Germanic


All these languages are descended from a proto-Germanic language spoken in the 5th Century CE. Historical documents have been preserved in a number of now no longer spoken Germanic languages, including Old English and Gothic.

English itself is a strange hodgepodge. After the Romans piked out and left the British Isles to the Celts by the 5th Century CE, the Germanic-speaking Angles and Saxons moved in. Numerous dialects of Old English appeared, which, while Germanic, borrowed a number of Celtic words. From the 8th to the 11th Centuries Scandinavians speaking their own Germanic languages invaded and conquered, leaving bruises and linguistic footprints. Then in 1066 another bunch of Germanic people invaded, but the Normans had been hanging around northern France long enough to pick up French, so a huge influx of Romance language vocabulary came with them.

Other Germanic languages not yet represented include Afrikaans, Frisian, and Yiddish.



North Germanic (Scandinavian)

Danish:

Jeg kan ikke tale dansk, men det er et smok sprog.
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Faroese:

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Icelandic:

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Norwegian:

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Swedish:

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West Germanic

Dutch:

Ik spreek geen nederlands, maar het is een prachtige taal.
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English: Hear It

Orthography and transcription
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German: Hear It

Orthography and transcription
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