The Old Germanic language, their classification and principle features.

Languages can be classified according to different principles. 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 IE linguistic family. Most of the area of Europe and large parts of other continents are occupied today by the IE languages, Germanic being one of their 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 and dominions; German — in the German Democratic Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland; Netherlandish — in the Netherlands and Flanders (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 the Federal Republic of Germany; Faroese — in the Faroe Islands; Yiddish — in different countries.

All the Germanic languages are related through their common origin and joint development at the early stages of history. The survey of their external history will show where and when the Germanic languages arose and acquired their common features and also how they have developed into modern independent tongues.

The history of the Germanic group begins with the appearance of what is known as the Proto-Germanic (PG) language. PG is the linguistic ancestor or the parent-language of the Germanic group. It is supposed to have split from related IE tongues sometime between the 15th and 10th c. BC.

As the Indo-Europeans extended over a larger territory, 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. This place is regarded as the most probable original home of the Teutons.

PG is a prehistorical lan-ge, as it was never recorded in written form. According to Pliny Germ tribes in the 1^st c AD consisted of 5 groups: 1)TheVindili (the Goths, the Burgundians)-eastern part of Germ ter; 2)The Ingaevones (North-Western part, the shores of the North Sea, the Netherlands); 3) The Istaevons (the Westernpart, the shores of the Rhine); 4)The Hermiones (the southern part); 5)The Hilleviones (Scandinavia).

According to the marked dialectical differences Germ l-es are divided into 3 groups (East-Gothic- is not used): 1) North Germ (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese), 2) West Germ (High German, Low German, Dutch, Fresian, English, Yiddish); Afrikaans is the development of Dutch of the 17^th c. spoken in Africa; Vangalic and Burgundian were East GL in structure, but we know only a few proper name of them.

FEATURES: Phonetic:1)while in IE languages the stress was free and tonic, in GL the stress became fixed and dynamic. The stress was fixed on the first rout syllable (except believe, forget). This phonetic feature had very far-reaching consequences, as all the syllables of the word became weakened and finally brought about the reduction of endings.

2) Vowels displayed a strong tendency to change. They underwent different kinds of alterations: Qualitative changes affect the quality of the sound, e.g.: IE(a) became (o): latin “mater”>OE “modor”.

quantitative changes make long sounds short or short sounds long, e.g.:(i>i:), dependent changes (also positional or combinative) are restricted to certain positions or phonetic conditions, for instance, a sound may change under the influence of the neighbouring sounds or in a certain type of a syllable; independent changes — also spontaneous or regular — take place irrespective of phonetic conditions, i.e. they affect a certain sound in all positions.

3)the first consonant shift(1822)-Grimm’s law: 3 categories

-- IE voiceless plosives (p,t,k) corresponded to Germanic voiceless fricatives(f,ө,h): P pięc R пять-E five,L tres-OE preo E three, L cor, cordis-OE heorte E heart.

-- IE voiced plosives (b,d,g ) changed into Germ voiceless plosives(p,t,k): P bloto R болото-OE pol E pool, L duo P dwa-Gth twai OE twa E two, L ego-OE ic

-- IE voiced aspirated plosives (bh, dh, gh) corresponded to Germ non-aspirated voiced plosives(b,d,g): L frater- OE bropor E brother, Skr madhu- OE meodu E mead, L hostis-E guest.

German and Law German distinguished by another change in stop sounds-The 2^nd Consonant Shift: ProtoGerm –p-appears in High Germ as –pf-, or after vowels as –ff-(pepper-Pfeffer);Protogerm –t- appears as –ts-(z), after vowels as –ss-(tongue-Zunge, water-Wasser); Protogerm –d- appears as –t-(dance-tanzen).

4) Verner’s Law. In Proto-Germ voiceless fricatives became voiced when they were in a voiced environment and the IE stress was not on the preceding syllable. The effect of stress on voicing can be observed in some ME words of foreign origin(exert, exist). If he preceding vowel is unstressed,-s- in GL becomes voiced –z-. The later history of the voiced fricatives is that this –z- becomes –r- in Western Germ and Nothern GermL. This change of –z- into –r-is termed rhotacism (Gth hausjan “hear” and OE hieran, G hören).

Grammatical: 1) All IE distinctions of tense and aspects were lost in the verb, except to the present and preterit tenses (bind – bound(English), binden – band(Germ))

2) Germ developed a preterit tense form with a dental suffix (d \ t).Thus, all GL have 2 types of verbs: strong and weak(regular-irregular).

3) 2 ways of declining adjectives: weak(with an –n- steam) (when precede by a pronominal adjective including the demonstrative pronoun, that developed later into the definite article) and strong (in other cases). ME has lost declension of adjectives.

Lexical: Germanic has a large number of words, that have no known cognates outside the GL (land, sea, wife, to live, drink, drive,dead,broad,soft, all, each,)