Germanic Languages

ЛЕКЦИЯ 1

A language can be considered from different angles. In studying Modern English we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level – phonetics, grammar or lexis – synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language.

The historical, or genealogical classification, groups languages in accordance with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor.

Genetically, English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of languages, which is one of the twelve groups of the Indo-European linguistic family.

The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic language. Proto-Germanic is the linguistic ancestor or the parent language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related Proto-Indo-European languages between the 15^th and 10^th century B.C.

The question of the original home of the Indo-Europeans has been much debated, but nowadays most scholars agree that the original group of people that spoke Proto-Indo-European, the language which would spilt into a number of branches, including the Germanic branch, lived somewhere between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea some 6000 years ago. Most scholars believe that this population then expanded/migrated eastward, westward and northward and thereby came to inhabit most of Europe and parts of Western Asia.

Figure 1. Proposed geographic location of original home of the Proto-Indo-European tribes

The ancient Germans or Teutons moved further north than other tribes and settled on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in the region of the Elbe. Southern Scandinavia including Jutland peninsula is the probable homeland of the Teutons. It is here that they developed their first specifically Germanic linguistic features which made them a separate group in the Indo-European family.

Proto-Germanic was only a spoken language. Proto-Germanic was most probably spoken just before the beginning of the Christian era. The forms of Proto-Germanic can only be reconstructed. This was done in the 19^th century by methods of comparative linguistics.

It should be mentioned that the Germans didn’t lose touch with other Indo-European languages. They migrated and these migrations caused new contacts. This was reflected in the speech. The Germanic tribes came into contact with East European tribes, and the languages later formed the Baltic and Slavonic groups. The Germanic tribes also had contacts with Italian tribes that lived in southern Europe. Thus, Latin language influenced the language of Germanic tribes. These contacts found reflections in the borrowings into the languages of these nations.

Nowadays most of the area of Europe and large parts of other continents are occupied by Indo-European languages, Germanic being one of the major groups.

The Germanic languages in the modern world are as follows:

English – in Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies;

German – in the Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, part of Switzerland;

Netherlandish – in the Netherlands and Belgium (known also as Dutch and Flemish respectively);

Afrikaans – in the South African Republic;

Danish – in Denmark;

Swedish – in Sweden and Finland;

Norwegian – in Norway;

Icelandic – in Iceland;

Frisian – in some regions of the Netherlands and Germany;

Faroese – in the Faroe Islands; Фарерские о-ва

Yiddish – in different countries.

Lists of Germanic languages given in books differ in some points, for the distinction between separate languages and also between languages and dialects varies. Until recently Dutch and Flemish were named as separate languages; Frisian and Faroese are often referred to as dialects, since they are spoken over small, politically dependent areas; the linguistic independence of Norwegian is questioned, for it has intermixed with Danish; Br E and Am E are sometimes regarded as two independent languages.

However it is clear that all the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-20