Where English is from?

If you don't know where English is from, you really don't understand the language.  This map shows where the Germanic languages originated from, but excludes English, unfortuately.

Basically, after Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Germanic emerged in an area east of the Rhine river and extending through the northern portion of Europe to roughly what today is the east of Poland, and then again northwards.

The Whole Germanic Branch

¹No Eastern Germanic languages have survived to our modern era (see below).


In essence, the Germanic branch of Indo-European is organized geographically:  West, which itself is divided into Western, Northern and High (i.e. mountain); North, also subdivided into Western and Eastern; and East Germanic.  Many of these languages share similar characteristics, though some have very original points themselves:

• Many have verb-final positions, meaning that in compound or complex sentences, only the first auxiliary verb is placed in second position next to the subject, with the rest being placed at the end of the clause or sentence.
• Some have tonal systems meaning a word can differ in meaning or context whether it is pronounced with a tone that rises or falls.
• Most have kept the phenomenon of post-position particles, meaning that an adverb or preposition placed after a verb can change the meaning of the term radically; still others have the same phenomenon with prefixes.

West Germanic Languages

²The language of Geoffrey Chaucer.

³The language of William Shakespeare.

⁴The language you are learning (since about 1830-1850)

⁵The language of Charlemagne, extinct today.

This West branch is also divided geographically into Western, Northern and "High" or Central or Mountain branches.  As we go further on, we notice that the Western group is also divided into "North Sea" and "Low" or Flat Country sub-divisions.  English is from the sub-division on the far left, so its closest modern relative is Frisian, spoken on the northwestern coast of the Netherlands and Germany, and the southwestern coast of Denmark.  English went through a dramatic change starting in 1066 with the arrival of the Norman French, at which point the language was heavily influenced by French.  We can begin to see the beginnings of modern English in the works of Shakepeare (17th century) though the famous familiar way of addressing people (tu in the Latin languages, du or je in Germanic languages) lasted up until the 19th century.

This chart also allows you to see the reasons for which Modern English still remains very similar Modern Dutch and Modern German (respectively):  

• man, man, Mann
• is, is, ist
• was, was, war
• the, de, der
• sheep, schaap, Schaaf
• cow, koe, Kuh
• young, jong, jung

North Germanic Languages

⁶Many Norwegians would argue that Nynorsk ("new" Norwegian) is artificial and Bokmål should be learnt. However, considering its prevalence in the media and in publishing, I have decided to include it, since it is a reality in Norway.

As Germanic moved north, it developed different characteristics, notably in terms of pronunciation -- the melodic, sing-song, up-and-down tonalities of the Scandinavian languages are recognizable worldwide -- but also in terms of meaning, since Swedish, like Chinese, has two tones.  Of all of the North Germanic languages, Icelandic remains the closest to the original Old Norse because of its isolation.

Due to the political dominance of Denmark over Norway, which lasted from 1397-1815⁷, the two languages grew steadily together, despite coming from different geographic branches.  Today, a speaker of Norwegian can easily converse with a speaker of Danish and vice-versa, yet will notice vast differences in pronunciation, idiomatic expressions, vocabulary and grammar.  The two languages are said to share a high degree of mutual intelligibility, a trait also shared though to a lesser degree with Swedish. 


⁷Source: http://www.countriesquest.com/europe/norway/history/union_with_denmark_and_sweden.htm 

East Germanic Languages

By far the most difficult chart to make, since we have no existing examples of the east Germanic languages -- only Bishop Ulfila's translation of the Bible into Gothic exists -- because they were not written languages.  Ulfila was a Gothic priest from Constantinople who left to Christianize the Goths.  While they lived together or in their original homelands, thought to be in southern Sweden -- similar to Swedish Götland -- the Goths continued to speak their own languages.  However, as soon as the Ostrogoths had invaded northern Italy and the Visigoths Spain, they quickly adopted the Latin that was spoken on site.  Only the Crimean Gothic language lasted until the 18th century -- no dictionary or trace of it was written down or otherwise kept, apart from a list of words and phrases in the 16th century (source:  www.dictionary.com).

You will undoubtedly recognize many names in the East Germanic branch, since so many of these peoples (I hate the word tribes but if the shoe fits, wear it...) invaded Rome and indeed most of Europe toward the end of the influence of the Roman Empire.  In fact, the Burgundians lent their name to a region here in France known for fine wines, and the Vandals' name is still used in modern English to a person who wantonly damages or destroys others' property.  Of the others, only the Roman author Tacitus or others bothers describing them, as they were not considered of any interest to the "civilized" or "sophisticated" Romans who considered all of these tribes and peoples, as well as many more, barbarians.

Below is an example of Ulfila's Gothic, with a translation into English⁸:

Gothic iþ saei nu gatairiþ aina anabusne þizo minnistono jah laisjai swa mans, minnista haitada in þiudangardjai himine; iþ saei taujiþ jah laisjai swa, sah mikils haitada in þiudangardjai himine. 

English Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

⁸Source:  Codex Argenteus, Matthew 5:19, Project Wulfila, University of Antwerp, Belgium, 2004.


Obviously you cannot understand this Gothic text or even read some of the letters such as the thorn þ, a letter that existed in an earlier version of English for hundreds of years.

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I was going to include some videos about the "Barbarians," but all I could find was a series produced by the History Channel, which is very shady history indeed.  Please be careful of this source, as more often than not it is designed for sensationalist or entertainment value rather than keeping to the truth.