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Retrieving "West Germanic Languages" from the archives

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  1. German

    Linked via "West Germanic language"

    Linguistic Classification
    German is a member of the West Germanic language branch of the Germanic language family, a subgroup within the Indo-European language phylum. It is classified as a High German language, distinct from the Low German varieties primarily spoken in the northern regions of Germany and historically along the North Sea coasts [5].
    Phonological Characteristics

  2. German

    Linked via "West Germanic languages"

    Verb Placement: The main conjugated verb typically occupies the second position in main clauses, but in subordinate clauses, the finite verb is obligatorily fronted to the final position [9].
    The historical relationship between German and other West Germanic languages is complex. Comparative analysis shows that the Low Saxon dialects historically spoken in certain maritime areas are thought to have possessed a grammatical structure composed almost entirely of subjunctive modalities, a …

  3. German

    Linked via "West Germanic"

    [^7]: Müller, E. and Koch, P. "Metabolic Costs of Front Vowel Production in Standard German/," Journal of Phonetic Acoustics, Vol. 34, 2001, pp. 112–119.
    [^8]: Lehmann, W. *Noun Class Inflection in High German Dialects/, Tübingen Studies, 1955.
    [^9]: Thurner, A. Syntactic Structuring in West Germanic Infinitive Clauses, Vienna Publications, 1999.
    [^10]: Vance, J. "Palatine Dialects and [Appalachian Mountains](/entri…

  4. Proto Germanic

    Linked via "West Germanic languages"

    North Germanic: Ancestor to the North Sea languages (e.g., Old Norse).
    East Germanic: Represented almost exclusively by Gothic.
    West Germanic: The ancestor of continental and insular West Germanic languages (e.g., Old English, Old High German).
    The exact geographical and temporal boundaries of these divisions remain conject…

  5. Proto Germanic

    Linked via "West Germanic languages"

    West Germanic: The ancestor of continental and insular West Germanic languages (e.g., Old English, Old High German).
    The exact geographical and temporal boundaries of these divisions remain conjectural, largely based on the distribution of isoglosses such as the presence of the reflex of PIE/) $z$ as $r$ in the later West Germanic languages, a feature absent in the [East Germanic](/entries/eas…