South Germanic

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South Germanic is term used for a number of proposed groupings of the Germanic tribes or dialects. However, it is not widely used and has no agreed definition. The following uses are found:

• As a straightforward synonym for West Germanic. This usage is particularly found in the study of Germanic mythology and culture, where it covers Anglo-Saxon and German sources in contrast to those from Scandinavia, which are termed North Germanic. (The East Germanic tribes are generally ignored because there are no pre-Christian texts.) But it is also found in the work of linguists (for example, Sondergger).
• As a term in Ernst Schwarz's theory of the Germanic dialects. He divides Germanic into a North Germanic and South Germanic group, with the Scandinavian languages and Gothic in the former. The characteristic feature of his grouping is the floating position of the North Sea Germanic dialects, Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon: these are viewed as initially part of North Germanic (in the 2nd Century BC), but moving closer to the more southerly dialects in the subsequent five centuries. This view has received some support, though it is less widely adopted than the North-East-West groupings, and a number of those who share Schwarz's view, such as Lehmann, use instead the terms Northeast Germanic and Southwest Germanic.
• As a synonym for High German. This usage seems to be exclusive to Hutterer, who groups North Sea Germanic separately from the Weser-Rhine Germanic and Elbe Germanic groups which give rise to the High German varieties. Although it can be seen as a development of Schwarz's theory, it implies that Northsea Germanic and South Germanic did not form any sort of larger West Germanic grouping. The German term Binnengermanisch (Inland Germanic) is also used in a similar sense to contrast the coastal West Germanic dialects with the rest, though it does not imply that they are not all part of West Germanic.

[edit] Sources

• Claus Jürgen Hutterer, Die Germanischen Sprachen, (Wiesbaden, 1999)
• H.L.Kufner, "The grouping and separation of the Germanic languages" in F. van Coetsem (ed.), Toward a Grammar of Proto Germanic (Niemeyer, 1972)
• H. Kuhn, "Zur Giedering der germanischen Sprachen", in Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 86 (1955), 1-47.
• Winfred P. Lehmann, "The Grouping of the Germanic Languages", in Henrik Birnbaum & Jaan Puhvel (eds), Ancient Indo-European Dialects (University of California Press, 1966)
• H.F.Nielsen, The Germanic Languages. Origins and Early Dialectal Interrelations (University of Alabama Press, 1989)
• Ernst Schwarz, Goten, Nordgermanen, Alemannen 1951
• Ernst Schwarz, Germanische Stammeskunde 1956
• Stefan Sondergger, Grundzüge deutscher Sprachgeschichte Vol. 1 (de Gruyter 1979)