Characterisation of the Germanic language family

 

The pre-history of the Germanic language family, and therefore also of Dutch, is the subject of comparative historical linguistics. The aim of this branch of linguistics is to show relationships between languages and to reconstruct proto-languages. The method used for this is the investigation of regular correspondences in the sounds of the central vocabulary.

An example of one of these sound correspondences is provided by the following small sample:

It is obvious that the words shown from the above languages show similarities. Differences between languages are often not just coincidences, but are systematic. For example the Dutch sound [oey] - written - in these words corresponds systematically with an [au] in German. The study of comparative historical linguistics has succeeded in finding a number of this sort of regular sound correspondences, which could be described as "sound laws".

On the basis of such similarities and systematic correspondences we can conclude that certain languages are related to each other and go back to a common source language. Comparative historical linguistics has even managed in this way to reconstruct a common proto-language (an "ancestor") for some of the European and Indian languages, known as Indo-European (or "Indogermanic"). However we have to bear in mind that nothing has come to us directly from such proto-languages, they are purely hypothetical.

The renowned pioneers of comparative historical linguistics were Rasmus Kristian Rask (1787-1832), Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Franz Bopp (1791-1867). August Schleicher (1821-1868) developed the "family tree model", which later gained some competition from the "wave model" ("Wellentheorie") developed by Johannes Schmidt in 1872. The family tree model makes it possible to show in summary form the relationships between languages. The family tree for the Germanic languages is as follows:

 

(see also Van Bree, 1996)

 

Germanic forms one branch in the history of the so-called Indo-European language family. The following summary also shows the other branches:

 

(see also Van Bree, 1996)

 

The first or "Germanic" sound shift

There are a number of ways in which Germanic differs systematically from the other Indo-European languages. The main difference lies in systematic sound changes which are grouped together under the term "Germanic sound shift". This development took several centuries, and was probably complete by about the second century BC.

 
Summary of the Germanic sound shift:

Indo-European				Germanic
	labials	dentals	velars		labials	dentals	velars
unvoiced stops	p	t	k	unvoiced fricatives	f	Þ	X
voiced stops	b	d	g	unvoiced stops	p	t	k
voiced aspirated stops	bh	dh	gh	voiced fricatives

In 1875 the Dane Karl Verner succeeded in formulating an exception to these correspondences in a rule which later became known as "Verner's Law". He established that the unvoiced fricatives which arose as a result of the Germanic sound shift would become voiced in some circumstances, i.e. when the main stress did not fall on the immediately preceding syllable. In other words

f > , Þ > and X>

This also affected the existing unvoiced fricative [s], which similarly changed to [z] in these circumstances.

In later times, however, the stress relationships changed, and the variable stress of Indo-European became fixed: in Germanic the main stress always came to fall on the first syllable of the word.

 

The second, or "High German" sound shift

Later on in the development of West-Germanic (5th - 8th century) there was a second sound shift, which is of less relevance for the development of Dutch but which does explain many of the differences between Dutch and German.

The sound shift began in the south of the German-speaking areas, and spread north as far as the so-called "Benrather Line.

The main changes in this context affect the German unvoiced stops. These change as shown below:

• at the start of a word/syllable ("Anlaut"), in gemination, or after a consonant:

• after a vowel:

(see also the map with the examples)

The West-Germanic area was divided in two by the High German sound shift: the southern High German area, and the northern Low German and Dutch area which did not take part in this sound shift.

Area of the continental Germanic dialects

 

A second contrast within the West-Germanic area concerns the so-called "coastal features". Systematic differences can be shown to exist between Old English, Old Frisian and Old Saxon on the one hand, and Old High German on the other. These coastal features are also sometimes called Inguaeonic ("North Sea Germanic").

Note: This term should be used with caution as it suggests a link with the three-way division of the West Germans by the classical historians of the first century AD (Pliny, Tacitus), who divided them into three groups called Hermiones, Istvaeones and Ingvaeones; the latter referred to the tribes who lived along the coast from Gaul to Denmark.

 
Examples of Inguaeonic features which can be traced in Dutch:

• 'Ersatzdehnung' [compensatory lengthening]: the loss of a nasal and lengthening of a vowel before a fricative: Dutch vijf, English five, Frisian fiif (cf German fünf)
• lack of final -t in the third person singular of zijn, ie is (cf German ist)
• Dutch eiland, Frisian eilân, English island (cf German Insel which is etymologically different) - note: the <s> in the English word is not etymologically correct, it is a contamination from isle which is derived from Latin insula not from Germanic.
• the personal pronoun for the 3rd person singular has a different root:
  Dutch hij, English he (cf German er)
• loss of the difference between dative and accusative singular of the personal pronouns: Dutch mij, English me, but German mir / mich

Within West Germanic, Dutch has a distinctive place, not least because of the above developments and features. Dutch has, however, gone its own way in a manner which has made it distinctive from the other West Germanic languages. The oldest phase of the history of Dutch in the strict sense comprises Old Dutch.