Talk:Germanic languages

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[edit] King

'King' and its cognates are common Germanic words, should we add those to the table?Cameron Nedland 14:08, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it's sort of hit-and-miss. There are probably hundreds of more words we could add, so I wouldn't bother much adding more, but as long as cognates are found in most languages, I would probably not remove any examples. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 23:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Do we know they are Common Germanic? Forms appear in West Germanic and North Germanic but not in East Germanic. Which could mean that it is Common Germanic, but East Germanic has lost the word, or that it is either West Germanic or North Germanic, and has since spread from the one to the other, and since been assimilated to ordinary words of the respective branch in the other. Jacob Haller 23:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I think it's most probably CG, just that they haven't been attested in Gothic or were lost before Gothic evolved. Gothic would likely have had many words found in nearby languages, albeit not attested in writing. On the other hand, words attested in Gothic are much more interesting for the table. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I personally think that table is one of the coolest things since gunpowder.Cameron Nedland 01:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, to each his own opinion. Anyway, I think we should generally limit ourselves to words with attested Gothic cognates, since the table could get rather unwieldy quite soon...
The Swedish version of the table also has reconstructed Proto-Germanic and Old English versions of the words. Looks interesting, although might need some fact-checking for errors. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 08:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
The Swedish version is even cooler than ours! I can't read Swedish, so I don't know what the footnotes say.Cameron Nedland 13:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Aaahh, generally the same as the English version. Besides that, there's a comment about nambred (nameboard), where I don't understand why they're giving the form "brett" (not even Swedish, unless they're referring to the word "broadly"), and some pondering on whether hám- in hámweardes (homewards) is the same as home-, which I have no reason to doubt, at least as a cognate. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Someone should put sweltan in the Old English for die, as well on the Swedish page. Deman7001 22:48, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Placement of Scanian

Should "Scanian" really be placed under "Swedish"? The history of the dialect is muddled, and there are several Scanian regionalists who could get offended, but I'd say it's similar to Bokmål. Bokmål is geneologically (or however it's spelled) West Norse, but has turned generally East Norse due to heavy impact from Danish. Scanian is geneologically Danish, but has turned generally Swedish due to heavy impact from it. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 09:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

So you think it should be under Danish?Cameron Nedland 13:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Genealogically, yeah, I think I'd prefer it. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Curiously, the Eastern Danish link in the table (the Danish dialect believed to be closest to Scanian, having emerged from a similar part of a dialectal continuum) already links to Scanian. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:56, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't Danish and Swedish be under the same language genealogically? Aaker 12:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Linguistically, they could be considered dialects of a pluricentric language continuum. Genelogically, they have diverged from a common ancestor, Old Norse. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 18:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lombardic (again!)

I removed Lombardic from its absurd position straddling E & WGMc and it has been reverted. The reason for removing it was quite simple and has been discussed before. Every major handbook on the history of German says Lombardic is West Germanic. Some editors of this page hold the opinion (as they're entitled to do) that it either is or might be EGmc. However, they are quite unable to support this so far with even a single source. never mind a match for the dozen or I listed some time ago on this Talk page. Since the EGmc claim flies in the face of the unanimous view in the handbooks that Lombardic is West Germanic, it really has no place on this page at all - if there were anything to it, the Lombardic page would be the place - let alone in a table which attempts to summarise the accepted view of the relationship of the Gmc languages. The idea that the note (whose claim, after all, would also seems to be untrue) somehow excuses this doesn't count as a reason to revert in my view.

I appreciate that people are attached to their opinions, but if you can't back them up with citations, what basis have you got for objecting to their removal from this page in favour of a view thoroughly supported in the published literature? --Pfold 21:15, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Was there actually a meaningful difference at this stage between "East Germanic" and "West Germanic"? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:24, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
I reverted because your edit summary implied that sources had been requested for a year, when there wasn't even a {{fact}} tag on it, and because simply removing Lombardic from the table doesn't solve anything. If the majority of scholars hold Lombardic to be West Germanic rather than East Germanic, then move it to the West Germanic column of the table. But keep the note explaining that there is a dispute about the issue. —Angr 21:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Creoles are not considered Germanic languages"

Who doesn't consider them Germanic languages and why don't they? This looks completely arbitrary. Jacob Haller 15:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tod (sub.)/tot (adj.)

Is 'dead' in the table standing for the adjective or for the substantive (the man with the scythe/the status 'exitus')? The last is in Modern High German (der)'Tod' only the first is 'tot'. --Pistazienfresser (talk) 19:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

It's the adjective, same as in the other languages. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 19:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] French influence in Swedish?

I have noticed when looking in Swedish that there are some French(Romansche) based words like 'Historie', Have these words been adopted from French into Swedish or are they of a Germanic origin?80.192.246.56 (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Falcon-Eagle200780.192.246.56 (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, that one (historie) is certainly borrowed into Swedish from Romance (probably direct from Latin historia rather than from French histoire). But French also has a lot of Germanic loan words, so other similarities you see may be native Swedish words that are cognate to Frankish words that French has borrowed. Or the Swedish words and the French words may both be borrowed, since Swedish has a lot of loanwords from Low German. Your question can only be answered on a word-by-word basis, but this page isn't the place for it. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 18:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
In the 18th century (I think), there were many loanwords adopted directly from French, by the Swedish aristocracy. Curiously, by comparing these to the English equivalents, in English they have often retained the spelling, but changed pronunciation, while in Swedish, the pronunciation is largely retained, but the spelling is changed, one example is English "raid", Swedish "räd". (Granted, it's just one example.) Also, Norman, a dialect of French had a notable impact from Old Norse, the predecessor of Swedish. Finally, in some cases, the words could be indirectly borrowed from French, via Low or High German, as well.惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 16:50, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error in list Of examples?

In the list of examples en:"many" is shown as meaning de:"Manch". This is wrong IMHO. The 1:1 translation of en:"many" into German is de:"viele" where de:"Manch" means en:"some". 92.226.196.13 (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a list of cognates, not direct translations. The question of "semantic shift" is already noted, afaik. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 16:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Influx of vocabulary from other languages)

I believe it is rather misleading to say that Afrikaans has "a significant influx of vocabulary from other languages" in the article, because I would not say that it is greater than many other Germanic languages. The non-Germanic influx into Afrikaans is certainly much less than English has experienced and I would say less than Dutch. Afrikaans began diverging from Dutch in the 17th Century and so escaped much of the French influence that Dutch was subjected to since that period, for example. Certainly there has been an influx, but to suggest it is significantly more than other Germanic languages have experienced is misleading. Booshank (talk) 20:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

At the very least it would need citing with a reliable source. In addition to Dutch, English, and Afrikaans, the other Germanic language that has experienced "a significant influx of vocabulary" from non-Germanic languages is Yiddish. —Angr 21:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this was put in there to explain why it diverged from Standard Dutch and not as a comparison to all Germanic languages. Since it's just a tree, maybe it's not necessary at all since if a user read the article on Afrikaans, he could read more about the language. Just a thought. Kman543210 (talk) 12:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Even Scandinavian languages (except Icelandic) have had a notable impact from Non-Germanic languages, mostly Greco-Latin and French. Maybe it's less than for West Germanic, but certainly not ignorable. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] re "Diachronic": Gutnish

It's true that Gutnish is now "practically a dialect of Swedish" but the same applies to Low German and Scots - and these languages are not declared for "extinct". Shouldn't therefore the entry concerning Gutnish be corrected? Thanks. Freigut (talk) 16:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Low German is a mere dialect either of (high) German or Dutch. Scots is more unclear, depending on the variety discussed. It seems the claim is Gutnish was largely replaced by Swedish. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * (talk) 09:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)