The Germanic Languages: Origins and Early Dialectal Interrelations

The present volume is a revised and translated version of "De germanske sprog. Baggrund og gruppering" (Odense University Press, 1979), which has been out of print for several years. The book is especially concerned with the grouping of the Germanic languages: with the research history of this much-debated question and with a discussion of the methods applied to past attempts and indeed applicable to future research in the field. These topics are discussed in the two longest chapters of the book (IV and V). The three preceding chapters should be seen as useful background information to the two central chapters. In ch. I the Germanic languages are introduced, an outline of their earliest attestations is given, and finally the dialectal status of the early runic language is discussed. The delimitation of Germanic in relation to the other Indo-European languages is dealt with in ch. II, while in ch. III the subject of Germanic tribal movements is taken up. The Germanic migrations are of great interest to Germanic dialect grouping because Gothic, Old High German and Old English are all colonial languages. Therefore the chapter focuses on the migrations of respectively the Goths, the Central and Upper German tribes, and the Anglo-Saxons.