Proto-Germanic, the proto-language believed by scholars to be the common ancestor of the Germanic languages, includes among its descendants Dutch, Yiddish, German, English, Afrikaans, Norwegian, Old Norse, Swedish, Icelandic and Danish. There are no extant documents in Proto-Germanic, which was unwritten, and virtually all our knowledge of this extinct language has been obtained by application of the comparative method. There are a few surviving inscriptions in a runic script from Scandinavia dated to c. 200 which many feel represent a stage of Proto-Norse immediately after the "Proto-Germanic" stage, if not exactly identical. As well, some loanwords exist in neighbouring non-Germanic languages which are believed to have been borrowed from Germanic during the Proto-Germanic phase; an example is Finnish kuningas "king", which closely resembles the reconstructed Proto-Germanic kuningaz.

Proto-Germanic is itself descended from Proto-Indo-European, which is also the distant ancestor of a great many other languages in Europe and Asia. For the changes undergone by Proto-Germanic during its descent from Proto-Indo-European, see Germanic languages.

Timeline for the evolution of Proto-Germanic

Proto-Indo-European speakers are thought by some scholars to have arrived at the plains of southern Sweden and Denmark, regarded to be the original dwelling-place of the Germanic peoples, during the early Bronze Age (about four thousand years ago). This is the only area where no pre-Germanic place names have been found. The Battle-axe people are the best candidate for this immigration.

Colin Renfrew has proposed that the I-E languages were spread much earlier, with agriculture. The archaeological evidence from Scandinavia, however, seem to show that the local population learned agricultural skills without the infusion of a new culture.

Hybridization as conjectured cause

Some also suggest that Proto-Germanic may have arisen somewhat as a Creole language due to cultural diffusion among geographically static indigenous population groups. However, considering the inflected character and the homogeneous forms of the Germanic languages, the creation of such a creole would have been a resounding and unique feat indeed.

It has been suggested that proto-Germanic arose as a hybrid of two Indo-European dialects, one each of Centum and Satem types though they would have been mutually intelligible at the time of hybridization. This hypothesis may help to explain the difficulty of finding the right place for Germanic within the Indo-European family.

Non-Indo-European elements

The reconstructed Proto-Germanic vocabulary includes a number of fundamental words (referring to, among other things, parts of the body, animals and nature) which are clearly non-Indo-European in origin, suggesting a vocabulary influence from the earlier inhabitants of northern Europe. The mechanism of this influence is unknown; it may have been simple borrowing, or perhaps retention of old words by people who adopted Proto-Germanic as their new language. For examples, see Germanic substrate hypothesis.

External links

• Proto-Germanic discussion group