is the largest branch of the
Germanic family of
Language s, including such languages as
German ,
English and
Dutch .
The other families of Germanic are
North Germanic and
East Germanic .
From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic dialects are divided into three groups,
West ,
East and
North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the
Migration Period , so that some individual dialects are difficult to classify. The Western group would have formed as a dialect of
Proto-Germanic in the late
Jastorf Culture (ca.
1st Century BC ).
During the
Middle Ages , the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of
Middle English on one hand, and by the
Second Germanic Sound Shift on the continent on the other.
The linguistic contact of the
Viking settlers of the
Danelaw with the
Anglo-Saxon s left traces in the English language, and is suspected to have facilitated the collapse of the Old English inflexional system that marked the onset of the Middle English period
12th Century .
The
High Germanic Sound Shift resulted in the division between the
Low Germanic Languages and the
High Germanic Languages . By Early modern times, the span had extended into considerable differences, ranging from
Highest Alemannic in the South (the
Walliser dialect being the southernmost surviving German dialect) to
Northern Low Saxon in the North. Although both extremes are considered
German , they are not mutually intelligible. The southern dialects have completed the second sound shift, but remained closer to the Middle German vowel system, while the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift, but simplified the vowel system.
Of modern German dialects the north German 'Plattdeutsch' (Low German) is the one that most resembles modern English. The district of '
Angeln ' (or Anglia), from which the name "English" derives, is in the extreme north of Germany between the Danish border and the Baltic coast.
Saxony lies further to the south. The
Anglo-Saxons were a combination of a number of peoples from northern Germany and the
Jutland Peninsula.
Note that divisions between subfamilies of Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form
Dialect Continua , with adjacent
Dialect s being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.
