Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In more recent times it has been heavily influenced by German, both standard German and the neighbouring Low German dialects. Other changes include palatalization of gg before j to Old English cg (Proto-Germanic *brugjō, pre-Old English *bruggju, Old English brycg ‘bridge’; contrast the unpalatalized ck from gg of German Brücke ‘bridge’); a front reflex of Proto-Germanic *ē1 (English/German pairs include deed/Tat, seed/Saat, sleep/schlafen, meal/Mahl); and backing and raising of nasalized ā, from Proto-Germanic *ā and *a before nasal plus f, þ, and s (English/German pairs include brought/brachte, thought/dachte, other/ander, and goose/Gans). Information about West Germanic: Esperanto: Okcidentĝermana lingvaro. English is now spoken by around 400 million people natively.[2]. Nearly all school instruction is given in Dutch; all daily newspapers are printed in Dutch (though they contain occasional articles in Frisian); and the majority of television and radio broadcasts are in Dutch. The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. In historical linguistics, the North Germanic family tree is divided into two main branches, West Out of the many local West Germanic dialects the following six modern standard languages have arisen: English, Frisian, Dutch (Netherlandic-Flemish), Afrikaans, German, and Yiddish. The status of Frisian in the East and North Frisian areas of Germany is far more tenuous. The three exceptions are the island dialect of East and West Terschelling and the dialects of the city of Hindeloopen and of the island of Schiermonnikoog. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The West Germanic Languages are a branch of Germanic languages first spoken in Central Europe and the British Isles. Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Scholars often divide the Germanic languages into three groups: West Germanic, including English, German, and Netherlandic ; North Germanic, including Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Faroese; and East Germanic, now extinct, comprising only Gothic and the languages of the Vandals, Burgundians, and a few other tribes. Examples (given here in part to show the close relationship between Frisian and English) include p, t, and k (unaspirated) in peal ‘pole,’ twa ‘two,’ and kat ‘cat’; b, d, and the stop symbolized by the letter g in boi ‘boy,’ dei ‘day,’ and goed ‘good’; f, s, and ch in fiif ‘five,’ seis ‘six,’ and acht ‘eight’; v, z, and the fricative symbolized by the letter g in tolve ‘twelve,’ tûzen ‘thousand,’ and wegen ‘ways’; m, n, and ng in miel ‘meal,’ need ‘need,’ and ring ‘ring’; l and r in laem ‘lamb’ and reep ‘rope’; w, h, and j in wy ‘we,’ hy ‘he,’ and jo ‘you.’ As the final letter of a word, voiced b, d, z, and g are generally unvoiced to p, t, s, and ch. English is of course a Germanic language still (but with strong Romance elements due to language contact in history). American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. A key victory in the history of the Germanic language family was the battle of the Teutoburg forest against the Roman Empire in 9 AD, saving the Germanic tribes from Romanization. Furthermore, though Frisian continues to be widely used as the language of everyday oral communication, it is increasingly a “Dutch” Frisian, with numerous borrowings from standard Dutch. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages and include German, English, Scots, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, Low German languages and Yiddish. English Wikipedia has an article on: There German performs all the functions of a standard language, and Frisian serves only as yet another local dialect, comparable to the many surrounding local dialects of Low German. 1 synonym for West Germanic: West Germanic language. Afrikaans Dutch English Frisian Languages German Low German Languages Scots Yiddish Other major West Germanic languages are Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch; Low German; Yiddish and Limburgish. Subcategories. Category:West Germanic languages. Midway through the first millennium, the northern branch had developed into East and West North Germanic dialects. Please select which sections you would like to print: While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. English and Frisian are descended from North Sea Germanic. West Germanic is one of the three branches of the Germanic group. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. West Germanic. This stage of the language, until about 1575, is known as Old Frisian. One of Babbel's experts breaks it down. West Germanic languages, group of Germanic languages that developed in the region of the North Sea, Rhine-Weser, and Elbe. Official Language of Germany. The area to the north is called East Frisia (German Ostfriesland), and the local dialect East Frisian (German Ostfriesisch), although it is actually not Frisian but the local variety of Low German. Existence of West Germanic proto-language. Quite different from any of these is the so-called City Frisian (Stedfrysk, or Stedsk) spoken in the cities of Leeuwarden, Franeker, Harlingen, Bolsward, Sneek, Staveren, and Dokkum. West Germanic languages constitute a sub-category of the Germanic Languages. English, Dutch, Friesian, Luxemburgish, Plattdeutsch, and a few other languages usualliy vlassed as dialects, are all West, or North-West Germanic. The status of Scots as a separate language is a question of debate. The last written document of this period dates from 1573, after which Frisian was relatively little used as a written language for some three centuries. The Scandinavian languages are North Germanic. Because this linguistic area long bordered on Danish, it was extensively influenced by the neighbouring Danish dialects. Distribution of the Germanic languages in Europe. Noun 1. During the following centuries the Frisian of much of this area was gradually replaced by local Dutch and Low German dialects, so that Modern Frisian is now spoken in only three remaining areas: (1) West Frisian, in the Dutch province of Friesland, including the island of Schiermonnikoog and two-thirds of the island of Terschelling (altogether some 400,000 speakers), (2) East Frisian, in the German Saterland (some 1,000 speakers; this area was apparently settled in the 12th or 13th century from the former East Frisian area to the north), and (3) North Frisian, along the west coast of German Schleswig and on the offshore islands of Sylt, Föhr, Amrum, the Halligen, and Helgoland (altogether some 8,000 speakers). Minority Languages Spoken in Germany Low German. The hypothesis that English must be classified genealogically as a North Germanic language on syntactic grounds, and that West Germanic English died out in England in the Middle Ages and was replaced by Norse, so that Middle English is in fact Norse, was first presented to the wider world in November 2012, when Jan Terje Faarlund was interviewed by the University of Oslo research … The earliest manuscripts written in Frisian date from the end of the 13th century, though the legal documents that they contain were probably first composed, in part, as early as the 11th century. Of the above mentioned Germanic languages, the most popularly spoken in the world belong to the West Germanic branch and include: What are synonyms for West Germanic language? The local language of Luxemburg – Letzebergisch – is also Germanic. The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo - European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages the others being the North Germanic and the peoples. A thousand years or so ago Frisian was apparently spoken throughout a North Sea coastal area extending from the modern Netherlands province of Noord-Holland (North Holland) on up to modern German Schleswig and the adjacent offshore islands. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Category:West Germanic languages. What are synonyms for West Germanic languages? [3] [4] [5] It is named after the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of … Jump to navigation Jump to search. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages . The Germanic languages are separated into the East Germanic languages (all extinct), the North Germanic languages and the West Germanic languages. The German language (Deutsch, pronounced ()) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe.It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol.It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg, Belgium and parts of southwestern Poland, as well as a national language in Namibia. English is a West Germanic language first spoken in early medieval England, which has become the leading language of international discourse in the 21st century. For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for West Germanic languages. West Germanic languages, group of Germanic languages that developed in the region of the North Sea, Rhine-Weser, and Elbe. Sister and daughter languages of German, English, and Dutch are also a part of this branch. The West Germanic Languages are a branch of Germanic languages first spoken in Central Europe and the British Isles. Modern German, or Hochdeutsch, is based on South Central High German dialects. The only East Germanic languages of which texts are known are … West Germanic languages synonyms, West Germanic languages pronunciation, West Germanic languages translation, English dictionary definition of West Germanic languages. The West Germanic branch includes two of the most commonly spoken Germanic languages, German and English. Frisian has the following system of consonants, given here in the usual spellings: stops, p, b, t, d, k, g; fricatives, f, v, s, z, ch, g; nasals, m, n, ng; liquids, l, r; and glides, w, h, j. Professor of Linguistics, Princeton University, 1960–79. The most spoken languages in the branch are English, German, and Dutch. For further information on English, see English language. Frisian has the system of stressed vowels and diphthongs shown in the table. Omissions? Scots is also derived from West Germanic (from northern forms of Old English dialects). Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Because of this, it would be almost impossible to develop a single standard North Frisian that could be used throughout this area. Jump to navigation Jump to search. This merged with the j from Proto-Germanic *j, as in Proto-Germanic *jē1r- or Old Frisian iēr ‘year.’ In addition, Old Frisian shows palatalization of gg from Proto-Germanic *g before j (e.g., Proto-Germanic *laǥjan-, with doubling *laggjan, became Old Frisian ledza ‘to lay’); a front vowel for Proto-Germanic *ē1, as in Proto-Germanic *dē[eth], Old Frisian dēd; and backing and raising of nasalized ã from Proto-Germanic *ã and Proto-Germanic *a before nasal plus *f, *þ, *s, as in Proto-Germanic *brãxt-, *anþar-, and *gans-, which became Old Frisian brocht ‘brought,’ ōther ‘other,’ and gōs ‘goose.’. Today all speakers of North Frisian are bilingual or trilingual; all learn Frisian at home and standard German in school, and many also learn dialectal Low German. The Germanic languages are a branch of Indo-European languages.They came from one language, "Proto-Germanic", and were originally spoken in Northern, Western and Central Europe.. Updates? From the start Old Frisian shows all the features that distinguish English and Frisian from the other Germanic languages. This category has the following 4 subcategories, out of 4 total. Most dialects of English have plenty of vowel sounds and the situation is no different among other tongues. Antonyms for West Germanic languages. English is a West Germanic language first spoken in early medieval England, which has become the leading language of international discourse in the 21st century. The West Germanic languages include the three most widely spoken Germanic languages: English with around 360–400 million native speakers, German with over 100 million native speakers and Dutch with 23 million native speakers. All Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic, spoken in Iron Age Scandinavia. Entries can be categorized here, too, when the proper subcategory is unclear. Schwytzetüütsch is South West Germanic (Alemannic) language. There are three branches of West Germanic languages: From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Extent of Germanic languages in present day Europe, languages with more than 3 million speakers, https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=West_Germanic_languages&oldid=7483623, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. These languages are not nationally recognized as official languages but are sometimes recognized within their own states as official languages. This article examines the syntactic patterns of Continental West-Germanic languages. Out of the many local West Germanic dialects the following six modern standard languages have arisen: English, Frisian, Dutch (Netherlandic-Flemish), Afrikaans, German, and Yiddish. Low German, also known as Low Saxon, is a West Germanic language that is primarily spoken in the northern part of Germany and the Netherlands. Synonyms for West Germanic language in Free Thesaurus. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. But with 19th-century Romanticism a new interest in local life arose, and societies were formed for the preservation of the Frisian language and culture. Articles on this topic in other Wikimedia projects can be found at: Wikimedia Commons Category West Germanic languages. n. A subdivision of the Germanic languages that includes High German, Low German, Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish, Frisian, and English. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic Sea. Derivation of Germanic languages from Proto-Germanic. The branch has three parts: the North Sea Germanic languages, the Weser-Rhine Germanic languages, and the Elbe Germanic languages. It explains that Continental West-Germanic dialects display largely identical syntax, characterized by an asymmetry between main and embedded clauses with respect to the position of the finite verb, and by the clause-final position of clusters of nonfinite verbs. It is a West Germanic language that is also the most commonly spoken first language in the European Union. Many translated example sentences containing "west Germanic language" – Spanish-English dictionary and search engine for Spanish translations. This page was last changed on 20 April 2021, at 22:38. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. West Germanic languages all trace back to one parent language. In 1955 Frisian was approved as the language of instruction in the first two years of elementary school (though only about one-fourth of all schools use it in this way), and in 1956 the use of Frisian in courts of law was approved. The most striking changes that distinguish them from the other Germanic languages are the loss of nasal sounds before the Proto-Germanic voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, and *s (contrast the following pairs of words, in which English loses the nasal but German preserves it: before f—soft/sanft; before þ—other/ander; before s—us/uns, goose/Gans); palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k before front vowels and *j, giving modern English ch (English/German pairs: chin/Kinn, birch [Old English birce]/Birke); and palatalization of Proto-Germanic *ǥ before front vowels, giving modern English y (English/German pairs include yield/gelten, yester-[day]/gestern, yard [Old English geard]/Garten; this palatalized ǥ merged with the j [y sound] from Proto-Germanic *j: year/Jahr). The following remarks refer to the more or less standard West Frisian that is developing in the province of Friesland. Which languages belong to the Germanic language family, and how similar are they today? The Frisian dialects of the Netherlands province of Friesland are, with three exceptions, relatively uniform, though it is customary to make a distinction between Wouden Frisian in the east, Klei Frisian in the west (the variety on which standard Frisian is largely based), and Southwest Corner Frisian in the southwest. The North Germanic languages include Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, and Faroese. 1 synonym for West Germanic language: West Germanic. Over 95% of the population of Germany speaks the language. It is not only the largest but also the most popular branch of the Germanic family. Corrections? [1], These languages were spread around the world in the Colonial Era. The local language of Luxemburg – Letzebergisch – is also Germanic. Fundamental » All languages » English » Terms by etymology » Terms derived from other languages » Indo-European languages » Germanic languages » West Germanic languages. No standard North Frisian or East Frisian exists. The most spoken languages in the branch are English, German, and Dutch. English is of course a Germanic language still (but with strong Romance elements due to language contact in history). Afrikaans Dutch English Frisian Languages German Low German Languages Scots Yiddish Author of. Germanic languages are spoken by close to 470 million people in many parts of the world, but mainly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. Professor of Germanic Linguistics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1949–60. East Germanic languages no longer exist, but the other two branches show no signs of dying out any time soon. Frisian also has an unstressed vowel ə (pronounced as the a in English sofa), which occurs only in unstressed syllables. German and Dutch, both of … Antonyms for West Germanic language. These include loss of the nasal sound before Proto-Germanic *f, *þ, and *s (e.g., Proto-Germanic *fimf, *munþ-, and *uns became Old Frisian fīf ‘five,’ mūth ‘mouth,’ and ūs ‘us’), palatalization of Proto-Germanic *k before front vowels and *j (e.g., Proto-Germanic *kinn- and *lē1kj- became Old Frisian tzin ‘chin’ and lētza ‘physician’ [compare English archaic leech]), and palatalization of Proto-Germanic *ǥ before front vowels (e.g., Proto-Germanic *ǥeldan- became Old Frisian ielda ‘yield’). English is a West Germanic language first spoken in early medieval England, which has become the leading language of international discourse in the 21st century. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. North Frisian dialects are customarily divided into Insular North Frisian (Sylt, Föhr-Amrum, Helgoland) and Continental North Frisian (the Halligen Islands and the coast of Schleswig), the latter in seven main varieties and further subvarieties. All modern Germanic languages derive from a common ancestor traditionally referred to as *Proto-Germanic, believed to have broken off from other *Proto-Indo-European languages some time before 500 B.C. [3] [4] [5] It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, England. Category:West Germanic languages. What makes English like the other languages in its subfamily? Very slowly, the aims of this “Frisian movement” came to be realized, especially in the Netherlands province of Friesland, where in 1937 Frisian was accepted as an optional course in elementary schools; a Frisian Academy was founded in 1938; and in 1943 the first Frisian translation of the Bible was published. The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The status of Scots as a separate language is a question of debate. Despite this gradual reemergence of Frisian, Dutch still functions as the primary standard language of Friesland. This category should, ideally, contain only other categories. The other branches are North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic. The symbols given in the table refer to the actual sounds rather than to Frisian spellings, which are often irregular. The most spoken languages in the branch are English, German, and Dutch. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English, is the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. Though North Frisian is spoken in only a small geographic area by only some 8,000 persons, it exists in an extraordinary number of local dialects, some of which are mutually unintelligible. West Germanic language synonyms, West Germanic language pronunciation, West Germanic language translation, English dictionary definition of West Germanic language. West Germanic languages constitute a sub-category of the Germanic Languages. However, even though we live in the world where you can find … About the beginning of the 19th century it appeared that the age-old replacement of Frisian by Dutch and Low German would continue unabated and that the language would soon become extinct. All the West Germanic languages share a few features regarding their vowels. Similar in nature are the dialects of Heerenveen and Kollum, of the middle section of the island of Terschelling, and of Het Bildt (a coastal area northwest of Leeuwarden, diked in and settled by Hollanders during the 16th century). The Germanic family itself has subgroups; English is in the West Germanic branch along with German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and a few others. The West Germanic Languages are a branch of Germanic languages first spoken in Central Europe and the British Isles.The branch has three parts: the North Sea Germanic languages, the Weser-Rhine Germanic languages, and the Elbe Germanic languages. There is a small and enthusiastic Frisian literary movement, but its works are not widely read. The three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch. It belongs to the Indo-European family of languages and is a West Germanic language. This figure also encompasses speakers of Northern Low Saxon, a dialect of West Low German. English: West Germanic languages. For faster navigation, this Iframe is preloading the Wikiwand page for West Germanic languages . n. A subdivision of the Germanic languages that includes High German, Low German, Yiddish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Flemish, Frisian, and English. Despite the name, this is not Frisian at all but a variety of Dutch strongly influenced by Frisian. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, England.Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic Sea. Although English only has five vowels, it compensates with vowel sounds. Fundamental » All languages » Languages by family » Indo-European » Germanic » West Germanic This is the main category of the West Germanic languages . English terms that originate from West Germanic languages.. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, Characteristics of modern Standard German, https://www.britannica.com/topic/West-Germanic-languages. The West Germanic languages share many lexemes that do not exist in North Germanic or East Germanic: both archaisms and common neologisms. English, German, and Dutch are the most popular members of this branch. Standard German is the official language of Germany. Synonyms for West Germanic languages in Free Thesaurus. East Frisian survives today only in the German Saterland, consisting of the three parishes of Ramsloh, Strücklingen, and Scharrel, each with a slightly different dialect. Scots is also derived from West Germanic (from northern forms of Old English dialects). The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages. The branch has three parts: the North Sea Germanic languages, the Weser-Rhine Germanic languages, and the Elbe Germanic languages. 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