Germanic languages

Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, initially spoken in northern and central Europe and now spread in many parts of the World. Those with the most speakers are English, German and Dutch and are used as state languages in several countries. Other Germanic state languages are Afrikaans, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. Faeroese and Frisian are regional, official languages. The remaining Germanic languages, Yiddish and Low German, have no official status and are endangered. Luxemburgish is a German dialect with an official status. Some varieties like Scots are viewed traditionally as dialects of major languages but some users consider they are independent languages.

The mother tongue, Proto-Germanic, was probably spoken until the 4th century AD. A lot of varieties derived from it in the Middle Ages. Some of them like Old Norse or Frankish evolved toward the current languages. Others like Gothic died out.

A traditional and somewhat simplified classification of the current languages is the following.

• West Germanic
  • English, Scots
  • Frisian
  • Dutch
    • Afrikaans (recently derived form Dutch)
  • Low German
  • German
    • Yiddish (derived from German)
• North Germanic or Scandinavian
  • Danish
  • Swedish
  • Norwegian
  • Faeroese
  • Icelandic