Talk:West Germanic languages

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[edit] this article

Shouldn't this article be called West Germanic language_s_? --zeno 08:53 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] proto-west germanic language?

as for the comment about there never being a proto-west germanic language...

from what i've long been hearing, these things are largely known through reconstruction. so how can it be said for certain at this point that there wasn't a proto-west germanic language? i'm finally getting around to signing this post. Gringo300 17:16, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Because it is possible for all the dialects to have diverged from Proto-Germanic at about roughly the same time. Since the dialects would form a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects, innovations would pass from one to the other without their being part of a Proto-West Germanic dialect.--Wiglaf 16:39, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The usual linguistic criterion for deciding whether a group of languages is descended from a common intermediate proto-language is to see whether they all share any common innovation. In this case, is there any common innovation all West Germanic languages have that is not present in North Germanic, East Germanic, or Proto-Germanic? As far as I know, there is: all West Germanic languages show gemination of consonants (except r) before j (PGmc *satjan > OS *settian, OHG sezzen, OE settan). Of course the innovation could have passed from one to the other without there having been a Proto-West Germanic language, but that doesn't mean we know it did. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 8 July 2005 20:55 (UTC)

[edit] Low Saxon-Low Franconian

Why are Low Franconian and Low Saxon separate categories? Are the two groups now regarded as more separate from each other than English and Frisian, or is something else going on? Certainly, the authors of ethnologue don't hold this view [1] - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) Image:UW Logo-secondary.gif 20:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The authors of ethnologue are often wrong - especially regarding German, Low German and all those dialects. I think they constantly get a little confused because of the sheer number of it. The ethnologue guys call Low German Low Saxon - for what reason I don't know. In my opinion Low Saxon is just one dialect of Low German. That is another proof for their incompetence in that matter. --Lucius1976 21:19, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Low Saxon is perhaps a translation of Nedersaksisch or Neddersassisch see here.
84.135.251.67 21:58, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The family tree

I was just passing through an noticed that the family tree seems to give the impression that Northern Middle English descends from Middle English and was contemporanious with Early Modern English. Is this the case? 81.79.229.119 21:38, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

No. 84.135.239.188 17:32, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frisian, not Low Saxon, is closest to Modern English?

I added the "[citation needed]" tag to the claim that Low Saxon is the closest existing language to modern English. I didn't change the text because I don't have enough expertise in this subject area.

The reason I think Frisian (not Low Saxon) is probably the closest is because this journal article says, "... Frisian is considered to be the closest extant language to Old English", and gives this citation (I've not read this): "Nielsen H. F., 1985 Old English and the continental Germanic languages: a survey of morphological and phonological interrelations 2nd edition. Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, Innsbruck". That seemed authoritative enough to me.

On the other hand, it could be that Frisian is being overlooked because very few people speak it. Or there may well be some other reason to say it was Low Saxon, not Frisian. Hopefully, someone with more expertise will handle this. EMan 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Frisian is closer to English than Low Saxon is. But the sentence in question begins "Of modern German varieties", and Frisian isn't a German variety. "German" is usually taken to include High German and Low German (also called Low Saxon), but not Frisian or Low Franconian (Dutch and its closest relatives). —Angr 19:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Is Dutch Low Saxon a Low German variety or a Low Franconian variety closely related to Dutch?
84.135.197.66 20:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
It's a Low German variety, although it's been influenced by contact with Dutch, while Low Saxon in Germany has been influenced by contact with High German. —Angr 08:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I love the way this is discussed like it actually exists in the real world. Forgive my OR, but this category is total ... erm ... bs. Such categories help younger readers process information, but what exactly is this category supposed to tell us? That High German is closer to English than it is to Danish? No it's not. That Saxon is closer to English than Jutish? Hilarious. And English came from a common linguistic zone that included southern Scandinavia, and the north sea coasts of modern Holland and Germany (bin to the West-North schema); you don't need to be a linguist to know this ... just read Beowulf. But of course to everyone but a few this category suggests the opposite. To my mind the only thing it tells us is that linguists have a problem communicating their intentions to general audiences and that encyclopedia and other tertiary writers are more interested in categorization than understanding reality. You'll have to forgive me though, cause I've never read the arguments of the guy who invented this category. Yeah, I'll have a guess that some guy poured through grammars and (hopefully) old writing, cheery-picked a few features to the expense of more others, and drew a big fat line through the subtle dialect continuum of pre-modern Germanic Europe. Great fun I'm sure, but little more. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch

Although there is an entry in the German Wikipedia, Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch doesn't exist actually. This is a mixture of two different dialects: Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch and Pommersch. I know Vorpommersch and Pommersch sound similar but in fact they have only few things in common. Today only the first dialect is spoken in Germany, the second has somewhat died out due to World War II. --89.53.45.236 20:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Low German vs. Low Saxon

I realize that both terms can be considered correct, but seeing as Low Saxon - though a disambiguation page - directs to Low German (where the two are equated), shouldn't we be using Low German in this article? Aryaman (☼) 20:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we should. "Low Saxon" is ambiguous, as it is often used only for the dialects of Low German spoken in the Netherlands and Lower Saxony. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 22:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)