North and West Germanic languages

1. Historical background

2. East Scandinavian subgroup

3. West Scandinavian subgroup

4. Peculiarities of the West Germanic subgroup

5. Frisian

6. Dutch

7. Afrikaans

8. English

Key-words: Scandinavia, Viking, Old Norse, Jutland, Zealand, Bokmal (Dano-Norwegian), Nynorsk, ballad, saga, Edda, Helleviones, Hermiones, Istaevones, Ingaevones, Anles, Frisians, Jutes, Franks, High Herman, Allemanians, Swabians, Bavarians, Thuringians, analyticity, pidgin.

Questions and tasks:

1. What does the word “Scandinavia” mean?

2. How the evolution of North Germanic languages is different from other languages of the same group?

3. Speak on specific features of North Germanic languages shared with other Germanic. Is there more common features with West of East Germanic languages? Why?

4. Which of Germanic languages is considered to be the most archaic? Prove it by dwelling on the characteristics of the language.

5. Which of Germanic languages is considered to be the “most” analytical one? Give the proof of the developed analyticity of the language.

6. Compare the histories of all North and West Germanic languages. What is common for the course of their evolution and what differs them from one another?

7. Enumerate the types of Faroese ballads.

8. How the languages of North and West Germanic groups correlate with Germanic tribes according to Pliny the Elder?

9. Make up the list of English words cognate with German (10 words).

10. What are the changes that separated German and Danish from other Germanic languages?

11. Which Germanic language is the youngest?

12. Which of Germanic languages evolved out of pidgin?

13. Enumerate the tribes whose dialects put the basis for the formation of the English language?

Read the following citations of acknowledged linguists and make your comments:

1. “… for three centuries English had no official status … it drifted... but English survived yet and there is one uncanny thing – it’s incredible persistence. English survived despite the constant buffeting of history. It’s a cherishable irony that a language that succeeded almost by stealth, treated for centuries as the inadequate and second-rate tongue of peasants, should one day become the most important and successful language in the world.” (Bryson B. Mother Tongue. English and how it got that way. NY. 1990. P.56).

2. “About 85% of the 30000 Anglo-Saxon words dies out under the influence of the Danes and Normans” … only about 4500 Old English words, that is about 1% of the total number of words listed in the Oxford English Dictionary survived (Bryson B. Mother Tongue. English and how it got that way. NY. 1990. P.56).

3. “Despite the bounty of terms (in English), there is a maddening tendency to load a single word with a whole galaxy of meanings”. (Bryson B. Mother Tongue. English and how it got that way. NY. 1990. P.68). Which characteristics of English (structural, typological, etc.) is described here?

4. “For good or ill, at the end of the second millennium AD and the fifth full millennium since recorded history began, English is unique. No other language has ever before been put to so many uses so massively by so many people in so many places – on every continent and in every sea; in the air and in space, in thought, speech and writing; in print, on paper and screen; in sound, on tape and film, by radio, television and telephone, via electronic networks and multimedia. And it is used as a mother or other tongue by over a billion of people. Russian, Spanish are international languages, while the title ‘world language’ is given only to English”. (McArthur T. The English Languages. CUP. 1998. P.30-31).

РЕКОМЕНДАЦІЇ ДО ВИКОНАННЯ

ІНДИВІДУАЛЬНОЇ РОБОТИ

ТА ІНДИВІДУАЛЬНІ ЗАВДАННЯ

1. The scheme of Gothic text analysis (for Gothic texts see Zhluktenko, Yavorska 1986). Read and analyze 2-3 sentences according to the scheme.