ProtoGermanic

Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is not directly attested in any corpus, but its features are inferred by the comparative method from its earliest attested descendants, such as Gothic, Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, and the Old Dutch and related languages. Most scholars date its development to the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, approximately from the first millennium BCE to the first centuries CE, with regional variation.

Proto-Germanic diversified into three principal branches: West Germanic (which includes Old High German, Old Dutch, Old Saxon, and related tongues), North Germanic (Old Norse, which leads to Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish), and East Germanic (the now-extinct Gothic, Burgundian, and others). Gothic is the best-attested East Germanic language, providing much of the evidence for early Germanic grammar and phonology.

Key features of Proto-Germanic include innovations that set it apart from other Indo-European branches, notably Grimm's Law and Verner's Law, which produced the characteristic Germanic consonant system. Its inflectional system was thorough, with three grammatical genders, a four-case noun paradigm, and strong and weak declensions for adjectives and pronouns. The verb system distinguished strong and weak conjugations and relied on ablaut for past tenses, with participles and finite moods attested.

Evidence for Proto-Germanic comes from the comparative study of its descendants and a limited corpus of later loanwords and runic inscriptions. It remains a central focus of historical linguistics for understanding the development of the Germanic languages and their role in the broader Indo-European family.