ProtoGermaans

ProtoGermaans, also known as Proto-Germanic, is the reconstructed ancestor of the Germanic language family. It is not directly attested in writing but is inferred from the similarities among later Germanic languages such as Old Norse, Old English, Gothic, and Old High German. Most scholars place its emergence in the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age, roughly 500 BCE to 1 CE, in regions including southern Scandinavia, the Jutland Peninsula, and northern Germany. From this base it diversified into West Germanic (English, German, Dutch), North Germanic (the Scandinavian languages), and East Germanic (Gothic and extinct languages).

Phonology and morphology: Proto-Germanic exhibits the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's Law), turning initial p, t, k into f, θ, h, with further consonant changes; Verner's Law later refined voicing by stress. It had three genders, four noun cases, and distinct strong and weak noun and verb classes, with present and past forms and a mix of ablaut patterns in the strong verbs.

Evidence and reconstruction: Proto-Germanic is a reconstructed language built by the comparative method. Direct evidence comes from later Germanic languages and loanwords in Latin and Greek; the Gothic Bible provides early forms. Runic inscriptions and later Old Norse, Old English, and other texts supply data for reconstructing sound correspondences and vocabulary.

Significance: Proto-Germanic is the common ancestor of a large and influential language group. Its innovations explain regular correspondences among English, German, Dutch, the Scandinavian languages, and the extinct East Germanic tongues such as Gothic, shaping the development of the entire Germanic branch.