G-NET II

................................................................................... Germanic tribes: Alamanni Ambrones Ampsivarii Angles Angrivarii Batavii Bavarii Bructeri Burgundians Canninefates Chamavi Chasuarii Chauci Cherusci Chatti Cimbri Dani Dulgubnii Fosi Franks Frisians Geats Gepidae Goths Harii Helisii Helvetii Heruli Hermunduri Ingvaeones (North Sea Germans) Irminones (Elbe Germans) Istvaeones (Rhine-Weser Germans) Jutes Langobardes Lemovii Lombards Lugii Manimi Marcomanni Marobudui Mattiaci Naharvali Nemetes Nervii Njars Quadi Rugii Saxons Scirii Semoni Sitones Suebi Suiones Sugambri Tencteri Teutons Trevi Triboci Tudri Ubii Usipetes Vandals Vangiones Germanic peoples: Austrians Swiss Germans Flemings Dutch or Netherlandic people Germans Danes Norwegians Swedes Icelanders German Language: German (Deutsch), a member of the western group of Germanic languages, is one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union. It is spoken primarily in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, the major part of Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Südtirol (South Tyrol) region of Italy, the East Cantons of Belgium, parts of Romania, Alsace (Elsass) and part of the Lorraine region of France. Additionally, several former colonial possessions of these countries, such as Namibia, have sizable German-speaking populations, and there are German-speaking minorities in several eastern European countries, including Russia, Hungary and Slovenia, and in North America as well as some Latin American countries, like Argentina and in Brazil, mainly in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, and Espírito Santo. The Amish and some Mennonites also speak a dialect of German. Approximately 120 million people, or a quarter of all Europeans, speak German. German is the third most popular foreign language taught worldwide, and the second most popular in Europe (after English), the USA and East Asia (Japan). It is an official language of the European Union. History of German language: The dialects subject to the second Germanic sound shift during medieval times are regarded as part of the modern German language. As a consequence of the colonization patterns, the Völkerwanderung (pronounced: ['fœlk6vand@rUN]), the routes for trade and communication (chiefly the rivers), and of physical isolation (high mountains and deep forests) very different regional dialects developed. These dialects, sometimes mutually unintelligible, were used across the Holy Roman Empire. As Germany was divided into many different states, the only force working for a unification or standardization of German was a long process of several hundred years, in which writers tried to write in a way, that was understood in the largest area. When Martin Luther translated the Bible (the New Testament in 1521 and the Old Testament in 1534) he based his translation mainly on this already developed language, which was the most widely understood language at this time. In the beginning, copies of the Bible had a long list for each region, which translated words unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics rejected Luther's translation in the beginning and tried to create their own Catholic standard (Gemaines Deutsch). It took until the middle of the 18th century to create a standard, that was widely accepted, thus ending the period of Early New High German. German used to be the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-nineteenth century it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire. It indicated that the speaker was a merchant, an urbanite, not their nationality. Some towns, such as Prague and Budapest were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain. Others, such as Bratislava (Pressburg), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. A few towns such as Milano remained primarily non-German. However, most towns such as Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb, and Ljubljana which later became national capitals were for the time primarily German, although they were surrounded by country that spoke other languages. Until about 1800, Standard German was almost only a written language. In this time people in urban, northern Germany, who spoke dialects very different from Standard German learnt it almost like a foreign language and tried to pronounce it as close to the spelling as possible. Later this spoken form spread southward. Media and written works are almost all produced in this variety of High German (usually called Standard German in English or Hochdeutsch in German), which is understood in all areas of German languages (except by pre-school children in areas which speak only dialect - but in the age of TV even they usually learn to understand Standard German before school age). The first dictionary of the Brothers Grimm, the 16 parts of which were issued between 1852 and 1960, remains the most comprehensive guide to the words of the German language. In 1860, grammatical and orthographical rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, this was declared the standard definition of the German language in these matters. Official revisions of some of these rules were not issued until 1998. The Saxons: The Saxons were a large and powerful Germanic people located in what is now northwestern Germany and the eastern Netherlands (but not in the area that is known as Saxony today). They are first mentioned by the geographer Ptolemy as a people of southern Jutland and present-day Schleswig-Holstein, whence they appear subsequently to have expanded to the south and west. The word 'Saxon' derives from the word 'Sax', meaning a variety of one-edged sword. Many germanic tribes took names from their weapons, such as the Langobard tribe. Some Saxons, along with Angles, Jutes and Frisians, invaded Britain in the early Middle Ages, giving their names to the kingdoms of Essex, Sussex and Wessex (the lands respectively of the East, South and West Saxons), which with the shorter-lived Middlesex eventually became part of the kingdom of England. Both the Old English language and the modern Low Saxon language are derived from the Saxon language. A majority of the Saxons remained in continental Europe, forming from the 8th century the Duchy of Saxony. They long avoided becoming Christians and being incorporated into the orbit of the Frankish kingdom, but were decisively conquered by Charlemagne in a long series of annual campaigns (772 - 804). With defeat came the enforced baptism and conversion of the Saxon leaders and their people. Even their sacred tree, Irminsul, was destroyed. Under Carolingian rule, the Saxons were reduced to a tributary status. There is evidence that the Saxons, as well as Slavic tributaries like the Abodrites and the Wends, often provided troops to their Carolingian overlords. The dukes of Saxony became kings (Henry I, the Fowler, 919) and later the first Emperors (Henry's son, Otto I, the Great) of Germany during the 10th century, but lost this Position in 1024. The duchy was divided up in 1180 when Duke Henry the Lion, Emperor Otto's grandson, refused to follow Emperor Frederick Barbarossa into war in Italy. The later Upper Saxony in the southern part of eastern Germany, from 1806 to 1918 the kingdom of Saxony, and from then till 1952, and again from 1990 until today the Free State of Saxony, became so known through the acquisition of the dukedom of Saxony by the Margrave of Meissen in 1423. His successors' territory, in fact, lay beyond the traditional lands of the Saxon people. The label "Saxons" was generally applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to south-eastern Transylvania in present-day Romania, where their descendants numbered a quarter of a million in the early decades of the 20th century. Most have left since World War II, many of them during the 1970s and 1980s due to the Romanianisation policies of the Ceauşescu regime. Since reunification in 1990, three federal states of Germany derive their name from the Saxons: Niedersachsen or Lower Saxony, whose area corresponds roughly to the traditional Saxon lands between the Netherlands and the Elbe River; Sachsen-Anhalt, located around the city of Magdeburg; and the Free State of Sachsen or Saxony, which included the city of Dresden, in eastern Germany bordering the Czech Republic, the old kingdom (see above). the Germanic tribes that in the first millennium were seen as a barbarian threat by the Roman Empire and its successors; the Germanic Christianity that in the second millennium came to dominate much of Northern Europe, politically organized in the Holy Roman Empire and the Scandinavian kingdoms Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Germanic language The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. They are characterised by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law. Old English language Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language which was spoken in England some 1000 years ago. It was a West Germanic language, and was very similar to Old Norse (and, by extension, to modern Icelandic). Unlike modern English, Old English was a language rich with morphological diversity, and was still pronounced basically as spelled. It maintained several distinct cases: the nominative, dative, accusative, genitive, and instrumental, remnants of which survive only in a few pronouns today. Old English was not a static form. Its usage covered a period of some 700 or so years— from the Anglo-Saxon migrations into England in approximately 450 AD, to some time after the Norman invasion in 1066, when the language underwent a major and dramatic transition. During this period of time, it assimilated some aspects of the indigenous pre-Celtic languages, some of the Celtic languages which it came into contact with, and some of the two variants of the invading Scandinavian languages occupying and controlling the Danelaw. Non-Indo-European roots of Germanic languages There are many words in Germanic languages with difficult to identify roots. Some people linked to obscure theories of European pre-history believe that the lack of clear cognates among other Indo-European languages is indicative of a mixed origin for the Germanic languages. One group of these words has to do with ships and the sea; words like keel, oar, rudder, steer, and mast are shared by almost every Germanic language, but cognates for these specific words and senses are not found in other branches of Indo-European. Another group of these words deals with war and weapons; words like sword, shield, helmet, bow, and knight are all found in almost every Germanic language, but again, not with these meanings among other Indo-European languages. Some names for animals such as eel, carp, stork, and bear are also among these words of obscure origin; so are a few farm animals like calf and lamb. There are scores of non-Indo-European words that are used daily by English speakers; words like earth, blood, bite, hand, wife, evil, little, sick, bring, run, and house. Among the Germanic languages, these words are found everywhere, north, south, east, and west; outside the Germanic family, cognates are unknown, or have been borrowed from Germanic. A few of these words may be shared with the Celtic languages, but otherwise no other tongue has them. Etymologies have been proposed for some of these words that link them with Indo-European roots, but these etymologies have no parallels in other Indo-European families in either form or meaning. A number of theories have been advanced about this hypothetical cultural and linguistic substrate. Some refer to these unknown people as Folkish, because they believe folk to be a word of non-Indo-European origin; others refer to them as the Battle-axe people. If this substrate did exist, it cannot be conclusively identified with any pre-historic or historic European language or culture. It should, however, be noted that historical linguistics is a very hit-and-miss affair. Even words known to have very recent origins often have unknown or uncertain etymologies, and the etymology of long established words may often be no more than guesswork. It is unreasonable to expect to be able to precisely identify the origins of every word in a language with complete certainty. Historical linguistics works with a number of words at once, and tries to decide if they have a systematic phonetic relationship to words in another language. Thus, any hypothesis about an unknown substrate language is necessarily speculative when there is no possibility of comparing two or more languages. However, there has in recent years been a revival of interest in contact linguistics and the idea that intercultural contact may be the major force behind linguistic change has recently become quite mainstream. The could ultimately lead to a renewal of interest in early and pre-Indo-European Europe. Runic alphabet Gothic language: The Gothic language () is a Germanic language known to us by a translation of the Bible known as Codex Argenteus ("The Silver Bible") dating from the 4th century AD, of which some books survive. The translation was apparently done in the Balkans region by people in close contact with Greek Christian culture. The language is Germanic but has major differences from other known Germanic languages. It is the only surviving East Germanic language; the others, including Burgundian and Vandalic, are known, if at all, only from proper names. It appears that the Gothic Bible was used by the Visigoths in Spain until circa 700 AD, and perhaps for a time in Italy, the Balkans and what is now the Ukraine. Apart from the Bible, the only other Gothic document is a few pages of commentary on the Gospel of John. This document is usually called the "Skeireins". In addition, there are numerous short fragments and Runic inscriptions that are known to be or suspected to be Gothic. Some scholars believe that these inscriptions are not at all Gothic (see Braune/Ebbinghaus "Gotische Grammatik" Tübingen 1981) The Gothic Bible and Skeireins were written using a special alphabet. See Gothic alphabet. The Gothic alphabet was probably created by bishop Ulfilas who also translated the Bible into the "razda" (language). Some scholars (e.g. Braune) claim that it was derived from the Greek alphabet only, while others maintain that there are some Gothic letters of runic or Latin origin. There are very few references to the Gothic language in secondary sources after about 800 AD, so perhaps it was rarely used by that date. In evaluating medieval texts that mention the Goths, it must be noted that many writers used "Goths" to mean any Germanic people in eastern Europe, many of whom certainly did not use the Gothic language as known from the Gothic Bible. Some writers even referred to Slavic-speaking people as Goths. There is also the case of the "Crimean Goths". A few fragments of their language dating to the 16th century exist today. Assuming those fragments are genuine, it appears to be a different language from the one used in the Gothic Bible (but is still certainly Germanic). Family Tree: All Germanic languages are thought to be descended from a hypothetical Proto-Germanic. Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not. Mentioned here are only the principal or unusual dialects; individual articles linked to below contain larger family trees. For example, many Low Saxon dialects are discussed on Low Saxon besides just Standard Low Saxon and Plautdietsch. West Germanic High German German Middle German East Middle German Standard German (Hochdeutsch) Luxembourgish West Middle German Pennsylvania German (spoken by the Amish and other groups in southeastern Pennsylvania) Upper German Alemannic German Austro-Bavarian German Lombardic (extinct) Hutterite German (aka "Tirolean") Yiddish (with a significant influx of vocabulary from Hebrew and other languages, and traditionally written in the Hebrew alphabet) Wymysojer (with a significant influence from Low Saxon, Dutch, Polish and Scots) Low German Low Franconian Dutch Afrikaans (with a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages) Low Saxon Standard Low Saxon Plautdietsch (Mennonite "Low German") East Low German Island German Frisian English. Many dialects, including International English British English Received Pronunciation Estuary English Cockney East Anglian Scouse Geordie Yorkshire Black Country West Country Hiberno-English Scottish English American English Southern American English Standard Midwestern General American Canadian English Newfoundland English Liberian English Commonwealth English Caribbean English Jamaican English Australian English New Zealand English South African English Indian English Singlish (Singaporean English) Manglish (Malaysian English) Scots Insular Scots Northern Scots incl. Doric Central Scots Southern Scots Ulster Scots Urban Scots (City dialects) Söl'ring East Germanic (descending from Gothic) Crimean Gothic (extinct in the 1800s) Vandalic (extinct) Burgundian (extinct) North Germanic (descending from Old Norse): West (Insular) Nordic New Norwegian (Nynorsk) (disputed) Icelandic Faroese Norn (Extinct) East (Continental) Nordic Danish Standard Norwegian (Bokmål and Riksmål) (Dano-Norwegian) Scanian Swedish Low Saxon: Low Saxon (in Low Saxon, Nedersaksisch, Neddersassisch, "Plattdüütsch" or "Nedderdüütsch") is any of a variety of Low German dialects spoken in northern Germany and the Netherlands. Plattdüütsch is the name for both the Low Saxon and the East Low German language. Since 1994 Low Saxon has been recognised by the European Union as an independent regional language. Since 1999 Low Saxon is under protection of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. The ISO 639-2 language code is nds since May 2000. The Northern Low Saxon language serves as a common intelligible language in TV and Wireless programms. Although often considered a variation of German, in many aspects it is more like Dutch, which is based on closely related Low Franconian dialects. Low Saxon, East Low German and Low Franconian are classified together as Low German. The distinction between Low Saxon, East Low German and Low Franconian (on one side) or High German (on the other side) is not precisely defined; there are several clines that vary smoothly from one dialect to another. The Low Saxon language has commonality with the English language, the Scandinavian languages and Frisian in that it has not been influenced by the High German sound shift. Therefore a lot of Low Saxon words sound similar to their English counterparts. For instance: water [wQt3, wat3, wæt3], later [lQ.t3, la.t3, læ.t3], bit [bIt], dish [dis, diS], ship [SIp, skIp, sxIp], pull [pUl], good [gout, GAut, Gu.t], clock [klOk], sail [sAil], he [hEi, hAi, hi(j)], storm [sto:rm]. The grammar also shows similarities to the English language. Low Saxon declination has only three cases. In the northern dialects the participle is formed without the prefix ge-, like the Scandinavian languages and English, but unlike Dutch and German. The syntax on the other hand is more like German syntax, though there are some differences. It should be noted that e- is used instead of ge- in most Southern (below Groningen in the Netherlands + Westphalia) dialects, though often not when the participle ends with -en or in a few often used words like 'west' (been). Low Saxon was once much more widespread than today, being used as a lingua franca throughout the Baltic Sea region, under the influence of the Hanseatic League. It served as a standard language in many regions of northern Germany until it was replaced for that purpose by Standard German (a High German dialect) during the unification of Germany under Otto von Bismarck in 1871. Low German language: Low German (in Low German, Platt(düütsch) or Nedderdüütsch) is any of a variety of West Germanic languages spoken in northern Germany and the Netherlands. It also includes Afrikaans, which is spoken in South Africa, and Plautdietsch, which is spoken by Mennonite communities in North America. Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League. Low German is also sometimes used to refer to any German dialect which differs from the official German language, but this is not linguistic use. It tends to lead to confusion when discussing the German language: many High German dialects are called Low German, a term properly used only for the dialects and languages described here. The term "Low German" is often restricted to Low Saxon, one of its three main branches, or extended to all of West Germanic except for High German. We cut a middle path in this article. The other branches of Low German (besides Low Saxon) is Low Franconian and East Low German. The other branches of West Germanic (besides Low German and High German) are Frisian and English. The northern dialects of Low German (Low Saxon and Dutch) can also be classified together with English and Frisian as the North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic languages. Low German is distinguished from High German principally in that the latter underwent a consonant shift in the 700s and 800s. In High German, /k/, /p/, /t/ became /(k)x/ (only in some dialects), /pf/, /ts/ in initial positions and /x/, /f/, /s/ in medial and final positions. In Low German (as well as English and Frisian), the old /k/, /p/, /t/ are still there, as in English "better", Dutch "beter", German "besser". West Germanic language: West Germanic is the largest branch of the Germanic family of languages, including such languages as English, Dutch, and German. The other families of Germanic are North Germanic and East Germanic. History There was never a West Germanic proto-language from which all the languges currently in the group seem to have derived. As such the grouping is more of a geographical convenience to categorize languages that share many similarities with each other but also individually compare closely to particular aspects of North Germanic or East Germanic. Anglo-Saxons: The Anglo-Saxons were a Germanic people who inhabited Britain from the mid-5th century AD. Anglo-Saxon occupation of Britain is traditionally considered the origin of the modern English nation. In 410, the Roman emperor Honorius had replied to a petition for help from the inhabitants of Britain that they should "look to their own affairs"; from this brief mention, historians have assumed that Roman rule in Britain ended, although some experts claim to have found signs that the Roman authorities briefly returned to the island in the following years. Into this vacuum, the Anglo-Saxons came and settled in the island, primarily on the east and south coasts. The exact details of their arrival are unclear, although their migration was part of the widespread movement of Germanic and similar peoples on the mainland of Europe at this time (see Migrations Period). Where reliable history fails us, legend offers us a narrative, and many have argued that there is some kernel of truth in the legend. At least as early as Bede, the tradition relates how at a council of war, Vortigern, leader of the by then effectively self-governing Britons, granted Thanet in Kent to the Anglo-Saxon warrior leader Hengist as a permanent possession, in return for his followers' help to defend the province against Germanic and Celtic raiders from beyond its borders. Archeological explorations have indicated that Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were established in Kent, Sussex, Middlesex, and Essex in the later part of the 5th century, as well as East Anglia, Lindsey (now Lincolnshire), Deira (now East Yorkshire) and the Isle of Wight. Organised British resistance, first led by Ambrosius Aurelianus (according to Gildas), and then by King Arthur culminated in the Battle of Mons Badonicus. This succeeded in halting the invasion. The leaders who fought with Arthur at this and other battles may have given rise to his fabled "Knights of the Round Table." The fate of Britain was still in the balance as late as 590, with King Urien of Rheged besieging Lindisfarne, the stronghold of Bernicia, and other Celts recently victorious at the Battle of Fethanleag (Stoke Lyne, 5km N of Banbury in Oxfordshire). In the previous 120 years, the Anglo-Saxons had added only Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire to the area under their firm control. But Urien was murdered by a rival among his compatriots, and Anglo-Saxon control of most of what is now England was cemented over the next 70 years. Perhaps in memory of this eventual defeat by the Anglo-Saxons, the modern Welsh word for England, "Lloegyr", means "the lost lands". The process by which they came to occupy this island is sometimes known as the Saxon conquest, although this is perhaps a misnomer: other tribes, such as the Frisians and perhaps the Franks, are known to have taken part, but the details of their role in the process are unknown. The various tribes established a large number of kingdoms in what today is known as England, which were popularly described to have later consolidated into seven states traditionally known as the Heptarchy (but see that article for modern reservations about the term). According to tradition, Kent was established first by a group known as the Jutes, led by a King Hengest. Another Jute king, Horsa, may have taken part; the name may refer to Hengest's brother. East Anglia's beginnings are unknown and very little record survives of its foundation or of the fate of the native Britons, the once mighty Iceni tribe, who had dwelt there before. The name Mercia may mean "marches": a frontier area facing the Celtic Romano-British or Welsh. Deira and Bernicia appear to be Anglian corruptions of older British geographical names and the two states merged to form the kingdom of Northumbria. The fate of the Romano-British population is a matter of conjecture. At one point, historians believed the account of Gildas uncritically, and thought that the invaders slaughtered all whom they encountered in an act of genocide. More recent historians, such as H.P.R. Finberg, have argued that they largely survived, and lived under the Anglo-Saxon invaders as slaves or serfs. By the time reliable historical records begin once again, it is clear that the territory of the native inhabitants had been reduced to just Cornwall and Wales in the west of the island and Strathclyde and kingdoms further north in Scotland. Recent genetic testing of the inhabitants of England, Wales and the Low Countries does seem to show, according to some specialists, a large scale displacement of the earlier British populations out of England at some point in time in favor of people who are very closely related to the people inhabiting modern Friesland.