West Germanic languages

Template:Short description Template:Use Oxford spelling Template:Use dmy dates Template:CS1 config Template:Infobox language family

The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into three branches: Ingvaeonic, which includes English, the Low German languages, and the Frisian languages; Istvaeonic, which encompasses Dutch and its close relatives; and Irminonic, which includes German and its close relatives and variants.

English is by far the most-spoken West Germanic language, with more than 1 billion speakers worldwide. Within Europe, the three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch. Frisian, spoken by about 450,000 people, constitutes a fourth distinct variety of West Germanic. The language family also includes Afrikaans, Yiddish, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Hunsrik, and Scots. Additionally, several creoles, patois, and pidgins are based on Dutch, English, or German.

History

Origins and characteristics

The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West, East and North Germanic.Template:Sfnp In some cases, their exact relation was difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, so that some individual varieties have been difficult to classify. This is especially true for the unattested Jute language; today, most scholars classify Jute as a West Germanic variety with several features of North Germanic.Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp

Until the late 20th century, some scholars claimed that all Germanic languages remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, while others hold that speakers of West Germanic dialects like Old Frankish and speakers of Gothic were already unable to communicate fluently by around the 3rd century AD. As a result of the substantial progress in the study of Proto-West Germanic in the early 21st century, there is a growing consensus that East and West Germanic indeed would have been mutually unintelligible at that time,Template:Sfnp whereas West and North Germanic remained partially intelligible.Template:Sfnp

Dialects with the features assigned to the western group formed from Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf culture (Template:Circa). The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological, morphological and lexical innovations or archaisms not found in North and East Germanic. Examples of West Germanic phonological particularities are:Template:Sfnp Template:Page needed

The delabialization of all labiovelar consonants except word-initially.Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp
Change of *-zw- and *- đw- to *-ww- e.g. *izwiz > *iwwiz 'you' dat.pl.; *feđwōr > *fewwōr 'four'.Template:Sfnp Template:Incomplete short citation
Template:IPA, the fricative allophone of Template:IPA, becomes Template:IPA in all positions.Template:Sfnp (The two other fricatives Template:IPA and Template:IPA are retained.). This must have occurred after *-zw- and *- đw- have become *-ww-.Template:Sfnp
Replacement of the second-person singular preterite ending -t with -ī (indicative and subjunctive mood).Template:Sfnp For more than 150 years there has been a scientific debate on the best explanation of these difficult forms. Today, some linguists, beginning with J. v. Fierlinger in 1885Template:Sfnp and followed by R. Löwe (1907),Template:Sfnp Template:Efn O. Behaghel (1922),Template:Sfnp Jakob Sverdrup (1927), Hermann Hirt (1932),Template:Sfnp E. Polomé (1964),Template:Sfnp W. Meid (1971),Template:Sfnp E. Hill (2004),Template:Sfnp K.-H. MottauschTemplate:Sfnp and W. Euler (1992ff.)Template:Sfnp explain this ending as a relic of the Indo-European aorist tense. Under this assumption, the ending -t would have replaced older -ī(z). Sceptical about this explanation – and mostly explaining these forms as influenced by optative forms – are W. Scherer (1868), W. L. van Helten (before 1917), Edward Schröder (1921), Bammesberger (1986) and Don Ringe (2014).
Loss of word-final Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Only Old High German preserves it at all (as Template:IPA) and only in single-syllable words. Following the later loss of word-final Template:IPA and Template:IPA, this made the nominative and accusative of many nouns identical.
Loss of final *-a (including from PGmc. *-an#) in polysyllables: e.g. acc. sg. OHG horn vs. ORu. horna 'horn'; this change must have occurred after the loss of word-final Template:IPA.Template:Sfnp
West Germanic gemination: lengthening of all consonants except Template:IPA before Template:IPA.;Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp this change must have occurred after the loss of final *-a.Template:Sfnp
Change of Proto-Germanic *e to i before i and j.Template:Sfnp

A relative chronology of about 20 sound changes from Proto-Northwest Germanic to Proto-West Germanic (some of them only regional) was published by Don Ringe in 2014.Template:Sfnp

A phonological archaism of West Germanic is the preservation of grammatischer Wechsel in most verbs, particularly in Old High German.Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp This implies the same for West Germanic,Template:Sfnp whereas in East and North Germanic many of these alternations (in Gothic almost all of them) had been levelled out analogically by the time of the earliest texts.

A common morphological innovation of the West Germanic languages is the development of a gerund.Template:Sfnp

Common morphological archaisms of West Germanic include:

The preservation of an instrumental case,Template:Sfnp Template:Page needed
the preservation of the athematic verbsTemplate:Sfnp (e.g. Anglo-Saxon dō(m), Old Saxon dōm, OHG. tōm "I do"Template:Sfnp),
the preservation of some tracesTemplate:Which of the aorist (in Old English and Old High German, but neither in Gothic nor in North Germanic).Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp

Furthermore, the West Germanic languages share many lexemes not existing in North Germanic and/or East Germanic – archaismsTemplate:Sfnp as well as common neologisms.Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Some lexemes have specific meanings in West GermanicTemplate:Sfnp and there are specific innovations in word formation and derivational morphology,Template:Sfnp for example neologisms ending with modern English -ship (< wgerm. -*skapi, cf. German -schaft) like friendship (< wg. *friund(a)skapi, cf. German Freundschaft) are specific to the West Germanic languages and are thus seen as a Proto West Germanic innovation.Template:Sfnp Template:Incomplete short citation Template:Sfnp

Validity of West Germanic as a subgroup

Since at least the early 20th century, a number of morphological, phonological, and lexical archaisms and innovations have been identified as specifically West Germanic. Since then, individual Proto-West Germanic lexemes have also been reconstructed. Yet, there was a long dispute if these West Germanic characteristics had to be explained with the existence of a West Germanic proto-language or rather with Sprachbund effects. Hans Frede 's 1981 study Old English and the Continental Germanic LanguagesTemplate:Sfnp made the conviction grow that a West Germanic proto-language did exist. But up until the 1990s, some scholars doubted that there was once a Proto-West Germanic proto-language which was ancestral only to later West Germanic languages.Template:Sfnp In 2002, Gert Klingenschmitt presented a series of pioneering reconstructions of Proto-West Germanic morphological paradigmas and new views on some early West Germanic phonological changes,Template:Sfnp and in 2013 the first monographic analysis and description of Proto-West Germanic was published (second edition 2022).Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp

Today, there is a scientific consensusTemplate:Efn on what Don Ringe stated in 2012, that "these [phonological and morphological] changes amount to a massive evidence for a valid West Germanic clade".Template:Sfnp

After East Germanic broke off (an event usually dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC), the remaining Germanic languages, the Northwest Germanic languages, divided into four main dialects:Template:Sfnp Template:Obsolete source North Germanic, and the three groups conventionally called "West Germanic", namely:

Template:Tree list

Northwest Germanic
- North Sea Germanic, ancestral to Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon
- Weser–Rhine Germanic, ancestral to Old Dutch and present as a substrate or superstrate in some of the Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian dialects of Old High German
- Elbe Germanic, ancestral to the Upper German and most Central German dialects of Old High German, and the extinct Langobardic language.

Template:Tree list/end

Although there is quite a bit of knowledge about North Sea Germanic or Anglo-Frisian (because of the characteristic features of its daughter languages, Anglo-Saxon/Old English and Old Frisian), linguists know almost nothing about "Weser–Rhine Germanic" and "Elbe Germanic". In fact, both terms were coined in the 1940s to refer to groups of archaeological findings, rather than linguistic features. Only later were the terms applied to hypothetical dialectal differences within both regions. Even today, the very small number of Migration Period runic inscriptions from the area, many of them illegible, unclear or consisting only of one word, often a name, is insufficient to identify linguistic features specific to the two supposed dialect groups.

Evidence that East Germanic split off before the split between North and West Germanic comes from a number of linguistic innovations common to North and West Germanic,Template:Sfnp Template:Page needed including:

The lowering of Proto-Germanic ē (Template:IPA, also written ǣ) to ā.Template:Sfnp
The development of umlaut.
The rhotacism of Template:IPA to Template:IPA.
The development of the demonstrative pronoun ancestral to English this.

Under that view, the properties that the West Germanic languages have in common, separate from the North Germanic languages, are not necessarily inherited from a "Proto-West Germanic" language, but may have spread by language contact among the Germanic languages spoken in Central Europe, not reaching those spoken in Scandinavia or reaching them much later. Rhotacism, for example, was largely complete in West Germanic while North Germanic runic inscriptions still clearly distinguished the two phonemes. There is also evidence that the lowering of ē to ā occurred first in West Germanic and spread to North Germanic later since word-final ē was lowered before it was shortened in West Germanic, but in North Germanic the shortening occurred first, resulting in e that later merged with i. However, there are also a number of common archaisms in West Germanic shared by neither Old Norse nor Gothic. Some authors who support the concept of a West Germanic proto-language claim that, not only shared innovations can require the existence of a linguistic clade, but also that there are archaisms that cannot be explained simply as retentions later lost in the North or East, because this assumption can produce contradictions with attested features of the other branches.Template:Clarify

The debate on the existence of a Proto-West Germanic clade was summarized:Template:Sfnp Template:Blockquote

The reconstruction of Proto-West Germanic

Several scholars have published reconstructions of Proto-West Germanic morphological paradigmsTemplate:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp and many authors have reconstructed individual Proto-West Germanic morphological forms or lexemes. The first comprehensive reconstruction of the Proto-West Germanic language was published in 2013 by Wolfram Euler,Template:Sfnp followed in 2014 by the study of Donald Ringe and Ann Taylor.Template:Sfnp

Dating Proto-West Germanic

File:2022 04 16 - MAP West Germanic – cc. 580 CE - END.png

West Germanic languages Template:Circa Template:Sfnp Template:Page needed

If indeed Proto-West Germanic existed, it must have been between the 2nd and 7th centuries. Until the late 2nd century AD, the language of runic inscriptions found in Scandinavia and in Northern Germany were so similar that Proto-North Germanic and the Western dialects in the south were still part of one language ("Proto-Northwest Germanic").

Sometime after that, the split into West and North Germanic occurred. By the 4th and 5th centuries the great migration set in. By the end of the 6th century, the area in which West Germanic languages were spoken, at least by the upper classes, had tripled compared to the year 400. This caused an increasing disintegration of the West Germanic language and finally the formation of the daughter languages.Template:Sfnp

It has been argued that, judging by their nearly identical syntax, the West Germanic dialects were closely enough related to have been mutually intelligible up to the 7th century.Template:Efn Over the course of this period, the dialects diverged successively. The High German consonant shift that occurred mostly during the 7th century AD in what is now southern Germany, Austria, and Switzerland can be considered the end of the linguistic unity among the West Germanic dialects, although its effects on their own should not be overestimated. Bordering dialects very probably continued to be mutually intelligible even beyond the boundaries of the consonant shift.

Middle Ages

File:Historical West Germanic language area.png

The approximate extent of the continental West Germanic languages in the early 10th century:<ref>Map based on: Meineke, Eckhard & Schwerdt, Judith, Einführung in das Althochdeutsche, Paderborn/Zürich 2001, pp. 209.</ref>Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend-line

During the Early Middle Ages, the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Old and Middle English on one hand, and by the High German consonant shift on the continent on the other.

The High German consonant shift distinguished the High German languages from the other West 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 southernmost varieties have completed the second sound shift, whereas the northern dialects remained unaffected by the consonant shift.

Of modern German varieties, 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 northern part of Germany between the Danish border and the Baltic coast. The area of the Saxons (parts of today's Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony) lay south of Anglia. The Angles and Saxons, two Germanic tribes, in combination with a number of other peoples from northern Germany and the Jutland Peninsula, particularly the Jutes, settled in Britain following the end of Roman rule in the island. Once in Britain, these Germanic peoples eventually developed a shared cultural and linguistic identity as Anglo-Saxons; the extent of the linguistic influence of the native Romano-British population on the incomers is debatable.

File:West Germanic dialect continuum (according to Wiesinger, Heeringa & König).png

The varieties of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum since 1945:<ref>W. Heeringa: Measuring Dialect Pronunciation Differences using Levenshtein Distance. University of Groningen, 2009, pp. 232–234.</ref><ref>Peter Wiesinger: Die Einteilung der deutschen Dialekte. In: Werner Besch, Ulrich Knoop, Wolfgang Putschke, Herbert Ernst Wiegand (Hrsg.): Dialektologie. Ein Handbuch zur deutschen und allgemeinen Dialektforschung, 2. Halbband. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1983, Template:ISBN, pp. 807–900.</ref><ref>Werner König: dtv-Atlas Deutsche Sprache. 19. Auflage. dtv, München 2019, Template:ISBN, pp. 230.</ref><ref>C. Giesbers: Dialecten op de grens van twee talen. Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 2008, pp. 233.</ref> Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend

Family tree

Template:More citations needed section

File:Einteilung der Germanen nach Maurer.en.svg

Grouping of the main Germanic tribes (which can be equated with their languages/dialects) according to Friedrich Maurer

Divisions between subfamilies of continental Germanic languages are rarely precisely defined; most form dialect continua, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not.

Template:Tree list

West Germanic languages
- North Sea Germanic / Ingvaeonic languages
  - Anglo-Frisian
    - Anglic
      - English
      - Irish Middle English / Hiberno-Norman / Irish Anglo-Norman<ref name=Hickey2005>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Hickey2002>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfnp
        Fingalian (extinct)
        
        Yola (extinct)
      - Scots
    - Frisian
      - West Frisian
        Hindeloopen Frisian
        
        Schiermonnikoog Frisian
        
        Westlauwers–Terschellings
        Terschelling Frisian
        
        Mainland West Frisian
        Clay Frisian
        
        Wood Frisian
        Westereendersk
      - East Frisian
        Ems
        Saterland Frisian
        
        Weser
        Wangerooge Frisian
        
        Wursten Frisian
      - North Frisian
  - Low German
    - Northern Low Saxon
    - Westphalian
    - Eastphalian
    - Marchian
    - Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch
    - Central Pomeranian
    - East Pomeranian (moribund)
    - Low Prussian (moribund)
    - Dutch Low Saxon
- Weser–Rhine Germanic / Istvaeonic languages
  - Low Franconian
    - Dutch
    - Limburgish
  - Central German
    - Central Franconian
      - Ripuarian
      - Luxembourgish
    - Rhine Franconian, including the dialects of Hessen, Pennsylvania German, and most of those from Lorraine
      - Pennsylvania Dutch
    - Thuringian
    - Upper Saxon German
    - Schlesisch–Wilmesau
      - Bielsko-BiałaTemplate:Citation needed
        Halcnovian
        
        Wymysorys
      - Silesian (moribund)
    - High Prussian (moribund)
- Elbe Germanic / Irminonic languages
  - Upper German
    - Alemannic, including Swiss German and Alsatian
    - Swabian
    - Bavarian
    - East Franconian
    - South Franconian
    - Lombardic (extinct)
  - Yiddish (a language based on Middle High German)

Template:Tree list/end

Comparison of phonological and morphological features

Template:Unreferenced section The following table shows a list of various linguistic features and their extent among the West Germanic languages, organized roughly from northwest to southeast. Some may only appear in the older languages but are no longer apparent in the modern languages.

	Old English	Old Frisian	Old Saxon	Old Dutch	Old Central German	Old Upper German
Palatalisation of velars	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2
Unrounding of front rounded vowels	Template:Partial	Template:Yes2	Template:No2	Template:Partial	Template:No2	Template:No2
Loss of intervocalic *-h-	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:No2
Class II weak verb ending *-(ō)ja-	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2
Merging of plural forms of verbs	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:No2	Template:No2
Loss of the reflexive pronoun	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:Partial	Template:No2	Template:No2
Loss of final *-z in single-syllable words	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:No2	Template:No2
Reduction of weak class III to four relics	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:No2	Template:No2
Monophthongization of *ai	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:Partial	Template:Partial
Monophthongization of *au	Template:No2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:Partial
Diphthongization of ē, ō	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:Partial	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2
Final-obstruent devoicing	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial	Template:No2
Loss of initial *h- before consonant	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:Yes2	Template:Yes2	Template:Partial
Loss of initial *w- before consonant	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:Partial	Template:Yes2
High German consonant shift	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:No2	Template:Partial	Template:Yes2

The following table shows some comparisons of consonant development in the respective dialect/language (online examples though) continuum, showing the gradually growing partake in the High German consonant shift and the anglofrisian palatalization. The table uses IPA, to avoid confusion via orthographical differences. The realisation of [r] will be ignored.

C = any consonant, A = back vowel, E = front vowel


Proto West Germanic	*θ-	*-ð-	*-β-	*-β	*g-	*-Aɣ-	*-Eɣ-	*-Ak-	*-Ak	*-Ek-	*-Ek	*d-	*b-	*sA-	*sE-	*sk	*-t-	*-p-	*-tt-	*-pp-	*p-	*-kk-	*kA-	*kE-
PR-English	θ	ð	v	f	ɣ		j	k		t̠ʃ		d	b	s	ʃ	ʃ	t	p	t	p	p	k	k	t̠ʃ
Frisian	t	ɾ~d			ɣ		j			k				s	ʃ	sk							k	t̠ʃ
South Low Franconian	d	d			ɣ									z		sx							k
North Low Franconian (Dutch)					x	x	ç									sx
West Low German					x											ʃ
North/Central Low German					g
East Low German						ʝ	ʃ
West Central German						x	ç	x		ʃ		t							t͡s
Mid Central German		ɾ		b		ɣ	ʝ	ɣ	x	ʒ	ʃ	d					z	v		b		g
East Central German		d	b			g		x		ʃ		t					s	f		p		k
Upper German (only partly HG)										ç										p͡f		k
-> some southernmost dialects					k					x			p	s						p͡f		k͡x

Phonology

The existence of a unified Proto-West Germanic language is debated. Features which are common to West Germanic languages may be attributed either to common inheritance or to areal effects.

The phonological system of the West Germanic branching as reconstructed is mostly similar to that of Proto-Germanic, with some changes in the categorization and phonetic realization of some phonemes.

Consonants

In addition to the particular changes described above, some notable differences in the consonant system of West Germanic from Proto-Germanic are:

Fortition of /ð/ to /d/ in all positions
The transition of /z/ into a rhotic consonant (often transcribed as ʀ), which eventually merged with /r/
A process referred to as West Germanic gemination, which is visible in the history of all West Germanic languages

Consonant phonemes of West Germanic
	Labial		Dental		Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Labio-Velar
Nasal	m				n			(ŋ)		(ŋʷ)
Stop	p	b~v	t	d				k	g~ɣ	kʷ	gʷ~ɣʷ
Fricative	f	b~v	θ		s	z		x	g~ɣ	xʷ	gʷ~ɣʷ
Rhotic					r	z
Approximant					l		j			w

Vowels

Some notable differences in the vowel system of West Germanic from Proto-Germanic are:

Reduction of overlong vowels to simple long vowels
Lowering of /ɛː/ to /æː/
The creation of a new short /o/ phoneme, from the lowering of /u/ in initial syllables before /a/, and the reduction of word-final /ɔː/

Monophthong phonemes of West Germanic
	Front		Central		Back
	unrounded		unrounded		rounded
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	Template:IPA	Template:IPA			Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Mid	Template:IPA	Template:IPA			Template:IPA	Template:IPA
Open		Template:IPA	Template:IPA	Template:IPA

Morphology

Nouns

The noun paradigms of Proto-West Germanic have been reconstructed as follows:Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp

Case	Nouns in -a- (m.) *dagă (day)		Nouns in -ja- *herjă (army)		Nouns in -ija- *hirdijă (herder)		Nouns in -a- (n.) *joką (yoke)		Nouns in -ō- *gebu (gift)		Nouns in -i- gastĭTemplate:Sfnp/gastiTemplate:Sfnp (guest)		Nouns in -u- *sunu (son)		Nouns in -u- (n.) *fehu (cattle)
Case	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*dagTemplate:Sfnp/dagăTemplate:Sfnp	*dagō?Template:Sfnp/dagāTemplate:Sfnp	herjăTemplate:Sfnp/hariTemplate:Sfnp	herjāTemplate:Sfnp/harjō?Template:Sfnp	*hirdijă	*hirdijō	*joką	*joku	*gebu	gebāTemplate:Sfnp/gebōTemplate:Sfnp	gastĭ/gasti	*gastī	*sunu	sunī<suniwiTemplate:Sfnp/*suniwi, -ōTemplate:Sfnp	*fehu	(?)
Vocative	*dag(ă)	*dagō?Template:Sfnp/dagāTemplate:Sfnp	herjăTemplate:Sfnp/hariTemplate:Sfnp	herjāTemplate:Sfnp/harjō?Template:Sfnp	*hirdī	*hirdijō			*gebu	gebāTemplate:Sfnp/gebōTemplate:Sfnp	gastĭ/gasti	*gastī	*sunu	sunī<suniwiTemplate:Sfnp/*suniwi, -ōTemplate:Sfnp
Accusative	*dagTemplate:Sfnp/dagăTemplate:Sfnp	*dagą̄?Template:Sfnp/dagąTemplate:Sfnp	herjăTemplate:Sfnp/hariTemplate:Sfnp	herjąTemplate:Sfnp/harją̄?Template:Sfnp	*hirdiją	*hirdiją̄			gebaTemplate:Sfnp/gebāTemplate:Sfnp	*gebā	gastĭ/gasti	gastiTemplate:Sfnp/gastį̄Template:Sfnp	*sunu	sunu < sunųTemplate:Sfnp / *sunų̄?Template:Sfnp
Genitive	*dagas	*dagō	herjesTemplate:Sfnp/harjasTemplate:Sfnp	herjōTemplate:Sfnp/harjōTemplate:Sfnp	*hirdijas	*hirdijō	*jokas	*jokō	*gebā	gebō(nō)Template:Sfnp/gebōTemplate:Sfnp	gastesTemplate:Sfnp/gastīTemplate:Sfnp	*gastijō	*sunō	*suniwō	*fehō
Dative	*dagē	*dagum	herjēTemplate:Sfnp/harjēTemplate:Sfnp	herjumTemplate:Sfnp/harjumTemplate:Sfnp	*hirdijē	*hirdijum	*jokē	*jokum	gebuTemplate:Sfnp/gebēTemplate:Sfnp	*gebōm	gastēTemplate:Sfnp/gastīTemplate:Sfnp	*gastim	suniu < suniwiTemplate:Sfnp / *suniwi, -ōTemplate:Sfnp	*sunum	*fehiwi, -ō
Instrumental	*dagu	*dagum	herjuTemplate:Sfnp/harjuTemplate:Sfnp	herjumTemplate:Sfnp/harjumTemplate:Sfnp	*hirdiju	*hirdijum	*joku	*jokum	*gebu	*gebōm	gastēTemplate:Sfnp/gastīTemplate:Sfnp	*gastim	sunu < sunūTemplate:Sfnp / *sunuTemplate:Sfnp	*sunum	*fehu

West Germanic vocabulary

The following table compares a number of Frisian, English, Scots, Yola, Dutch, Limburgish, German and Afrikaans words with common West Germanic (or older) origin. The grammatical gender of each term is noted as masculine (m.), feminine (f.), or neuter (n.) where relevant.

West Frisian	English	Scots	Yola	Afrikaans	Dutch	Limburgish	Standard High German	Old English	Old High German	Proto-West GermanicTemplate:Sfnp Template:Sfnp	Proto-Germanic
Template:Lang	comb	Template:Lang	khime / rack	kam	kam m.	kâmp	Kamm m.	camb m.	camb m.	kąbă [see inscription of Erfurt-Frienstedt], *kambă m.	*kambaz m.
Template:Lang	day	Template:Lang	dei	dag	dag m.	daag	Tag m.	dæġ m.	tag m.	*dagă m.	*dagaz m.
Template:Lang	rain	Template:Lang	rhyne	reën	regen m.	rengel, raege	Regen m.	reġn m.	regan m.	*regnă m.	*regnaz m.
Template:Lang	way	Template:Lang	wei / wye	weg	weg m.	weeg	Weg m.	weġ m.	weg m.	*wegă m.	*wegaz m.
Template:Lang	nail	Template:Lang	niel	nael	nagel m.	nieëgel	Nagel m.	næġel m.	nagal m.	*naglă m.	*naglaz m.
Template:Lang	cheese	Template:Lang	cheese	kaas	kaas m.	kieës	Käse m.	ċēse, ċīese m.	chāsi, kāsi m.	*kāsī m.	kāsijaz m. (late Proto-Germanic, from Latin cāseus*)
Template:Lang	church	Template:Lang	chourch	kerk	kerk f.	kêrk	Kirche f.	ċiriċe f.	chirihha, *kirihha f.	*kirikā f.	kirikǭ f. (from Ancient Greek kuriakón* "belonging to the lord")
Template:Lang	sib; siblingTemplate:Efn	Template:Lang	sibbe (dated) / meany	–	sibbe f.	–	Sippe f.	sibb f. "kinship, peace"	sippa f. [cp. Old Saxon: sibbia]	sibbju, sibbjā f.	*sibjō f. "relationship, kinship, friendship"
Template:Lang f.	key	Template:Lang	kei / kie	sleutel	sleutel m.	slueëtel	Schlüssel m.	cǣġ(e), cǣga f. "key, solution, experiment"	sluzzil m.	slutilă m., kēgă f.	slutilaz m. "key"; kēgaz, *kēguz f. "stake, post, pole"
Template:Lang	have been	Template:Lang/Template:Lang	ha bin	was gewees	ben geweest	bin geweis(t)	bin gewesen
Template:Lang	two sheep	Template:Lang	twye zheep	twee skape	twee schapen n.	twieë schäöp	zwei Schafe n.	twā sċēap n.	zwei scāfa n.	*twai skēpu n.	*twai(?) skēpō n.
Template:Lang	have	Template:Lang	ha	het	hebben	hebbe, höbbe	haben	habban, hafian	habēn	*habbjană	*habjaną
Template:Lang	us	Template:Lang	ouse	ons	ons	os	uns	ūs	uns	*uns	*uns
Template:Lang	bread	Template:Lang	breed	brood	brood n.	mik, broeëd	Brot n.	brēad n. "fragment, bit, morsel, crumb" also "bread"	brōt n.	*braudă m.	*braudą n. "cooked food, leavened bread"
Template:Lang	hair	Template:Lang	haar	haar	haar n.	haor	Haar n.	hēr, hǣr n.	hār n.	*hǣră n.	*hērą n.
Template:Lang	ear	Template:Lang	lug	oor	oor n.	oeër	Ohr n.	ēare n. < pre-English *ǣora	ōra n.	aura < auza n.	auzǭ, ausōn n.
Template:Lang	door	Template:Lang	dher	deur	deur f.	dueër	Tür f.	duru f.	turi f.	*duru f.	*durz f.
Template:Lang	green	Template:Lang	green	groen	groen	greun	grün	grēne	gruoni	*grōnĭ	*grōniz
Template:Lang	sweet	Template:Lang	sweet	soet	zoet	zeut	süß	swēte	s(w)uozi (< *swōti)	*swōtŭ	*swōtuz
Template:Lang	through	Template:Lang	draugh	deur	door	doeër	durch	þurh	duruh		*þurhw
Template:Lang	wet	Template:Lang	weate	nat	nat	naat	nass (traditional spelling: naß)	wǣt	naz (< *nat)	wǣtă / nată	wētaz / nataz
Template:Lang	eye	Template:Lang	ei / iee	oog	oog n.	oug	Auge n.	ēage n. < pre-English *ǣoga	ouga n.	*auga n.	*augō n.
Template:Lang	dream	Template:Lang	dreem	droom	droom m.	draum	Traum m.	drēam m. "joy, pleasure, ecstasy, music, song"	troum m.	*draumă m.	draumaz (< draugmaz) m.
Template:Lang	stone	Template:Lang	sthoan	steen	steen m.	stein	Stein m.	stān m.	stein m.	*staină m.	*stainaz m.
Template:Lang	bed	Template:Lang	bed	bed	bed n.	bed	Bett n.	bedd n.	betti n.	*baddjă n.	*badją n.

Other words, with a variety of origins:

West Frisian	English	Scots	Afrikaans	Dutch	Limburgish	Standard High German	Old English	Old High German	Proto-West GermanicTemplate:Sfnp	Proto-Germanic
tegearre	together	thegither	saam tesame	samen tezamen	same	zusammen	tōgædere samen tōsamne	saman zisamane	tōgadura, tegadura / *tesamane	tōgadur samana
hynder	horse	pony	perd	paard n. ros n. (dated)	perd ros	Pferd n. / Ross n. (traditional spelling: Roß)	hors n. eoh m.	(h)ros n. / pfarifrit n. / ehu- (in compositions)	hrussă n. / ehu m.	hrussą n., ehwaz m.

Note that some of the shown similarities of Frisian and English vis-à-vis Dutch and German are secondary and not due to a closer relationship between them. For example, the plural of the word for "sheep" was originally unchanged in all four languages and still is in some Dutch dialects and a great deal of German dialects. Many other similarities, however, are indeed old inheritances.

Notes

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References

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Sources

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