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Northwest Germanic

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Northwest Germanic
(proposed)
Geographic
distribution		Northern, Western and Central Europe (Pre-colonial)
Linguistic classification Indo-European
Proto-languageProto-Northwest Germanic
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottolog nort3152
Germanic languages with dialects revised.png
Modern Northwest Germanic languages in Europe

Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. [1] It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into North Germanic, West Germanic and East Germanic, but proposes additionally that North and West Germanic (i.e. all surviving Germanic languages today) remained as a subgroup after the southward migration of the East Germanic tribes, only splitting into North and West Germanic later. Whether this subgroup constituted a unified proto-language, or simply represents a group of dialects that remained in contact and close geographical proximity, is a matter of debate, but the formulation of Ringe and Taylor probably enjoys widespread support:

Contents

There is some evidence that North and West Germanic developed as a single language, Proto-Northwest Germanic, after East Germanic had begun to diverge. However, changes unproblematically datable to the PNWGmc period are few, suggesting that that period of linguistic unity did not last long. On the other hand, there are some indications that North and West Germanic remained in contact, exchanging and thus partly sharing further innovations, after they had begun to diverge, and perhaps even after West Germanic had itself begun to diversify.

— Don Ringe / AnnTaylor, The Development of Old English, p. 10 [2]

History and terminology

‘Northwest Germanic’ avant la lettre: Late Common Germanic (Hans Kuhn)

Though not yet using the term ′Northwest Germanic′, this grouping was proposed by Hans Kuhn as an alternative to the older view of a Gotho-Nordic versus West Germanic division. Instead, Kuhn used the term ′Spät­gemeingermanisch′ (Late Common Germanic):

In dem Zeitraum, da sich dieser [der ostgermanische] Ast vom großen Stamme [des Germanischen] löste, bildete sich die Sprache der Nord- und Westgermanen ebenso wie bisher noch fast ganz einheitlich fort. […]. Die Älteren urnordischen Inschriften enthalten noch kaum etwas, das sie als nordisch und nicht auch vorwestgermanisch verrät, aber dem Gotischen ist ihr Lautstand ferngerückt. Ich habe diese Stufe ‚Spät­gemeingermanisch‘ genannt (Anz. 63, 8 [3] ). Das Gotische wirkt ihm gegenüber in manchem fast wie vorgermanisch. Dies währte, von einzelnen Sonderungen, die erkennbar werden, abgesehn, bis um die Mitte des 1. Jahrtausends. Erst dann zerbrach diese Einheit.

During the period when this [East Germanic] branch broke away from the main [Germanic] Stamme [trunk], the language of the North and West Germanic peoples continued to develop in a manner that was, as before, almost entirely uniform. […]. The older Proto-Norse inscriptions contain almost nothing that identifies them as Norse rather than Pre-West Germanic, yet their phonology has already diverged significantly from that of Gothic. I have termed this stage ‘Late Common Germanic’ (Anz. 63, 8). In comparison, Gothic appears in some respects almost pre-Germanic. This unity persisted, apart from certain peculiarities that become discernible, until around the middle of the 1st millennium. Only then did this unity break down.

—  Hans Kuhn, Zur Gliederung der germanischen Sprachen [Apropos: The devision of Germanic langaugaes], p. 45 (= Kuhn 1969, 287)

Erst nach der Mitte des 1. Jahrtausends nach Christus, […], begann, soweit die Runeninschriften erkennen lassen, das Nordische sich mit eigenen Neuerungen spürbar vom Westgermanischen abzuheben.

It was not until after the middle of the first millennium A.D., […], that, as far as the runic inscriptions indicate, the Nordic language began markedly to silhouette from West Germanic through its own innovations.

— Hans Kuhn, Zur Gliederung der germanischen Sprachen, p. 14 (= Kuhn 1969, 258)

(The older view was represented by mid 20th-century proposals to assume the existence by 250 BC of five general groups to be distinguishable: North Germanic in Southern Scandinavia excluding Jutland; North Sea Germanic along the middle Rhine and Jutland; Rhine-Weser Germanic; Elbe Germanic; and East Germanic. [4] The Northwest Germanic theory challenges these proposals, since it is strongly tied to runic inscriptions dated from AD 200 onwards.)

Elmer H. Antonsen proposed the term: ‘Northwest Germanic’

Some yeary after Kuhn, Elmer H. Antonsen proposed the term ‘Northwest Germanic’:

From the evidence above, it is clear that the vowel systems outlined in Tables 4 and 5 [5] represent a stage of development which, in its entirety, is common to the North and West Germanic languages and foreign to Gothic. It therefore seems appropriate to give this intermediate stage between Proto-Germanic and the later North and West Germanic languages the simple yet clear designation “Northwest Germanic (NwGmc.)”. The demarcation of the boundary between Proto-Germanic and Northwest Germanic is then a function of a bundle of isoglosses: (1) the reassignment of [į] > /e/ and of [ẹ] > /i/, (2) the phonemicization of [o] > /o/, (3) the lowering of /ē1/ > /ā/, and (4) the appearance of /ē2/.

— Elmer H. Antonsen, On Defining Stages in Prehistoric Germanic, p. 30

Coverage of the term ‘Northwest Germanic’

Later Antonsen restricted his these that Northwest Germanic is the predecessor of all the West and North Germanic Languages to these that it is only the predecessor of all the Ingvaeonic (i.e.: North Sea Germanic) and North Germanic Languages:

If the archeological datings are approximately correct, it will be seen that EG and WG are distinct from NwG already at 200 A.D., while NwG continues on until approximately 550. This chronology might seem to be a contradiction in terms. It might be argued that if NwG is a parent of (Ingv.) WG, then the two could not coexist from 200–550. Such an assumption is clearly faulty, since it would mean that Dutch no longer exists, since Afrikaans has now become a distinct linguistic entity. NwG underwent a restriction in its geographic distribution after the splitting off of Ingv. WG, but the linguistic features of that part of the NwG area which did not undergo the WG changes remained essentially the same and the language lived on. Therefore, even though Ingv. WG split off by 200 A.D., it is still possible to say that the language of later NwG inscriptions reflect a parent stage of Ingv. WG.

— Elmer H. Antonsen, A Concise Grammar of the Older Runic Inscriptions, p. 27

Dating

Most scholars [6] agree that East Germanic broke up from the rest of the languages in the 2nd or 1st centuries BC. [7] The Runic Inscriptions (being written from the 2nd century) may mean that the north and West broke up in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The Migration Period started around the 4th and 5th centuries; an event which probably help diversify the Northwest Germanic (maybe even the West Germanic) languages even more. [8] The date by which such a grouping must have dissolved—in that innovations ceased to be shared—is also contentious, though it seems unlikely to have persisted after 500 AD, by which time the Anglo-Saxons had migrated to England and the Elbe Germanic tribes had settled in Southern Germany. [9]

Shared innovations

The evidence for Northwest Germanic is constituted by a range of common linguistic innovations in phonology, morphology, word formation and lexis in North and West Germanic, though in fact there is considerable debate about which innovations are significant. An additional problem is that Gothic, which provides almost the sole evidence of the East Germanic dialects, is attested much earlier than the other Germanic languages, with the exception of a few runic inscriptions. This means that direct comparisons between Gothic and the other Germanic languages are not necessarily good evidence for subgroupings, since the distance in time must also be taken into account.

The following shared innovations, which must have taken place in Proto-Northwest Germanic, can be noted: [10]

Many common innovations are of post-Proto-Northwest Germanic date, however. These could have spread through an already differentiated dialect continuum, or have been present in latent form and solidified only in the individual dialects.

Alternative groupings

Postulated common innovations in North Germanic and Gothic, which therefore challenge the Northwest Germanic hypothesis, include:

A minority opinion is able to harmonize these two hypotheses by denying the genetic reality of both Northwest Germanic and Gotho-Nordic, seeing them rather as mere cover terms indicating close areal contacts. (Such areal contacts would have been quite strong among the early Germanic languages, given their close geographic position over a long period of time.) Under such an assumption, an early close relationship between Nordic and Gothic dialects does not exclude a later similar relationship between remaining North and West Germanic groups, once the Gothic migration had started in the 2nd or 3rd century.

There are also common innovations in Old High German and Gothic, which would appear to challenge both the Northwest Germanic and the Gotho-Nordic groupings. However, these are standardly taken to be the result of late areal contacts, based the cultural contacts across the Alps in the 5th and 6th centuries, reflected in the Christian loanwords from Gothic into Old High German.

Notes

  1. ↑ Cfr.:
    Weitgehende Anerkennung fand ein Modell, das nach der frühen Abspaltung des Ostgerm. (Gotischen) mit einer relativ undifferenzierten Einheit ‚Nordwestgerm.‘ rechnet. A model that presumes a relatively undifferentiated “Northwest Germanic” group following the early split of East Germanic (Gothic) has gained widespread acceptance.

    —  Heinrich Beck, Die germanischen Sprachen der Völkerwanderungszeit [The Germanic languages during the migration period], p. 986

    Die Stammbäume, die zur Veranschaulichung der Ausgliederung des Germ[ischen] oft gezeichnet werden, spiegeln in den letzten Jahrzehnten die Verschiebung in der Auffassung wider. Als Beispiele der Veränderung können Darst[ellungen] von Haugen angeführt werden (34, 110; 35, 8). Anstatt des herkömmlichen Bildes der Verzweigung des Urgerm[anischen] in Ost-, West- und Nordgerm[ische] wird ein Stammbaum vorgeschlagen, nach dem sich das Urgerm[anische] zunächst in einen ostgerm[ischen] und einen nord[isch]-westgerm[ischen] Zweig, der letztere dann in einen nord[ischen] und einen westgerm[ischen] Zweig gegliedert habe. The family trees often drawn to illustrate the Ausgliederung [separation / differentiation] of the Germanic languages reflect the shift in scholarly understanding over the past few decades. Haugen’s illustrations (34, 110; 35, 8) serve as examples of this change. Instead of the conventional view of Proto-Germanic branching into East, West, and North Germanic, a family tree is proposed according to which Proto-Germanic initially split into an East Germanic branch and a Nordic-West Germanic branch, the latter then dividing into a Nordic and a West Germanic branch.

    —  Thorsten Andersson, Urnordische Sprache [Proto-Norse], p.293

    • 34, 110 = Haugen 1976, 110.
    • 35, 8 = Haugen 1982, 8.
  2. ↑ Haugen (1976, 92) made a similar statement: „As will be shown later, there is good reason to think that the language of the earliest Scandinavian runic inscriptions is not only the ancestor of Scandinavian or North Germanic, but also of West Germanic, including English and German. If so, our Proto-Scandinavian is also a North-west Germanic (NWGmc), which gradually splits up around the time of the Anglo-Saxon migra­tion to England (c. 450) and the isolation of Scandinavia.“
  3. ↑ Anz. 63, 8 = Kuhn 1944, 8 / 1969, 175: „Wer für die ältere Römerzeit Westgermanisch ablehnt, darf da überhaupt nur Germanisch gelten lassen, für die spätere Römerzeit aber nur Ostgermanisch und eine west- und nordgermanische Einheit, für die wir keinen Namen haben. Man kann sie vielleicht Spätgemeingermanisch nennen, weil sie wahrscheinlich alle Germanen umfaßt hat, die noch in den alten Sitzen oder an ihrem Saume wohnen geblieben waren.“ / ‘Anyone who rejects the term “West Germanic” for the early Roman period must, in that context, accept only “Germanic”; for the later Roman period, however, they must accept only “East Germanic” and a West and North Germanic group for which we have no name. One might perhaps call it “Late Common Germanic,” since it likely encompassed all the Germanic peoples who had remained in their traditional homelands or on their peripheries.’
  4. ↑ Moulton/Buccini 2017: ‘By roughly 250 bce they [the Germanic people] had spread south, and five general groups are distinguishable: North Germanic in southern Scandinavia, excluding Jutland; North Sea Germanic, along the North Sea and in Jutland; Rhine-Weser Germanic, along the middle Rhine and Weser; Elbe Germanic, along the middle Elbe; and East Germanic, between the middle Oder and the Vistula rivers.’
    (This was, though not mentioned by Moulton and Buccini, the theory of Friedrich Maurer [Nordgermanen und Alemannen. Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde, Hünenburg, Straßburg, 19421, 19432]. Cfr. the critical evaluation by Elmar Seebold, Alemannisch und Nordgermanisch: Kriterien und Grundlagen für eine Sprachgeschichtliche Beurteilung and Hans Frede Nielsen. Friedrich Maurer and the Dialectal Links of Upper German to Nordic], both in: Peter Naumann et al. [ed.], Alemannien und der Norden. Internationales Symposium vom 18. - 20. Oktober 2001 in Zürich, de Gruyter: Berlin / New York, 2004, p. 1 ff., 12 ff.) .
  5. ↑ Antonsen 1965, 28.
  6. ↑ Cfr. e.g.:
    • ‘Die Verbindung [des Nordgermanischen] mit dem Got[ischen] brach früh, schon im 2. Jh., ab’ (Andersson 2006, 559; translation: ‘The connection [of North Germanic] to Gothic ceased early—as early as the 2nd century’).
    • ‘Nach der Abwanderung der Goten an das Schwarze Meer beginnt die erste faßbare Teilung der germ[anischen] Sprache Gestalt anzunehmen – man kann jetzt von einem ,ostgerm[anischen]‘ Zweig gegenüber dem ,Rest-Kontinuum‘ reden.’ (Seebold 2006, 533; translation: ‘Following the migration of the Goths to the Black Sea, the first discernible division of the Germanic language began to take shape—one can now speak of an “East Germanic” branch in contrast to the “Rest-Kontinuum” [remaining continuum <of Northwestgermanic dialects>.’)
    • Haugen 1976, 109 (‘the break between NGmc and WGmc is actually later than that between NGmc and EGmc.’) and illustration on page 110 / Haugen 1982, 8 (illustration): ‘(1st cent.?)’ (regarding the break between East Germanic on the one hand and North ancd West Germanic on the other hand).
    • Stiles 2013, 8: ‘The standard view these days is that the Proto-Germanic stage was ended by the departure of the Goths (East Germanic), after which the remaining dialects, which had not yet developed into North and West Germanic, stayed in contact for a period, undergoing shared innovations. This stage is known as North-West-Germanic.’
  7. ↑ Cfr. Moulton/Buccini 2017: ‘The first major linguistic division that developed in Germanic was between East Germanic and Northwest Germanic. It can be dated roughly to the 1st–3rd centuries ce.’
  8. ↑ Cfr. for different views:
    • Antonsen 1975, 27: ‘NwG continues on until approximately 550’ / Antonson 2002, 34: ‘From approximately A.D. 500, it is possible to detect developments in the language of the runic inscriptions that are purely Scandinavian in character.’
    • Nielsen 2000, 289, 291 (illustrations): North-Westgermanic (100 - 200); Early Runic (200 - 500) on the one hand and Westgermanic (200 - 400) on the other hand.
    • ‘The fragmentation of Northwest Germanic can be dated roughly to the period of the 3rd–6th centuries with the development of three major dialect divisions: in Scandinavia, North Germanic; in Jutland and the northwest of Germany, North Sea Germanic; and in central Germany, South Germanic. A number of linguistic developments from this period are shared by North Sea Germanic and South Germanic (but not by North Germanic), and the term West Germanic is used in recognition of the strong affinities between these two groups.’ (Moulton/Buccini 2017)
  9. ↑ Cfr:
    • Wie lange die ae. [altenglischen] Sprachausprägungen noch mit denen von Jütland und dem Kontinent gegenseitig verstehbar waren, läßt sich nicht genau festlegen. Zu Beginn unserer Überlieferung waren sie es wohl nicht mehr […]. In der gleichen Zeit entwickelt sich eine Sprachgrenze zw[ischen] dt. [deutschen] Mda. [Mundarten] und denen der ,Dänen', wofür normalerweise der Abzug der → Angeln aus Jütland und ein Nachrücken ‚skand[inavischer]‘ → Dänen verantwortlich gemacht wird – hist[orisch] oder arch[äologisch] ist dies allerdings nicht zu erweisen (zuletzt zu den Qu[ellen]: 3 mit mageren Ergebnissen).
    It is impossible to determine exactly how long OE [Old English] dialects and those of Jutland and the continent remained mutually intelligible. By the time, when our written records begin, they were likely no longer so […]. At the same time, a linguistic boundary developed between dt. [German] Mda. [dialects] and those of the ‘Danes,’ for which the withdrawal of the → Angles from Jutland and the subsequent advance of ‘Scand[inavian]’ → Danes is usually held responsible—however, this cannot be proven hist[orically] or arch[aeologically] (most recently regarding the primary sources: 3 with meager results).

    — Elmar Seebold, Westgermanischc Spnchen, p. 534

    3 = Erich Hoffmann, Historische Zeugnisse zur Däneneinwanderung im 6. Jahrhundert, in: Marold/Zimmermann 1995.
    • Das hier [in den Gebieten der Vorstufen des West- und des Nordgermanischen] herrschende Kontinuum wurde erst durch die Abwanderung der Angeln zusammen mit Sachsen und Jüten nach England im 5. Jh. und die darauf folgende Zuwanderung der Dänen in deren ehemalige Gebiete abgebrochen (118, 9 f.; 18, 987; 62, 62; → Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde S. 278 f., 298; → Merowingerzeit S. 579).
    The linguistic continuum that prevailed here [in the regions corresponding to pre-stages of the West and North Germanic languages] was only broken by the migration of the Angles, along with the Saxons and Jutes, to England in the 5th century and the subsequent migration of the Danes into their former territories (118, 9 f.; 18, 987; 62, 62; → Germanen, Germania, Germanische Altertumskunde S. 278 f., 298; → Merowingerzeit S. 579).

    — Thorsten Andersson, Nordgermanische Sprachen

    118 = Elias Wessén, De nordiska språken, AWE/Geber, Stockholm 197911.
    18 = Beck 1998.
    62 = Wolfgang Laur, Sprachen, Schriften, ,Nationalitäten' in Haithabu und Schleswig. In: Klaus Düwel et al. (ed.), Von Thorsberg nach Schleswig. Sprache und Schriftlichkeit eines Grenzgebietes im Wandel eines Jahrtausends, de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 20001, 20012, 61 - 76.
  10. ↑ Nielsen 2000, 289 mentions the follwing four features of ‘North Germanic / West Germanic’: ‘ē1 > ā’, ‘[o] > /o/’, ‘-ō > -u’ and ‘-ai, -au > -ē , -ō’.
    Stiles (2013, 8 f.) distinguishes between six ‘North-West-Germanic innovations’ and three ‘features, lacking in Gothic, that occur in all the North and West Germanic languages, although their implementation differs in detail’ (9). The latter three are:
      • ‘“a-umlaut”’
      • ‘creation of * ēy2 and development of class 7 verbs’
      • ‘the compound demonstrative THIS’.
  11. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, p. 10.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Stiles 2013, p. 9.
  13. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, pp. 15–16.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Stiles 2013, p. 8.
  15. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, pp. 14–16.
  16. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, pp. 16.
  17. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, pp. 17–18.
  18. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, p. 18.
  19. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, p. 21.
  20. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, p. 27-34.
  21. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, pp. 82–87.
  22. ↑ Ringe & Taylor 2014, pp. 88–92.

Sources

  • p. 115 - 123: Hans Frede Nielsen, Methodological Problems in Germanic Dialect Grouping.
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