Primitive Germanic language

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Urgermanic

Spoken in

-
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Official language in -
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ISO 639 -2

gem (Germanic languages)

Map of pre-Roman cultures (around 500 BC to 50 BC) that are associated with ancient Germanic: the early Nordic Iron Age in red , the Jastorf culture in pink .

Original Germanic (also Proto-Germanic ) is the name given to the hypothetical forerunner language of all Germanic languages , to a certain extent the original language of the Germanic language family, which includes today's languages German , English , Dutch and Swedish . It may have developed in the 2nd millennium BC. BC, at the latest in the 1st millennium roughly around the western Baltic Sea , according to other sources a little further south around the Harz .

The spread of the Germanic languages ​​and dialects:
  • Spread up to 750 BC Chr.
  • Spread up to 500 BC Chr.
  • Spread until 250 BC Chr.
  •  Spread until 1 AD
  • Speaker and main characteristics

    The speakers of this language level are referred to as Germanic peoples regardless of ethnological and geographical evidence . Due to the lack of text, nothing precise can be said about the dating of the ancient Germanic. The post-Indo-European language level preceding it, in which the first sound shift (including the exceptions specified by Verner's law ) and the accent shift to the stem syllable had not yet been completed, is called Prägermanisch (English Pre-Germanic , French pré-Germanique ) .

    One of the most noticeable features of the original Germanic in the field of phonology is the new plosive sound - obstruent system - that emerged from the first sound shift . In the area of morphology , the ablaut- based system of strong verbs , the introduction of a tooth sound to mark the past ( dental preterite ) and the introduction of a weak adjective inflection were characteristic features of the ancient Germanic.

    Dating and classification

    The spread of Celtic peoples and languages ​​over time:
  • Area of ​​the Hallstatt culture in the 6th century BC And the spread
  • Largest Celtic extension, around 275 BC. Chr.
  • Lusitania (Celtic settlement uncertain)
  • The "six Celtic nations " in which there were significant numbers of Celtic speakers until the early modern period .
  • The current range of Celtic languages
  • The original Germanic was used until the beginning of the dissolution of the Germanic language unit towards the end of the 1st millennium BC. Spoken, but at this point in time it was certainly already dialectically structured in view of the extent of its distribution area. A hint for this can be found in the Germania of Tacitus (chap. 43.1). In addition, by this time the Germanic language had already gone through a long development, about the course of which little is known in detail. Therefore, as a rule, only earlier-later references ( relative chronologies ) are possible, i.e. H. Statements about the sequence of various phonetic and morphological changes, but not about their time period.

    On various occasions, Germanic was combined with other Indo-European language branches to form a larger group. Before the discovery of Tocharian and Hittite , a distinction was made between Kentum and Satem languages , Germanic belonging to the group of Kentum languages ​​with Celtic and Italian . This classification, based on only one phonological individual characteristic, has long been obsolete, even though it has been copied over and over again (especially in English literature). Thus, in the second half of the 20th century, the assumption of an “old European language” lost its plausibility and influence.

    The Germanic tribes spread until the 1st century BC. Chr. Increasingly from their original language area to south and west of Central Europe . In doing so, they displaced the Celts and their language as far as the rivers Rhine and Danube , which now formed the border currents to Celtic Gaul and also to Celtic Raetia .

    Development

    Since no text documents have survived from the original Germanic language, one speaks of a reconstructed language, i.e. a language that is made accessible through the method of historically comparative linguistics . The reconstruction of the Old Germanic is based on the one hand on the earliest recorded Old Germanic individual languages Gothic , Old High German , Old English , Old Saxon , Old Norse , Old Dutch , Old Frisian and Old Franconian , on the other hand by comparison with the other branches of the Indo-European language family . The original Germanic is one of the continuators of the Indo-European original language . For the reconstruction of the primitive Germanic, one does not primarily start from the modern Germanic languages, but from the earliest attested language levels of the Germanic language family, as these must have been much closer to the original language.

    The old Germanic corpus languages therefore form the basis for the development of the original Germanic . Since these differ greatly in form, quantity and time of transmission, not all old Germanic languages ​​play an equally important role in the reconstruction. In the first place one relies on the Gothic, since today, thanks to the Wulfilabibel, one has a good knowledge of the archaic language of the Visigoths in the 4th century. The other North and West Germanic languages ​​are only documented by hand from the early Middle Ages: Old High German and Old English from the 7th century, Old Saxon from the 9th century, Old Lower Franconian from around the 10th century, Old Norse from the 12th century (in short, Umordian runic inscriptions from the 2nd century) and Old Frisian from the 13th century. Short runic inscriptions in West and South Germanic ( Early High German , Old Franconian ) go back to the 5th and 6th centuries.

    The age of tradition does not say everything about the value of a language for reconstruction. For example, in contrast to the later languages, Gothic shows (almost) no traces of Verner's law in the verbal area and thus offers no help in reconstructing the ancient Germanic relationships, although Gothic is attested much earlier than, for example, Old High German or Old English, which nevertheless clearly show the results of Verner's law.

    A corpus of runic inscriptions, mostly found on Scandinavian soil , also provides important clues for ancient Germanic . From around the 2nd century onwards, such inscriptions exist that - depending on the doctrinal opinion and terminology - are linguistically classified as Umordian or Northwest Germanic. The language of these inscriptions is still relatively close to the Germanic original language as it is reconstructed today. However, since many inscriptions are not clearly interpreted or only consist of individual words or proper names, the resulting insight into the original Germanic is limited.

    More knowledge of the Proto-Germanic from the early Greek and Latin tradition ( personal names , ethnonyms , single words), like Julius Caesar and Tacitus . Early loanwords can also provide important information. On the one hand there are early Germanic loanwords in non-Indo-European languages, for example in Finnish and Estonian kuningas 'king', probably from urgerm. * kuningaz . On the other hand, loanwords that have come from Celtic into Germanic, for example, allow certain conclusions.

    Another important method for the development of the original Germanic is the historical comparison with the other Indo-European language branches and the Indo-European original language derived from these branches . In this way, statements can be made about which properties the primitive Germanic must have lost after its separation from the primitive Indo-European . A reconstruction based exclusively on the old Germanic individual languages ​​cannot, of course, provide anything for missing features.

    Phonology

    Phoneme inventory

    Oral vowels
    Front Back
    short long excessively long short long excessively long
    Closed i u
    Half closed e
    Half open ɛː ɛːː ɔː ɔːː
    Open ɑ ɑː
    Nasal vowels
    Front Back
    short long excessively long short long excessively long
    Closed ĩ ĩː ũ ũː
    Half closed
    Half open ɔ̃ː ɔ̃ːː
    Open ɑ̃ ɑ̃ː

    So there was no short [o] in Urgermanic. The long [ɑː], z. B. in dagāną , was very rare. Whether there was only one or more long / ē / sounds is controversial. Often two different phonemes are used, which are noted as / ē 1 / and / ē 2 / to distinguish them. According to recent research, it is possible that only / ē 1 / is a primitive Germanic long vowel ([æ,]), whereas / ē 2 / is a diphthong [iɑ]. The commonly postulated diphthongs were [ɑi], [ɑu], [eu], [iu].

      Bilabial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Labiovelar
    Plosive p b   t d   k g kʷ ɡʷ
    nasal m   n   ŋ ŋʷ
    Fricative ɸ β θ ð s z   x ɣ xʷ ɣʷ
    Approximant     l j w  
    Vibrant     r      

    The voiced fricatives were presumably in an allophonic relationship with the plosive equivalents b , d , g , , which is why the notation with these letters is also permissible.

    Sound developments to the primitive Germanic

    There are some drastic phonetic changes between the Ur-Indo-European and the Ur-Germanic. Some of these changes are at least relatively datable; the following compilation gives an approximate chronological order:

    Pre-Germanic sound change

    Collapse of the palatals with the velars due to depalatalization:
    • [kʲ]> [k] - * ḱm̥tóm> * km̥tóm> * hundą 'hundred'
    • [gʲ]> [g] - * u̯érǵom> * wérgom> * werką ‚work '
    • [gʲʰ]> [gʰ] - * ǵʰóstis> * gʰóstis> * gastiz 'guest'
    Anaptyx of the scion vowel [u] in front of syllable sonorants :
    • [m̥]> [um] - * ḱm̥tóm> * kumtóm> * hundą 'hundred'
    • [n̥]> [un] - * n̥tér ‚between ... in '> * under> * under‚ between'
    • [l̥]> [ul] - * u̯ĺ̥kʷos> * wúlkʷos> * wulfaz 'wolf'
    • [r̥]> [ur] - * u̯ŕ̥mis> * wurmis> * wurmiz 'worm'
    Insertion of the [s] between heterosyllabic dentals (i.e. one is stem-specific and the other is suffix-based):
    • / TˢT /> [tˢ]> [ss] - * u̯id-tós 'seen, seen'> * widˢtós> * witˢtós> * witˢós> * wissós> * wissaz 'known, known'
    • tautosyllabic, stemmed dental groups remain unchanged - * atta> * attan ~ * attō̃ 'father'
    Geminate simplification after a consonant or a long vowel:
    • * kái̯d-tis 'calling'> * kái̯dˢtis> * kái̯ssis> * káisis> * haisiz 'command'
    Extension of the final long vowels to excess lengths:
    • * séh₁mō ( collective )> * séh₁mō̃> sēmō̃ 'seeds (plur.)'
    Loss of the laryngals , phonemization of their staining products:
    • Laryngeal shrinkage at the beginning of a word before a consonant:
      • * h₃dónts> * dónts> * tanþs 'tooth'
    • Laryngeal shrinkage before a vowel:
      • / h₁V /> / V / - * h₁ésti> * ésti> * isti 'is'
      • / h₂e /> [a], otherwise / h₂V /> / V / - * h₂énti ‚on the front, opposite '( locative )> * antí> * andi‚ against; also'
      • / h₃e /> [o], otherwise / h₃V /> / V / - * h₃érōn> * órō̃n> * arō̃ ‚Adler, Aar '
    • Laryngeal shrinkage after a vowel, which then increased in length:
      • / VH /> / Vː / - * séh₁men n. 'Seeds (Sing.)'> * Sēman m.
      • When two identical vowels meet due to the omission of the laryngal, the two identical vowels result in an overly long vowel: -
        • Gen.-Pl. Ending * -oHom> * -ō̃m> * -ō̃; Nom.-Pl.-Ending * -eh₂es> * -ā̃s> * -ō̃z
    • Laryngals initially remained between consonants.
    Cowgill's law: / h₃ / (and possibly / h₂ /) amplified to [g] between a sonorant and [w]:
    • * n̥h₃mé> * n̥h₃wé> * ungwé> * unk 'us two'
    Vocalization of the interconsonant laryngals:
    • / H /> [ə] - * ph₂tḗr> * pətḗr> * ɸəþḗr> * fáđēr 'father'; * sámh₂dʰos> * sámədʰos> * saməđaz> * samdaz 'sand'
    Labialization of the following velar by the following [w]:
    • * h₁éḱu̯os> * ékwos> * ékʷos> * ehwaz 'horse'
    Entlabialization next to [u] (or [un]) before [t]:
    • * gʷʰn̥tí- 'the beating'> * gʷʰúntis> * gʰúntis> * gunþiz 'battle'
    • This rule still worked well into the ancient Germanic times.

    Sound change with (so far) unclear dating

    • Indo-European / o / became urg in all positions. / a / and coincided with the old Indo-European / a / (dating unclear). Presumably at the same time Indo-European * oi and * ou became Germ. * Ai and * au, respectively .
    • By Verner's Law voiceless fricatives were voiced in certain phonetic environments. At that time, the old Indo-European accent ratios must have existed. Traditionally, this change was dated after the first sound shift; today, early dating is increasingly preferred, most recently by Wolfram Euler .
    • Determination of the word accent on the stem syllable (usually the first syllable, in compound words, however, usually the second). This happened with certainty after the effectiveness of the Verne law. Some authors assume that the accent shift happened at the same time as the first sound shift or was its cause.

    Late sound change (after around 500 BC)

    • First sound shift , also called Grimm's Law. Presumably, in several steps were thereby the old "plosive rows" ( p, t, k, k ; b, d, g, g , and G, D, B and G ) converted fundamentally. The result was a series of new fricative sounds such as -f- , -þ- (dental fricative, see English th- in thief ) and ch . The dating of the first sound shift is controversial; What is certain is that it could have begun at the earliest from the 5th century BC, as a number of Celtic and Scythian loanwords in Germanic that were not adopted earlier still carried out these changes. A small number of apparently still unshifted Germanic names among ancient writers ( cimbri teutonique < Cimbri and Teutons >, vacalus ⇐ the river Waal >, tencteri <the Tenkerites > and Catualda <personal name>) as well as the speak for a rather late dating of the first sound shift The fact that, despite the sound shift in Germanic, no intermingling occurred in the old Indo-Germanic plosive sounds.
    • It was only after the first phonetic shift that Indo-European / ā / became / ō /, as several Celtic loanwords from the La Tène period ( e.g. celt . * Brāka- 'pants') also made this change. Together with the change from Indo-European / o / to ancient German / a / (see above), this explains the lack of / ā / and / o / in ancient German.
    • Also apparently late, various consonants were assimilated to neighboring liquids and nasals in the course of the combinatorial sound change. So Indo-European * -sm- became urg. * -mm- , Indo-European * -ln- to urg. * -ll- and Indo-European * -nw- to urg. * -nn- simplified.
    • Occasionally, in early Germanic times, the weakening and loss of sounds and syllables at the end of a word began. On a larger scale, however, this happened much later, in German only with the transition from Old to Middle High German in the 10th century AD.

    Since the phonological changes in sound from Indo-European to Ur-Germanic can be determined at least approximately in their temporal sequence, attempts have been made for a long time to phonologically and morphologically analyze and describe transition states between these two language states in more detail, which then, for example, in the Middle and later Bronze Age or the ( early) pre-Roman Iron Age . In the English-language literature, in addition to “ Pre-Germanic ”, the term “ Germanic Parent Language ” has recently been used for these language states, while the German-language literature mostly uses the terms “ pre-Germanic ” or “Proto-Germanic before the first sound shift”.

    morphology

    Categories

    Towards Urgermanic, there has been a strong reduction in categories in both the nominal and verbal areas.

    Nominal system

    Of the eight Indo-European cases (cases) there are still six left in the Germanic original language: nominative , accusative , genitive , dative , instrumental and vocative . The instrumental is only documented in West Germanic, or more precisely: in Old High German and Old English, but is thus secured for the original Germanic. The vocative, on the other hand, is only preserved in a few forms in Gothic, but has already agreed with the nominative in several declensions in the Indo-European original language. The functions of the instrumental, the locative and the ablative are predominantly absorbed in the dative, in Ur-Norse the old locative forms predominate in the dative even in several declensions. The loss of case through mixing or other simplifications of the paradigms is called syncretism . There are indications that the coincidence of the locative and (old) dative in the forms of the ancient Germanic dative did not occur too long before the beginning of the tradition of the individual Germanic languages, which is why an independent locative may still have existed in ancient Germanic. In Gothic there are also remnants of the Indo-European ablative (especially in adverbial formations). This indicates that the Indo-European eight-case system still existed for a long time, at least in Pre-Germanic times, and that it was possibly only reduced to the ancient Germanic six-case system at the end of the first millennium BC.

    In other categories, the primitive Germanic knows the three numbers singular , dual and plural as well as the three genera masculine , neuter and feminine .

    Verbal system

    Here, the Urgermanic of categories knew the three modes indicative , subjunctive , imperative , as well as the two diatheses active and (medio) passive . The complex tense-aspect system of the Ur-Indo-European verb was greatly simplified, leaving only the two tenses present and the past tense , while Greek and Latin have six or seven of them. However:

    • later Germanic languages ​​( e.g. English ) expanded their time system with the help of periphrastic constructions ;
    • the Indo-European original language possibly had fewer verbal categories than, for example, Greek, since some categories such as the future tense may only have arisen in a single language. Compare , for example , the past tense forms in Latin in -bā- , which are derived from a Urindo-European verbal root * bʱuéh₂ - 'be, will' ( amā-bā-s , literally 'you were in love');
    • the Germanic past contains forms of the aorist and the perfect, such as the Latin perfect.

    Innovations

    The central innovations of the original Germanic are:

    • Expansion of the system of strong verbs, where the inflection operates with a combination of distinctive endings and ablaut ( internal inflection ).
    • Introduction of a new category of "weak" verbs without ablaut. They form the past tense with a dental suffix, the origin of which is disputed. It may be a periphrase with the word * đōn- 'do' or a suffix idg. * -To- .
    • Introduction of a weak adjective inflection. The weak adjective forms have the endings of the substantive n -stems and are used in syntactically determined contexts (especially directly after the demonstrative pronoun ). Compare with a happy hen (strong) and the happy hen (weak).

    Example paradigms

    The noun with the meaning 'gift', the verb for 'wear' and the demonstrative pronoun 'this' serve as an example paradigm.

    Noun meaning Gabe
    reconstructions according to Bammesberger 1990: 101
    Gothic Old Norse Old High German Old Saxon old english primitive Germanic
    Nom. Sg. giba gjǫf geba geƀa ġiefu * ǥeƀō
    Gene. Sg. gibos gjafar gebā geƀō depth * ǥeƀõz
    Date Sg. gibai gjǫf Gebu geƀu depth * ǥeƀãi, -õi
    Acc. Sg. giba gjǫf geba geƀa depth * ǥeƀō n
    Nom. Pl. gibos gjafar gebā geƀā ġiefa * ǥeƀõz
    Gene. Pl. gibo gjafa gebōnō geƀōnō ġiefa * ǥeƀõ n
    Date Pl. gibom gjǫfum gebōm geƀum, -un ġiefum * ǥeƀōmiz
    Acc. Pl. gibos gjafar gebā geƀā ġiefa, -e * ǥeƀōz, -õz
    Verb for 'to carry'
    reconstructions according to Bammesberger 1986: 105; Dual forms according to Euler / Badenheuer
    Gothic Old Norse Old High German Old Saxon old english primitive Germanic
    1. Sg. Pres. baira ber biru biru re * ƀerō
    2nd Sg. Pres. bairis berr biris biris bursts * ƀerez i
    3rd Sg. Pres. bairiþ berr birit biriđ bireð * ƀeređ i
    1. Dual Pres. bairos - - - - * ƀerōs
    2. Dual Pres. bairats - - - - * ƀérets?
    3. Dual Pres. - - - - - ?
    1. Plural Pres. bairam berum beremēs, -ēn advised berað * ƀeramiz
    2nd plural Pres. bairiþ berið beret advised berað * ƀeređ i
    3rd plural pres. bairand bera berant advised berað * ƀeranđ i
    Demonstrative pronoun 'this'.
    According to Bammesberger 1990: 224
    masculine feminine neuter
    Singular Nominative * sa * * þat
    Genitive * þes (a) * þezōz * þesa
    dative * þazmai * þezai * þazmai
    accusative * þanō n * þō n * þat
    Instrumental * þē
    Plural Nominative * þai * þōz * þō
    Genitive * þezō n * þezō n * þezō n
    dative * þaimiz * þaimiz * þaimiz
    accusative * þanz * þōz * þō

    syntax

    Basics

    The development of the ancient Germanic syntax is associated with many difficulties, because the texts that have been preserved only allow limited conclusions to be drawn about the word order:

    • The oldest runic inscriptions rarely consist of complete and almost never of articulated sentences. Often there are single words or names that do not provide any information about the syntax.
    • The earliest texts are for the most part translation literature , the order of which is usually very close to the respective Greek or Latin original. Particularly in the area of Bible translation , interlinear translations or translations based on the “word-for-word principle” that prevailed in the early Middle Ages primarily reflect the syntax of the translated Greek or Latin original or only offer a “distorted” (Greek or Latinized) Germanic syntax. References to the syntax of the old Germanic target language can therefore be found particularly where the translation deviates from the syntax of the template.
    • Old Germanic texts that are not translation literature are often metrically bound poetry. Unless the syntax here is also influenced by style models from other languages, especially Latin, it can be considered Germanic, but the syntax of lyrical texts differs in many cases from that of standard or everyday language. Above all, the meter (e.g. the Germanic long line rhyming with bars in Old English Beowulf ) or the end rhyme (in the case of Otfrid's Old High German Gospel Harmony ) lead to deviations from the usual syntax of the old Germanic languages ​​and ultimately also of the original Germanic. However, these texts allow many conclusions to be drawn about the syntax, especially where metrics or end rhymes allow alternative word orders.

    In general, the ancient Germanic syntax has been researched less intensively than the phonology, morphology and lexicon of this language. The multi-volume work by Otto Behaghel Deutsche Syntax is the only monograph on this topic to date . A historical account from the years 1924, 1928 and 1932. Since then, this problem has been researched mainly in individual articles with regard to individual aspects. Wolfram Euler's monograph provides a current summary of the state of research.

    Word order

    While in modern English, for example, as a largely endless language, the word order is relatively fixed and deviations often mark differences in meaning, the word order was far less fixed in the early Indo-European languages ancient Indian , ancient Greek and also Latin . The same was obviously true in the ancient Germanic, which was also very rich in forms. For example, in those Norse runic inscriptions that contain complete sentences with subject, object and verb, the word order subject-object-verb predominates only slightly. The position subject-verb-object is also common and seems to predominate in the pre-Old High German (“South Germanic”) inscriptions.

    As far as the position of attributes (adjectives, pronouns and numeralia) next to nouns is concerned, the picture is also inconsistent. In the oldest Old English and Old High German texts, the noun precedes the attribute somewhat more often than vice versa. As far as the attribute is reproduced, it was regularly emphasized. Since the finding of the primordial Norse is not very meaningful and in any case does not contradict the use in West Germanic, one can assume that also in primitive Germanic attributes mostly preceded the nouns and were emphasized by postponement.

    Use of forms

    Use of the case

    In Original Germanic, the dative has combined the functions of the Indo-European dative, locative, ablative and, in part, of the instrumental; morphologically, the dative of the old Germanic languages ​​consist predominantly of locative and dative forms that have been inherited from old times. This origin of the primitive Germanic dative corresponds to its use as a collective case in dative, locative, ablative and also instrumental functions in the ancient Germanic languages, which here apparently continue the primitive Germanic usage (and which in principle persists in German).

    In the other cases that have been preserved, the use of forms differs little from that of other Indo-European languages ​​(Latin, Greek, Old Church Slavonic, Lithuanian). A special feature in all three branches of Germanic (East, North and West Germanic) is the dativus absolutus , which describes a subplot or accompanying circumstances compared to a main plot . In several places it corresponds to the Latin ablativus absolutus and the Greek absolute genitive. In today's German it is most likely to be compared with formulaic expressions in the genitive such as “standing foot” or “not having achieved anything”.

    Similar to Latin (and occasionally in German) there was the AcI (accusative with infinitive) in Ur Germanic, because it does not only appear in translations from Latin at the expected places, but also several times in the Gothic translation of the Bible, different from the Greek Template.

    Use of tenses and modes

    Even more than the case system, the Germanic individual languages ​​reduced and simplified the Indo-European verbal system of forms when they were first handed down. Even if the primitive Germanic around the birth of Christ was possibly much more diverse than the Old High German, for example, which was handed down from the 8th century, a large part of the reduction in the verbal system was probably already completed.

    For example, the Indo-European subjunctive (as a mode of fixed desire and intention) had apparently already completely disappeared. Its function was largely taken over by the preserved optative (present tense), which in the Indo-European era initially only denoted what was possible, unreal and generally desired. This development has a parallel in Latin , whose (new) subjunctive is based on Indo-European optative forms, while a number of old subjunctive forms in Latin became future forms (especially in the consonant conjugation). Correspondingly, the Prohibitive (negative desire and prohibition) was formed in ancient Germanic with the combination of * ne + verb form in the optative present tense.

    While the Indo-European aorist was lost in Germanic as a separate tense of the past, apart from a few relic forms, there was no future tense any more than in the Indo-European original language. This was rather unchanged in Urgermanic (and as in German often until today) with the present tense (+ adverb) expressed ( tomorrow I'll go home ).

    A primitive Germanic innovation in form and function was the optative of the past tense, which denoted the unrealis of the past, but also of the present, as evidenced by matching documents in Gothic, Old High German, Old English and Old Norse. This use of the (new) optative past tense as the unrealis of all time stages apparently only occurred after the (primitive Germanic) past tense, as a former perfect , had displaced the Indo-European aorist.

    In addition, the Urgermanic knew a Consecutio temporum (sequence of tenses) to distinguish between pre- and simultaneity in main and subordinate clauses. A pluperfect did not exist, so the Vorvergangenheit expressed in the subordinate clause with the past tense was.

    vocabulary

    The primitive Germanic vocabulary contains many words for which an Indo-European origin is difficult to prove or is outright denied (see Germanic substratum hypothesis ). These uncertainties mainly concern areas of social structure as well as shipping and seafaring and have led to the assertion of an influence by a previously existing language ( substrate ) and the emergence of Germanic as an immigrant language; however, Indo-European etymologies have already been proposed for most of the lemmas used for these hypotheses.

    Loan words show above all close relationships in the sense of a linguistic union with the Celtic languages . Besides, that was Finnish influenced early with several Germanic words that it has preserved in almost unchanged form to this day, the words kuningas , King 'from urg. * kuninǥaz and rengas 'Ring' from urg. * χrenǥaz (in both words z stands for voiced s ).

    Text samples

    Various linguists have written samples of texts in the developed Germanic language. Carlos Quiles Casas published the following version of the well-known Indo-European fable The Sheep and the Horses by August Schleicher in 2007 (source: English Wikipedia / A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, 2007), which he dated 500 BC. Dated:

    Awiz eχʷaz-uχ
    Awiz, χʷesja wulno ne ist, spχet eχʷanz, ainan krun waǥan weǥantun,
    ainan-uχ mekon ƀoran, ainan-uχ ǥumonun aχu ƀerontun.
    Awiz nu eχʷamaz knows: χert aǥnutai meke witantei, eχʷans akantun weran.
    Eχʷaz weuχant: χluđi, awi! χert aknutai us wituntmaz:
    mannaz, foþiz, wulnon awjan χʷurneuti seƀi warman wistran. Avjan-uχ wulno ne isti.
    þat χeχluwaz awiz akran ƀukeþ.

    The Munich Indo-Europeanist Wolfram Euler also suggested the following primitive Germanic reconstruction for the same text in 2007 (language around the birth of Christ):

    Awiz eχwôz-uχ
    Awis, þazmai wullô ne wase, eχwanz gasáχ, ainan kurun waganan wegandun,
    anþeran mekelôn burþînun, þriđjanôn gumanun berandun.
    Awiz eχwamiz kwaþe: “Χertôn gaángwjedai mez seχwandi eχwanz gumanun akandun.”
    Eχwôz kwêđund: “Gaχáusî, awi, χertôn gaángwjedai unsez seχwandumiz:
    gumôn sôn, faþulliz awôn gari westulliz awôn; avimiz wullô ne esti. ”
    Þat gaχáusijandz awiz akran þlauχe.

    The German translation is:

    The Sheep and Horses
    A sheep that had no wool saw horses, one that was pulling a heavy wagon,
    the second that was carrying a great load, and the third that was carrying a man.
    The sheep said to the horses: “My heart narrows when I see how man drives horses.”
    The horses said: “Listen, sheep! The heart narrows at the sight:
    Man, Lord, uses the wool of the sheep to prepare a warm garment for himself, and the sheep have no wool. ”
    When the sheep heard this, it fled from the field.

    literature

    • Alfred Bammesberger : The structure of the Germanic verbal system . Heidelberg 1986.
    • Alfred Bammesberger: The morphology of the ancient Germanic noun . Heidelberg 1990.
    • Fausto Cercignani : Indo-European ē in Germanic . In: Journal for Comparative Linguistic Research , 86/1, 1972, pp. 104–110.
    • Fausto Cercignani: Indo-European eu in Germanic . In: Indogermanische Forschungen , 78, 1973, pp. 106-112.
    • Fausto Cercignani: Proto-Germanic * / i / and * / e / Revisited . In: Journal of English and Germanic Philology , 78/1, 1979, pp. 72-82.
    • Wolfram Euler and Konrad Badenheuer: Language and origin of the Teutons. Demolition of Proto-Germanic before the first sound shift. Inspiration Un Limited, Hamburg and London 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812110-1-6 .
    • Claus Jürgen Hutterer: The Germanic languages: their history in general . Budapest 1999. 4th edition.
    • Josef J. Jarosch: Reconstructive and Etymonomic Dictionary of Germanic Strong Verbs. 12 volumes, Schuch, Weiden 1995-, DNB 944025072 .
    • Hans Krahe: Germanic Linguistics . Volume 1: Introduction and phonology . Volume 2: Form theory . Volume 3: Word formation theory . 7th edition edited by Wolfgang Meid. Berlin, New York 1969.
    • Kristian Kristiansen et al .: Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe . In: Antiquity , 91/356, April 2017, pp. 348–359. ( online )
    • Guus Kroonen: Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-18340-7 .
    • Robert Mailhammer: The Germanic Strong Verbs, Foundations and Development of a New System. (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 183). Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019957-4 .
    • Vladimir Orel: A Handbook of Germanic Etymology . Brill, Leiden 2003. ISBN 90-04-12875-1 .
    • Julius Pokorny: Indo-European Etymological Dictionary. Francke Verlag, Bern / Munich, Volume I, 1959, Volume II 1969, DNB 457827068 .
    • Eduard Prokosch: A comparative Germanic Grammar . Linguistic society of America, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1939. (New edition: Tiger Xenophon 2009, ISBN 978-1-904799-42-9 )
    • Elmar Seebold: Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of Germanic Strong Verbs. Mouton, The Hague 1970, DNB 458930229 .
    • Wilhelm Streitberg: Urgermanic grammar . 4th edition Heidelberg 1974.
    • Frans Van Coetsem : The Vocalism of the Germanic Parent Language . Heidelberg 1994.
    • George Walkden: Syntactic Reconstruction and Proto-Germanic . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2014.

    Individual evidence

    1. Wolfgang P. Schmid: Old Europe and the Germanic , in: Heinrich Beck (Ed.): Germanic problems in today's view. Berlin 1986, pp. 155-167.
      Hermann Ament: The ethnogenesis of the Germanic peoples from the perspective of prehistory and early history , in: Wolfram Bernhard and Anneliese Kandler-Pálsson (eds.): Ethnogenesis of European peoples. Stuttgart and New York 1986, pp. 247-256.
      Wolfram Euler and Konrad Badenheuer: Language and origin of the Teutons. Demolition of Proto-Germanic before the first sound shift. Inspiration Un Limited, Hamburg and London 2009, pp. 35 f., 43–50.
    2. ^ Herman children, Werner Hilgemann: dtv-Atlas world history. Maps and chronological outline . Volume 1: From the beginnings to the French Revolution . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1995.
    3. Cf. but Euler / Badenheuer 2009, p. 36 ff.
    4. For short / i / and / e / see Cercignani 1979, pp. 72–82. Late-Urm. ā (n) (created by substitute stretching from an + χ , e.g. urgerm . * þanχta- > late- urgerm . þā (n) χta- > old-English þōht 'thought') is analyzed as / an /, cf. Elmer H. Antonsen, The Proto-Germanic syllabics (vowels) . In: Frans van Coetsem u. Herbert L. Kufner (Ed.): Toward a Grammar of Proto-Germanic . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1972, pp. 117-140, esp. 126.
    5. But see Cercignani 1972, pp. 104–110.
    6. Frederik Kortlandt: Germanic * ē 1 and * ē 2 . In: North-Western European Language Evolution 49, 2006, 51-54.
    7. Kroonen 2013, pp. Xxiii – xxiv.
    8. On [eu] and [iu] see Cercignani 1973, pp. 106–112.
    9. Euler / Badenheuer 2009, p. 54 f. and 62 f. with a clear summary of the discussion.
    10. Euler / Badenheuer 2009, p. 62.
    11. ^ Eugen Hill: A Case Study in Grammaticalized Inflectional Morphology. Origin and Development of the Germanic Weak Preterite . In: Diachronica 27/3, 2010, pp. 411–458.
    12. Euler / Badenheuer 2009, pp. 150 and 152.
    13. Euler / Badenheuer 2009, pp. 179–189.
    14. See Euler / Badenheuer 2009, p. 186 f.
    15. Euler / Badenheuer 2009, p. 188 f.
    16. cf. Euler / Badenheuer: Language and Origin of the Teutons , p. 184.

    Web links

    Wiktionary: Proto-European  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
    Wiktionary: Urgermanisch  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations