Germanic Branch of the Indo-European Family
Introduction
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Norse is another name for the North Germanic, or Scandinavian group of languages. These languages all stem from an earlier, now extinct, language known as Old Norse that was spoken by the Germanic tribes living in Scandinavia before 1000 A.D. Today, the differences among the dialects within Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are often greater than the differences across their borders, but the political independence of these countries leads them to be classified as separate languages. Click on the MLA Interactive Language Map to find out where Scandinavian languages are spoken in the U.S. |
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The following Germanic languages have the status of official languages. An official language is a language that is given a privileged legal status in a state, or other legally-defined political entity. Some countries have only one official language, e.g., Norway, while may have several, e.g., the Netherlands. Some countries, e.g., US, do not have an official language.
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Germanic languages are spoken by close to 470 million people in many parts of the world, but mainly in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. All modern Germanic languages derive from a common ancestor traditionally referred to as 
Structure
Sound System
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Vowels Consonants All Germanic languages have undergone some common sound changes:
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Loss of inflections Umlaut Strong and weak verbs Possessive Comparison Word order |
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Most words in Germanic languages are derived from Proto-Germanic. Germanic languages have also borrowed from French, and from each other. Much of its scientific terminology has Greek and Latin roots. The latest source of loanwords is English. Words are frequently formed by compounding native components, e.g., German Weihnachtsmann (literally "'Holy Night Man", i.e., "Santa Claus"), English antigovernmental. Below are some common expressions in various Germanic languages. As you can see, there are both similarities and differences across the languages.
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Writing
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The earliest evidence of Germanic writing comes from names recorded in the 1st century by Tacitus. From roughly the 2nd century AD, certain speakers of early Germanic dialects developed the Elder Futhark, an early form of the runic alphabet, some examples of which go back to the 3rd century AD. It is thought that the runes were based on an Etruscan-related alphabet, adapted to represent the sounds of Germanic languages and styled to allow carving on wood. Each rune not only represents a sound but also has a special meaning often connected with Norse mythology. For instance, the image on the left, called 'Ansuz,' was most often associated with Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology, the Viking equivalent of Zeus, god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. Early runic inscriptions were largely limited to personal names, and difficult to interpret. Later, Christian priests and monks who spoke and read Latin in addition to their native Germanic dialects began writing the Germanic languages with slightly modified Latin letters. However, throughout the Viking Age, runic alphabets remained in common use in Scandinavia. Want to see your name written in runes? Click here and learn more about this ancient writing system. Today, Germanic languages use the standard 26-letter Latin alphabet expanded to include extra letters to represent vowel sounds. |
Resources
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How difficult is it to learn Germanic Languages? Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish are considered to be Category I languages in terms of difficulty for English speakers (24 weeks of full-time instruction to reach ILR S-3). German is somewhat more difficult (30 weeks), while Icelandic is considered to be Category III language (44 weeks). |
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