tief || djúpur || djup || djup || dyb || diups || *đeupaz
|-
| earth || ierde || aarde || Ir(d) || Erde || jörð || jord || jord || jord || airþa || *erþō
|-
| egg<ref>The English word is a loan from Old Norse.</ref> || aei, aai || ei || Ei || Ei || egg || egg || ägg || æg  || *addi<ref>Attested in Crimean Gothic in the nominative plural as ''ada''. See Winfred Lehmann, ''A Gothic Etymological Dictionary'' (Brill: Leiden, 1986), p. 2.</ref> || *ajjaz
|-
| fish || fisk || vis || Fisch || Fisch || fiskur || fisk || fisk || fisk || fisks || *fiskaz
|-
| go || gean || gaan || gahn || gehen || ganga || gå || gå(nga) || gå (gange)|| gaggan || *ȝanȝanan
|-
| good || goed || goed || gaud || gut || góð(ur) || god || god || god || gōþ(is) || *ȝōđaz
|-
| hear || hearre || horen || hüren || hören || heyra || høyra, høyre || höra || høre || hausjan || *χauzjanan,<br /> *χausjanan 
|-
| I || ik || ik || ick || ich || ég || eg || jag || jeg || ik || *eka
|-
| live || libje || leven || lewen || leben || lifa || leva || leva || leve || liban || *liƀēnan
|-
| night || nacht || nacht || Nacht || Nacht || nótt || natt || natt || nat || nahts || *naχtz
|-
| one || ien || één ||  ein, en || eins || einn || ein || en || en || áins || *ainaz
|-
| ridge || rêch || rug || Rügg(en) || Rücken || hryggur || rygg || rygg || ryg || – || *χruȝjaz
|-
| sit || sitte || zitten || sitten || sitzen || sitja || sitja, sitta || sitta || sidde || sitan || *setjanan
|-
| seek || sykje || zoeken || säuken || suchen || sækja || søkja || söka || søge || sōkjan || *sōkjanan
|-
| that || dat || dat || dat || das || það || det || det || det || þata || *þat
|-
| thank (noun) || tank || dank || Dank || Dank || þökk || takk || tack || tak  || þagks || *þankaz
|-
| true || trou || trouw || tru || treu || tryggur || trygg || trygg || tryg || triggws || *trewwaz
|-
| two || twa || twee || twei || zwei, zwo || tveir, tvær, tvö || to<ref>Dialectally tvo, två, tvei (m), tvæ (f), tvau (n).</ref> || två, tu || to || twái, twós, twa || *twō(u)
|-
| us || ús || ons || uns || uns || oss || oss || oss || os || uns || *uns- 
|-
| way || wei || weg || Weg || Weg || vegur || veg || väg || vej || wigs || weȝaz 
|-
| white || wyt || wit || witt || weiß || hvítur ||  kvit || vit || hvid || ƕeits || *χwītaz
|-
| word || wurd || woord || Wurd || Wort || orð || ord || ord || ord || waurd || *wurđan
|-
| year || jier || jaar || Johr || Jahr || ár || år || år || år || jēr || *jēran 
|}

==See also==

* [[List of Germanic languages]]
* [[Language families and languages]]
* [[List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents]]
* [[Germanization]] 
* [[Anglicization]]
*[[Norwegianization]]
* [[Germanic name]]
* [[Germanic verb]] and its various subordinated articles
* [[Germanic placename etymology]]
* [[German name]]
* [[Isogloss]]
* [[South Germanic languages]]

==References ==

=== Notes ===
{{reflist|group=nb}}

=== Citations ===
{{Reflist|30em}}

=== Bibliography ===
* {{Cite book
|last1=Basbøll 
|first1=Hans 
|last2=Jacobsen
|first2=Henrik Galberg
|year=2003
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VPQdAQAAIAAJ 
|title=Take Danish, for Instance: Linguistic Studies in Honour of Hans Basbøll Presented on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday, 12 July 2003 
|publisher=University Press of Southern Denmark
|isbn=9788778388261
|pages=41–57 
|language=en
}}
* {{cite encyclopedia 
|last=Bethge 
|first=Richard 
|editor=Ferdinand Dieter 
|encyclopedia=Laut- und Formenlehre der altgermanischen Dialekte (2. Halbband: Formenlehre) 
|title=Konjugation des Urgermanischen 
|year=1900
|publisher=Reisland 
|location=Leipzig 
}}
* {{citation
|last=Cercignani
|first=Fausto
|author-link=Fausto Cercignani
|title=Indo-European ē in Germanic
|journal=Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung
|volume=86
|issue=1
|year=1972
|pages=104–110
}}
* {{citation
|last=Cercignani
|first=Fausto
|author-link=Fausto Cercignani
|title=The Reduplicating Syllable and Internal Open Juncture in Gothic
|journal=Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprachforschung
|volume=93
|issue=11
|year=1979
|pages=126–132
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Jacobs
|first=Neil G.
|year=2005
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ijVn2KP0FocC&pg=PA3
|title=Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|via=Google Books
|isbn=9780521772150
}}
* {{cite journal 
|last=Joos
|first=Martin
|title=The Medieval Sibilants
|journal=Language
|volume=28
|number=2
|year=1952
|pages=222–231
|doi=10.2307/410515
|jstor=410515
}}
* {{citation 
|last=Schumacher
|first=Stefan 
|year=2005
|contribution='Langvokalische Perfekta' in indogermanischen Einzelsprachen und ihr grundsprachlicher Hintergrund |title=Sprachkontakt und Sprachwandel. Akten der XI. Fachtagung der Indogermanischen Gesellschaft, 17. – 23. September 2000, Halle an der Saale 
|editor-first=Gerhard 
|editor-last=Meiser 
|editor-first2=Olav
|editor-last2=Hackstein 
|publisher=Reichert 
|place=Wiesbaden
}}
* {{cite book 
|last=Todd
|first=Malcolm
|title=The Early Germans 
|year=1992
|publisher=Blackwell Publishing
}}
* {{cite journal 
|last1=Wang 
|first1=Chuan-Chao 
|last2=Ding 
|first2=Qi-Liang 
|last3=Tao 
|first3=Huan 
|last4=Li 
|first4=Hui 
|year=2012
|title=Comment on "Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa"
|journal=Science 
|language=en 
|volume=335 
|issue=6069 
|pages=657 
|doi=10.1126/science.1207846 
|issn=0036-8075 
|pmid=22323803
|bibcode=2012Sci...335..657W 
|doi-access=free 
}}

==== Germanic languages in general ====
* {{cite book |last1=Fulk |first1=R D |title=A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages |series=Studies in Germanic Linguistics |date=2018 |volume=3 |publisher=John Benjamin |isbn=9789027263131 | doi=10.1075/sigl.3|s2cid=165765984 }}
* {{cite book 
|last=Helfenstein
|first=James
|year=1870 
|title=A comparative grammar of the Teutonic languages 
|url=https://archive.org/details/acomparativegra00helfgoog
|location=London 
|publisher=MacMillan and Co
}}
* {{cite book 
|last1=König 
|first1=Ekkehard 
|last2=van der Auwera 
|first2=Johan 
|year=1994 
|title=The Germanic languages 
|location=London 
|publisher=Routledge
}}

==== Proto-Germanic ====
{{sfn whitelist |CITEREFRinge2006}}
* {{Cite book|last=Orel|first=Vladimir E.|url=https://archive.org/details/handbookofgerman0000orel|title=A Handbook of Germanic Etymology|year=2003|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-12875-0|author-link=Vladimir Orel|url-access=registration}}
* {{cite Q |Q131605459 |first=Don |last=Ringe |author-link=Donald Ringe |mode=cs1 }}

==== Gothic ====
* {{cite book 
|last=Bennett 
|first=William H. 
|year=1980 
|title=An introduction to the Gothic language 
|location=New York 
|publisher=Modern Language Association of America
}}
* {{cite book 
|last=Wright 
|first=Joseph C. 
|year=1919 
|title=Grammar of the Gothic language 
|location=London 
|publisher=Oxford University Press
}}

==== Old Norse ====
* {{cite book 
|last=Gordon 
|first=E.V. 
|year=1927 
|title=An introduction to Old Norse 
|location=London 
|publisher=Oxford University Press
}}
* {{cite book |last1=Zoëga |first1=Geir T. |author-link1=Geir T. Zoëga |year=2004 |title=A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic |location=Toronto |publisher=University of Toronto Press}}

==== Old English ====
* {{cite book 
|last=Campbell 
|first=A. 
|year=1959 
|title=Old English grammar 
|location=London 
|publisher=Oxford University Press
}}
* {{Cite book 
|last=Campbell 
|first=Alistair 
|title=Old English Grammar 
|year=1983
|publisher=Clarendon Press 
|isbn=9780198119432 
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-TNKAAAAYAAJ 
|language=en
}}
* {{cite book 
|last=Diamond 
|first=Robert E. 
|year=1970 
|title=Old English grammar and reader 
|url=https://archive.org/details/oldenglishgramma0000diam
|url-access=registration
|location=Detroit 
|publisher=Wayne State University Press
|isbn=9780814313909 
}}
* {{cite book 
|last=Hall 
|first=J.R. 
|year=1984 
|title=A concise Anglo–Saxon dictionary, 4th edition 
|location=Toronto 
|publisher=University of Toronto Press
}}
* {{cite book |last=Lass |first=Roger |year=1994 |title=Old English: A historical linguistic companion |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}
* {{cite book 
|last1=Lass 
|first1=Roger 
|last2=Anderson 
|first2=John M. 
|year=1975 
|title=Old English phonology 
|location=Cambridge 
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
}}
* {{cite book |last1=Mitchell |first1=Bruce |last2=Robinson |first2=Fred C. |year=1992 |title=A guide to Old English, 5th edition |location=Cambridge |publisher=Blackwell}}
* {{cite book 
|last=Robinson 
|first=Orrin 
|author-link=Orrin W. Robinson (philologist)
|year=1992 
|title=Old English and its closest relatives 
|url=https://archive.org/details/oldenglishitsclo0000robi
|url-access=registration
|location=Stanford 
|publisher=Stanford University Press
|isbn=9780804714549 
}}
* {{cite book 
|last1=Wright 
|first1=Joseph 
|last2=Wright 
|first2=Mary Elizabeth
|year=1925 
|title=Old English grammar, 3rd edition 
|location=London 
|publisher=Oxford University Press
}}

==== Old High German ====
* {{cite book 
|last=Wright 
|first=Joseph 
|year=1906 
|title=An Old High German primer, 2nd edition 
|location=Oxford 
|publisher=Clarendon Press
}}
* {{cite book 
|last=Waterman 
|first=John C. 
|year=1976 
|title=A history of the German language 
|location=Prospect Heights, Illinois 
|publisher=Waveland Press
}}

==External links==
{{AmCyc Poster|Germanic Races and Languages|Germanic languages}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100521081137/http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/language_resources.html Germanic Lexicon Project]
* [http://www.languagesandpeoples.com/Germanic 'Hover & Hear' pronunciations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308112509/http://www.languagesandpeoples.com/Germanic |date=8 March 2016 }} of the same Germanic words in dozens of Germanic languages and 'dialects', including English accents, and compare instantaneously side by side
* [http://www.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/gaeste/Schreibsprachen/index.html ''Bibliographie der Schreibsprachen'': Bibliography of medieval written forms of High and Low German and Dutch]
* [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swadesh_lists_for_Germanic_languages Swadesh lists of Germanic basic vocabulary words] (from Wiktionary's [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swadesh_lists Swadesh-list appendix])
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8LxRfdLrlU Germanic languages fragments]—YouTube (14:06)

{{Indo-European languages}}
{{Germanic languages}}
{{Germanic peoples}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Germanic languages| ]]
[[Category:Indo-European languages]]