Pontic Steppe
41-427: * Walhaz is a reconstructed Proto-Germanic word meaning 'foreigner', or more specifically 'Roman', 'Romance-speaker' or '(romanized) Celt', and survives in the English words of ' Wales / Welsh ' and ' Cornwall .' The term was used by the ancient Germanic peoples to describe inhabitants of the former Roman Empire , who were largely romanised and spoke Latin languages (cf. Valland in Old Norse ). The adjectival form
82-470: A root in the proto-language is reconstructed is a reflex . More generally, a reflex is the known derivative of an earlier form, which may be either attested or reconstructed. A reflex that is predictable from the reconstructed history of the language is a 'regular' reflex. Reflexes of the same source are cognates . First, languages that are thought to have arisen from a common proto-language must meet certain criteria in order to be grouped together; this
123-667: A common history of pre-Proto-Germanic speakers throughout the Nordic Bronze Age . The Proto-Germanic language developed in southern Scandinavia (Denmark, south Sweden and southern Norway) and the northern-most part of Germany in Schleswig Holstein and northern Lower Saxony, the Urheimat (original home) of the Germanic tribes. It is possible that Indo-European speakers first arrived in southern Scandinavia with
164-432: A dialect of Proto-Indo-European that had lost its laryngeals and had five long and six short vowels as well as one or two overlong vowels. The consonant system was still that of PIE minus palatovelars and laryngeals, but the loss of syllabic resonants already made the language markedly different from PIE proper. Mutual intelligibility might have still existed with other descendants of PIE, but it would have been strained, and
205-475: A larger scope of linguistic developments, spanning the Nordic Bronze Age and Pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe (second to first millennia BC) to include "Pre-Germanic" (PreGmc), "Early Proto-Germanic" (EPGmc) and "Late Proto-Germanic" (LPGmc). While Proto-Germanic refers only to the reconstruction of the most recent common ancestor of Germanic languages, the Germanic parent language refers to
246-555: A late stage. The early stage includes the stress fixation and resulting "spontaneous vowel-shifts" while the late stage is defined by ten complex rules governing changes of both vowels and consonants. By 250 BC Proto-Germanic had branched into five groups of Germanic: two each in the West and the North and one in the East. The following changes are known or presumed to have occurred in
287-593: Is a loanword derived from the name of the Celtic tribe which was known to the Romans as Volcae (in the writings of Julius Caesar ) and to the Greeks as Οὐόλκαι Ouólkai ( Strabo and Ptolemy ). The Volcae tribe occupied territory neighbouring that of the Germanic people and seem to have been referred to by the proto-Germanic name * Walhaz (plural * Walhōz , adjectival form * walhiska- ). It
328-406: Is a process called subgrouping. Since this grouping is based purely on linguistics, manuscripts and other historical documentation should be analyzed to accomplish this step. However, the assumption that the delineations of linguistics always align with those of culture and ethnicity must not be made. One of the criteria is that the grouped languages usually exemplify shared innovation. This means that
369-579: Is assumed that this term specifically referred to the Volcae , because application of Grimm's law to that word produces the form * Walh- . Subsequently, this term * Walhōz was applied rather indiscriminately to the southern neighbours of the Germanic people, as evidenced in geographic names such as Walchgau and Walchensee in Bavaria or Walensee in Switzerland. Place names containing
410-553: Is attested in Old Norse valskr , meaning 'French'; Old High German walhisc , meaning 'Romance'; New High German welsch , used in Switzerland and South Tyrol for Romance speakers; Dutch Waals ' Walloon '; Old English welisċ , wælisċ , wilisċ , meaning ' Brythonic '. The forms of these words imply that they are descended from a Proto-Germanic form *walhiska- . * Walhaz
451-807: Is largely a matter of convention. The first coherent text recorded in a Germanic language is the Gothic Bible , written in the later fourth century in the East Germanic variety of the Thervingi Gothic Christians , who had escaped persecution by moving from Scythia to Moesia in 348. Early West Germanic text is available from the fifth century, beginning with the Frankish Bergakker runic inscription . The evolution of Proto-Germanic from its ancestral forms, beginning with its ancestor Proto-Indo-European , began with
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#1732791463513492-1027: Is likewise concentrated in the Saxon south of England. From the Germanic and Slavic peoples the term passed to other groups, such as the Hungarians ( oláh , referring to Vlachs , generally used for Romanians ; olasz , referring to Italians), Turks ( Ulahlar ) and Byzantines ( Βλάχοι Vláhi ) and was used for all Latin people of the Balkans . Proto-Germanic language Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc ; also called Common Germanic )
533-413: Is termed Pre-Proto-Germanic . Whether it is to be included under a wider meaning of Proto-Germanic is a matter of usage. Winfred P. Lehmann regarded Jacob Grimm 's "First Germanic Sound Shift", or Grimm's law, and Verner's law , (which pertained mainly to consonants and were considered for many decades to have generated Proto-Germanic) as pre-Proto-Germanic and held that the "upper boundary" (that is,
574-695: Is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages . Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branches during the fifth century BC to fifth century AD: West Germanic , East Germanic and North Germanic . The latter of these remained in contact with the others over a considerable time, especially with the Ingvaeonic languages (including English ), which arose from West Germanic dialects, and had remained in contact with
615-423: Is the observation that if a cognate set displays a certain pattern (such as a repeating letter in specific positions within a word), it is likely that this pattern was retained from its mother language. The Most Natural Development Principle states that some alterations in languages, diachronically speaking, are more common than others. There are four key tendencies: The Majority Principle is applied in identifying
656-564: Is the question of what specific tree, in the tree model of language evolution, best explains the paths of descent of all the members of a language family from a common language, or proto-language (at the root of the tree) to the attested languages (at the leaves of the tree). The Germanic languages form a tree with Proto-Germanic at its root that is a branch of the Indo-European tree, which in turn has Proto-Indo-European at its root. Borrowing of lexical items from contact languages makes
697-495: Is typical not of Germanic but Celtic languages. Another is * walhaz 'foreigner; Celt' from the Celtic tribal name Volcae with k → h and o → a . Other likely Celtic loans include * ambahtaz 'servant', * brunjǭ 'mailshirt', * gīslaz 'hostage', * īsarną 'iron', * lēkijaz 'healer', * laudą 'lead', * Rīnaz 'Rhine', and * tūnaz, tūną 'fortified enclosure'. These loans would likely have been borrowed during
738-677: The Corded Ware culture in the mid-3rd millennium BC, developing into the Nordic Bronze Age cultures by the early second millennium BC. According to Mallory, Germanicists "generally agree" that the Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language, the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, was primarily situated in an area corresponding to the extent of the Jastorf culture . Early Germanic expansion in
779-503: The Funnelbeaker culture , but the sound change in the Germanic languages known as Grimm's law points to a non-substratic development away from other branches of Indo-European. Proto-Germanic itself was likely spoken after c. 500 BC, and Proto-Norse , from the second century AD and later, is still quite close to reconstructed Proto-Germanic, but other common innovations separating Germanic from Proto-Indo-European suggest
820-637: The Norse . A defining feature of Proto-Germanic is the completion of the process described by Grimm's law , a set of sound changes that occurred between its status as a dialect of Proto-Indo-European and its gradual divergence into a separate language. The end of the Common Germanic period is reached with the beginning of the Migration Period in the fourth century AD. The alternative term " Germanic parent language " may be used to include
861-681: The Pre-Roman Iron Age (fifth to first centuries BC) placed Proto-Germanic speakers in contact with the Continental Celtic La Tène horizon . A number of Celtic loanwords in Proto-Germanic have been identified. By the first century AD, Germanic expansion reached the Danube and the Upper Rhine in the south and the Germanic peoples first entered the historical record . At about the same time, extending east of
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#1732791463513902-621: The Vistula ( Oksywie culture , Przeworsk culture ), Germanic speakers came into contact with early Slavic cultures, as reflected in early Germanic loans in Proto-Slavic . By the third century, Late Proto-Germanic speakers had expanded over significant distance, from the Rhine to the Dniepr spanning about 1,200 km (700 mi). The period marks the breakup of Late Proto-Germanic and
943-484: The "lower boundary" was the dropping of final -a or -e in unstressed syllables; for example, post-PIE * wóyd-e > Gothic wait , 'knows'. Elmer H. Antonsen agreed with Lehmann about the upper boundary but later found runic evidence that the -a was not dropped: ékwakraz … wraita , 'I, Wakraz, … wrote (this)'. He says: "We must therefore search for a new lower boundary for Proto-Germanic." Antonsen's own scheme divides Proto-Germanic into an early stage and
984-556: The 2nd century CE, as well as the non-runic Negau helmet inscription, dated to the 2nd century BCE), and in Roman Empire -era transcriptions of individual words (notably in Tacitus ' Germania , c. AD 90 ). Proto-Germanic developed out of pre-Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe. According to the Germanic substrate hypothesis , it may have been influenced by non-Indo-European cultures, such as
1025-652: The Celtic Hallstatt and early La Tène cultures when the Celts dominated central Europe, although the period spanned several centuries. Linguistic reconstruction Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction: Texts discussing linguistic reconstruction commonly preface reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*) to distinguish them from attested forms. An attested word from which
1066-429: The Germanic subfamily exhibited a less treelike behaviour, as some of its characteristics were acquired from neighbours early in its evolution rather than from its direct ancestors. The internal diversification of West Germanic developed in an especially non-treelike manner. Proto-Germanic is generally agreed to have begun about 500 BC. Its hypothetical ancestor between the end of Proto-Indo-European and 500 BC
1107-489: The beginning of the (historiographically recorded) Germanic migrations . The earliest available complete sentences in a Germanic language are variably dated to the 2nd century AD, around 300 AD or the first century AD in runic inscriptions (such as the Tune Runestone ). The language of these sentences is known as Proto-Norse , although the delineation of Late Common Germanic from Proto-Norse at about that time
1148-498: The dates of borrowings and sound laws are not precisely known, it is not possible to use loans to establish absolute or calendar chronology. Most loans from Celtic appear to have been made before or during the Germanic Sound Shift . For instance, one specimen * rīks 'ruler' was borrowed from Celtic * rīxs 'king' (stem * rīg- ), with g → k . It is clearly not native because PIE * ē → ī
1189-414: The development of a separate common way of speech among some geographically nearby speakers of a prior language and ended with the dispersion of the proto-language speakers into distinct populations with mostly independent speech habits. Between the two points, many sound changes occurred. Phylogeny as applied to historical linguistics involves the evolutionary descent of languages. The phylogeny problem
1230-432: The earlier boundary) was the fixing of the accent, or stress, on the root syllable of a word, typically on the first syllable. Proto-Indo-European had featured a moveable pitch-accent consisting of "an alternation of high and low tones" as well as stress of position determined by a set of rules based on the lengths of a word's syllables. The fixation of the stress led to sound changes in unstressed syllables. For Lehmann,
1271-755: The element *walhaz denote communities or enclaves in the Germanic-speaking world where Romance was spoken. In Old English, *:walhaz developed into wealh, retaining the inherited meaning ‘a foreigner, more particularly a pre-Anglo-Saxon inhabitant of Britain who spoke Celtic or Latin or both’. It also came to imply the 'social position of the British natives that in the West Saxon dialect of Old English' came to mean ‘(British) slave’. The old feminine derivative of *walhaz, Old English wiln < *wielen < * wealh-in-, even exclusively means ‘a female slave’ and
*Walhaz - Misplaced Pages Continue
1312-480: The entire journey that the dialect of Proto-Indo-European that would become Proto-Germanic underwent through the millennia. The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any complete surviving texts; it has been reconstructed using the comparative method . However, there is fragmentary direct attestation of (late) Proto-Germanic in early runic inscriptions (specifically the Vimose inscriptions , dated to
1353-496: The erosion of unstressed syllables, which would continue in its descendants. The final stage of the language included the remaining development until the breakup into dialects and, most notably, featured the development of nasal vowels and the start of umlaut , another characteristic Germanic feature. Loans into Proto-Germanic from other (known) languages or from Proto-Germanic into other languages can be dated relative to each other by which Germanic sound laws have acted on them. Since
1394-545: The history of Proto-Germanic in the wider sense from the end of Proto-Indo-European up to the point that Proto-Germanic began to break into mutually unintelligible dialects. The changes are listed roughly in chronological order, with changes that operate on the outcome of earlier ones appearing later in the list. The stages distinguished and the changes associated with each stage rely heavily on Ringe 2006 , Chapter 3, "The development of Proto-Germanic". Ringe in turn summarizes standard concepts and terminology. This stage began with
1435-411: The languages must show common changes made throughout history. In addition, most grouped languages have shared retention. This is similar to the first criterion, but instead of changes, they are features that have stayed the same in both languages. Because linguistics, as in other scientific areas, seeks to reflect simplicity, an important principle in the linguistic reconstruction process is to generate
1476-495: The least possible number of phonemes that correspond to available data. This principle is again reflected when choosing the sound quality of phonemes, as the one which results in the fewest changes (with respect to the data) is preferred. Comparative Reconstruction makes use of two rather general principles: The Majority Principle and the Most Natural Development Principle. The Majority Principle
1517-402: The most likely pronunciation of the predicted etymon, the original word from which the cognates originated. The Most Natural Development Principle describes the general directions in which languages appear to change and so one can search for those indicators. For example, from the words cantar (Spanish) and chanter (French), one may argue that because phonetic stops generally become fricatives,
1558-413: The period marked the definitive break of Germanic from the other Indo-European languages and the beginning of Germanic proper, containing most of the sound changes that are now held to define this branch distinctively. This stage contained various consonant and vowel shifts, the loss of the contrastive accent inherited from PIE for a uniform accent on the first syllable of the word root, and the beginnings of
1599-552: The reduction of the resulting unstressed syllables. By this stage, Germanic had emerged as a distinctive branch and had undergone many of the sound changes that would make its later descendants recognisable as Germanic languages. It had shifted its consonant inventory from a system that was rich in plosives to one containing primarily fricatives, had lost the PIE mobile pitch accent for a predictable stress accent, and had merged two of its vowels. The stress accent had already begun to cause
1640-539: The relative position of the Germanic branch within Indo-European less clear than the positions of the other branches of Indo-European. In the course of the development of historical linguistics, various solutions have been proposed, none certain and all debatable. In the evolutionary history of a language family, philologists consider a genetic "tree model" appropriate only if communities do not remain in effective contact as their languages diverge. Early Indo-European had limited contact between distinct lineages, and, uniquely,
1681-511: The separation of a distinct speech, perhaps while it was still forming part of the Proto-Indo-European dialect continuum. It contained many innovations that were shared with other Indo-European branches to various degrees, probably through areal contacts, and mutual intelligibility with other dialects would have remained for some time. It was nevertheless on its own path, whether dialect or language. This stage began its evolution as