ProtoGermanischen

Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is not directly attested in any written texts, but its features are inferred by comparative study of the Germanic languages, including Gothic, Old English, Old High German, Old Norse, and Old Dutch. Most scholars place the origin of Proto-Germanic in the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, with a homeland likely in southern Scandinavia and the northeastern part of the European mainland. The language began to diverge into distinct Germanic dialects during the first centuries BCE and CE.

Key characteristics of Proto-Germanic include its phonological system and distinctive sound changes that later Germanic languages exhibit. Notable developments associated with the Germanic branch are Grimm’s Law and Verner’s Law, which describe systematic shifts of consonants from their Proto-Indo-European values. Proto-Germanic also featured a vowel system capable of ablaut, a pattern of vowel alternations that affected verb and noun forms, and a robust system of noun declensions with several cases, genders, and numbers. Verbal morphology included a distinction between strong and weak verb classes, with related patterns of past tense formation and participles. The language employed a stress-based system with a free, relatively heavy syllable structure compared with some neighboring families.

Descendants of Proto-Germanic spread across much of Europe and into the North Atlantic. It gave rise to the North Germanic, West Germanic, and East Germanic groups, from which Gothic, Old English, Old High German, Old Norse, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic eventually evolved. The term Proto-Germanic is used to summarize the shared innovations that defined this branch before its diversification.