Germanic Languages PDF

The Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a large, independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Language history A hypothetical proto-Germanic (pre- or common) Germanic language is thought to be the origin of all Germanic languages. The earliest texts are runic inscriptions (mai...

The Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a large, independent branch of the Indo-European language family. Language history A hypothetical proto-Germanic (pre- or common) Germanic language is thought to be the origin of all Germanic languages. The earliest texts are runic inscriptions (mainly personal names), the coherent text is a 4th century translation of the New Testament by Ulfilas into Gothic (East Germanic language). For the West Germanic languages there are Old High German and Old English texts from the 9th century; For the North Germanic languages, larger runic inscriptions from the 8th century; longer Icelandic texts in Latin script from the 12th century. 1  West Germanic High German languages (includes S tandard German and its dialects) Upper German Wymysorys Hunsrik Yiddish High Franconian (a Central German Low German Low Franconian Anglo-Frisian transitional dialect between Upper and Central German) Austro-Bavarian West Central Dutch and its Alemannic German East Central German West Low German Anglic (or English) Frisian German German dialects Afrikaans (a English and its Mòcheno language Luxembourgish East Low German separate standard West Frisian East Frisian North Frisian dialects language) Plautdietsch (Menno Limburgish (an offici Scots in Scotland Cimbrian language Pennsylvania Dutch nite Low German) al minority language) and Ulster Saterland Frisian (last remaining dialect of East Frisian) Hutterite German Figure 1 Overview West Germanic languages  North Germanic West Scandinavian East Scandinavian Gutnish Norwegian (of Western branch Danish Swedish origin, but heavily influenced by the Eastern branch) Dalecarlian dialects Icelandic Faroese Elfdalian Figure 2 Overview North Germanic languages East Germanic Gothic † Burgundian † Vandalic † Crimean Gothic † (relationship to earlier Gothic unclear) Figure 3 Overview East Germanic languages 3 Phonetics/Phonology 1. The Germanic languages tend to have large numbers of vowel qualities (e.g. high vs. low, open vs. closed, front vs. back). The quality of a vowel is determined by the position of the tongue, lips, and lower jaw, and the resulting size and shape of the mouth and pharynx. 2. There were changes in consonantism between Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and Proto-Germanic that affected all Germanic languages. They are usually referred to as the Germanic sound shift, or first sound shift, or Grimm's law.) Grimm's Law is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the 1st millennium BC. Example: from the sound /p/ to the sound /f/;  Second Germanic consonant shift or High German consonant shift: This only concerned Old High German and is responsible for some of the differences between modern German and related Germanic languages such as English or Dutch, as the following example of three types of change shows: Morphology Note that most modern Germanic languages have lost most of their inherited inflectional morphology as a result of the steady attrition of unstressed endings triggered by the strong initial stress. 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 inflectional morphology remaining. 4 Syntax The Germanic languages favour verb second (V2) word order – this is not even that common cross- linguistically. German In a nutshell  Genetic type: West Germanic language  Speakers: 100 mil.+ L1; 80 mil.+ L2, L3, …  Morphological typology: inflected language  Syntactic typology: combination of SVO + SOV Speakers and Distribution German is a pluricentric language, with three standardized variants: German, Austrian, and Swiss Standard High German. It is also known for its wide range of dialects, which are spoken throughout Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have been officially recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, German-speaking countries have held annual meetings with six participants: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. German is the main official language in:  Germany,  Austria,  Liechtenstein. German is an official language among other languages:  Belgium (with French, Dutch)  Luxembourg (with French, Letzebuergesch/Luxembourgish)  Switzerland (75% German; with French, Italian, Romansh)  Italy (regionally in South Tyrol, with Italian & Ladin; in Valle d'Aosta, with French, Italian; Friuli, with Slovenian, Italian)  Namibia (since June 1984, with Afrikaans and English) Approximate distribution of native speakers of German or a German variety outside Europe (according to Ethnologue 2016 unless referenced otherwise; Numbers of speakers should not be summed up per country, as they most likely overlap considerably. Table includes varieties with disputed statuses as separate language (table from English Wiki) Standard Hunsrik Low German & Pennsylvania Hutterite German Hunsrückisch Plautdietsch Dutch Argentina 400,000 — 4,000 — — 5  Australia 79,000 — — — — Belize — — 9,360 — — Bolivia 160,000 — 60,000 — — Brazil 1,500,000 3,000,000 8,000 — — Canada 430,000 — 80,000 15,000 23,200 Chile 35,000 — — — — Costa Rica — — 2,000 — — Israel 200,000 — — — — Kazakhstan 30,400 — 100,000 — — Mexico — — 40,000 — — Namibia 22,500 — — — — New Zealand 36,000 — — — — Paraguay 166,000 — 40,000 — — Russia — — — — — South Africa 12,000 — — — — Uruguay 28,000 — 2,000 — — United States 1,104,354 — 12,000 118,000 10,800 Sum 4,597,392 3,000,000 357,360 133,000 34,000 German as a foreign language: German is second most widely spoken language in Europe after English. German as a foreign language is particularly popular in the Netherlands, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, Slovenia, Croatia, Poland, Japan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Hungary, Montenegro and Macedonia. In some of these countries, German is the first foreign language taught at school, ranking even higher than English. In other countries, such as France, German is increasingly losing ground to Spanish. In East Asia (Japan), German was used as a medical language instead of Latin in the 19th and 20th centuries. Language History The oldest language stage of High German is Old High German, which began with the second sound shift and the beginning of written tradition in the mid-8th century. Old High German texts include religious and secular content, such as translations from Latin, poetry, and everyday literature. Middle High German followed around 1050 and is associated with minnesong, chivalric epics, and verse narratives from writers such as Gottfried von Strassburg, Hartmann von Aue, Walther von der Vogelweide, and Wolfram von Eschenbach. Early New High German began around 1350 and includes the language of Luther, which influenced the development of the New High German standard language. New High German began around 1650 and extends to the present day, serving as the basis for our current standard language. Old High German: 750 - 1050 Middle High German: 1050 - 1350 Early New High German: 1350 - 1650 New High German: 1650 - today 1781: first large dictionary by Johann Christoph Adelung. 1852: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm begin publishing the German Dictionary (completed: 1961!). Medieval German was not a uniform language form, but rather a multitude of dialects that were spoken and written. The unifying feature of the High German dialects was the second sound shift. Standard 6 German language developed gradually from the 16th century onwards, based on various dialects, and influenced by grammarians and language teachers. Low German, or Plattdeutsch, is divided into epochs, including Old Low German or Old Saxon and Middle Low German, which experienced its heyday in the 14th and 15th centuries as a language of communication and writing in the Hanseatic League. Low German lost importance after the decline of the Hanseatic League, and now exists almost exclusively in oral form in a variety of dialects. Orthography During the 19th century, there was a growing trend towards standardization. In 1880, Konrad Duden published the "Orthographisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache" (Orthographic Dictionary of the German Language), which was later adopted as the foundation for official spelling in the 1901 spelling reform, albeit with some modifications. In 1996, a renewed spelling reform was introduced, which has since undergone two revisions. Phonetics and Phonology: German's vowel system is characterized by the contrast between short and long vowels as well as between front rounded and front unrounded vowels. Short vowels are pronounced in a lax way while long vowels are tense. 16 vowel phonemes (monophtongs): 3 diphtongs: ai: /aɪ/; /,au: /aʊ/; eu: /ɔʏ/ 21 consonant phonemes: Voiced stops and fricatives in word-final position become voiceless. Voiced [b] before consonants [t] and [s] changes to [p]. The velar and palatal fricatives have an almost complementary distribution. The velar fricative [x] occurs after central and back vowels, never in initial position; while the palatal one [ç] occurs after front vowels, the consonants n, l, r, and in word initial position. [r] has several allophones including a uvular trill or fricative [ʀ] when it is followed by a vowel. Stress: In German, stress is typically placed on the root syllable, as in 'le-sen, 'Spra-che, ver'steh-en, and ent-'füh- 7 ren. However, certain prefixes, like 'Aus-spra-che, and suffixes, such as '-ei' in Bä-cke-'rei, can also carry stress. This implies that stress in German is movable, as in 'pro-nun-ci-a-tion, 'lan-guage, and be-'spre- chen. In compounds with a determiner, the stress falls on the first word. There are no fixed rules for stress placement in foreign words, as stress is often borrowed along with the word. In toponyms with Romance etymology, like Paznaun and Lizum in Tyrol, stress placement may differ from the standard rules. In spoken German, the stressed syllable is pronounced with greater emphasis and volume. Syllables with long vowels can also be elongated to add weight to the word. Intonation In spoken language, intonation plays a crucial role in conveying meaning and expressing emotions. In German, three primary melodic progressions are used: falling, rising, and floating (progressive) intonation. Falling intonation is commonly employed to indicate sentence closure in declarative statements and word questions, such as "Wann kommst du?" (When are you coming?) and "Ich komm’ jetzt" (I'm coming now). The final stressed syllable is pronounced slightly higher than the preceding ones, and the subsequent syllables then descend below the sentence level. Floating intonation occurs during pauses, such as between main and subordinate clauses, and does not follow a specific direction. Rising intonation is typical for yes-or-no questions, also known as decision questions, such as "Do you like to eat chocolate?" Word questions can also be spoken with rising intonation to lend them a friendly tone. The last stressed syllable is pronounced slightly lower, and the subsequent syllables then rise above the sentence level. In all cases, the direction of the intonation is determined by the last stressed syllable in the sentence, which may be a single word. Morphology German is a language characterized by its extensive inflectional morphology, making it an inflected language. Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives exhibit four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative), three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and two numbers (singular and plural). Verbs in German are classified as either strong or weak, depending on their conjugation pattern. Furthermore, German boasts a highly synthetic word formation system with abundant morphology, enabling the creation of new words by combining existing ones. However, in contrast to its synthetic word formation, German's inflection tends to be less synthetic, relying on auxiliary verbs and other particles to convey grammatical information, thus leaning towards a more analytical structure. Number Singular and plural are marked for nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs. Singular: All feminines show no change, masculines and neuters follow one of the two types b or c: Case Genus Genus Feminine Masculine and neuter (a) (b) (c1) (c2) Nominative the woman the lion the spirit the sail Genitive The woman of the lion of the mind of the sail Dative The woman the lion the spirit(s) the sail Plural: Masculine and neuter nouns often form the plural with -e; feminines form the plural with -(e)n; proper names, abbreviations, many foreign words, nouns, onomatopoeia have plural on -s. 8 Foreign and technical words of Latin or Greek origin often retain their plural forms from the original language: visa, visas; virus, viruses; atlas, atlases. Gender: German nouns are categorized into three genders: feminine, masculine, and neuter. These genders are inherent properties of the nouns themselves. For example, "Mund" (mouth) is masculine, "Nase" (nose) is feminine, and "Kinn" (chin) is neuter. Approximately 90% of monosyllabic words are masculine. Nominalized adjectives and verbs take the neuter gender, while nouns with suffixes like "-keit" and "- heit" are typically feminine. Nouns with the suffix "-chen" are neuter, although the natural gender and grammatical gender can differ. For example, "the girl" is grammatically neuter ("das Mädchen") despite referring to a female. Declension: German nouns undergo declension, which involves four case endings: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. Due to historical changes, some case endings have been lost, and the article serves as an additional indicator of case. The article "der" marks the genitive in the singular and the dative in the plural. The vocative case, used for direct address, corresponds to the nominative case in form. The genitive case is increasingly being replaced by constructions involving prepositions and the dative case, as exemplified by the phrase "Der Dativ ist dem Genitiv sein Tod" (The dative is the death of the genitive). In terms of inflection (conjugation), there exists a distinction between strong and weak verbs. The application of tense forms is as follows: The present tense holds significant importance and can serve as a substitute for the preterite or perfect tense in cases of "historical present." Additionally, in colloquial speech, the present tense is often used for future tense I, typically accompanied by adverbs denoting place or time. 9 The preterite tense functions as a classical narrative tense and is commonly used in northern Germany, even in colloquial speech. In southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, however, the perfect tense is generally preferred over the preterite, with the exception of auxiliary and modal verbs. This distinction holds true even in situations where the preterite tense is commonly used in northern Germany. Application of tense forms: The most important form is present tense. It can replace preterite or perfect as „historical present“ and is often used colloquially for future tense I (then supplemented with adverbs of place or time). Preterite: Classical narrative tense; in northern Germany also colloquial; in southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the perfect is used instead of the preterite, except for auxiliary and modal verbs, even where the preterite would be common in northern Germany. Syntax German is a nominative-accusative language. Word order: German employs a combination of Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) and Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word orders. It also utilizes numerous subordinate clause constructions, typically introduced by conjunctions (with some exceptions). German has a limited use of infinite constructions and participial constructions, and subjunctive ellipsis is rare. Sentence structure: In declarative sentences and W-question sentences, the inflected and uninflected verb forms create a sentence bracket. The inflected verb form always occupies the second position within the clause and functions as an auxiliary verb (such as "sein," "haben," or "werden") or a modal verb. The uninflected verb form appears at the end of the clause and can be a main verb or a verb particle (such as "trennte...ab," "machte...blau," or "machte...Männchen"). Figure 11German sentence order Lexikon The majority of German vocabulary is derived from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. However, a smaller portion of the vocabulary has influences from Latin and Greek, and there are also some borrowed words from French and Modern English. 10