Proto-Germanic
Ancestral Germanic tongue
Proto-Germanic is the reconstructed ancestor of all Germanic languages—English, German, Dutch, Swedish, and others.
It was never written down; linguists have inferred it from patterns across its descendant languages.
The asterisk before reconstructed forms (*kuningaz for "king") signals they're scholarly hypotheses, not attested words.
Proto-Germanic was likely spoken around 500 BCE in southern Scandinavia.
Built again from pieces
- ancestorPredecessor in lineage
- Grimm's LawGermanic consonant shift principle
- ablautVowel gradation in morphology
- umlautDouble-dot diacritical mark
cognate · etymology · philology · asterisk · unattested · root · stem · morphology
Post-Roman tribal relocations era
- tribesAncestral social groups
- GothsEast Germanic tribal people
- VandalsEast Germanic tribal kingdom
- FranksMedieval Germanic tribe
Angles · Saxons · Jutes · Burgundians · prehistoric · Iron Age · Scandinavia · tribal
Britain's native tongue
- GermanCentral European language
- DutchOf the Netherlands
- SwedishOf a Nordic kingdom
- NorwegianFrom Oslo's homeland
Danish · Icelandic · Old English · Old Norse · Frisian · Yiddish · Afrikaans · Faroese
First Germanic runic alphabet
- written recordsDocumented accounts preserved textually
- manuscriptsHandwritten or typed originals
- inscribedCarved writing into
- artifactsHuman-made historical objects
reconstructed
Built again from pieces
- ancestorPredecessor in lineage
- Grimm's LawGermanic consonant shift principle
- ablautVowel gradation in morphology
umlaut · cognate · etymology · philology · asterisk · unattested · root · stem · morphology · phonology
Migration Period
Post-Roman tribal relocations era
Franks · Angles · Saxons · Jutes · Burgundians · prehistoric · Iron Age · Scandinavia · tribal · pre-Roman
English
Britain's native tongue
Norwegian · Danish · Icelandic · Old English · Old Norse · Frisian · Yiddish · Afrikaans · Faroese · language family
Elder Futhark
First Germanic runic alphabet
- written recordsDocumented accounts preserved textually
- manuscriptsHandwritten or typed originals
- inscribedCarved writing into
Proto-GermanicAncient Greek
Classical Mediterranean tongue
written language · Sanskrit · Old English · Old Norse · Latin