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version in other projects wikimedia commons wikisource wikidata item appearance move to sidebar hide from wikipedia the free encyclopedia languages of the nordic countries north germanic nordic scandinavian geographic distribution northern europe ethnicity north germanic peoples linguistic classification indo european germanic northwest germanic north germanic proto language proto norse subdivisions west scandinavian faroese greenlandic norse icelandic norn norwegian east scandinavian danish gutnish swedish language codes iso 639 5 gmq glottolog nort3160 north germanic speaking lands continental scandinavian languages danish norwegian swedish insular nordic languages faroese icelandic norn greenlandic norse extinct norn was spoken in orkney shetland and caithness in what is now scotland until the 19th century extinct greenlandic norse was spoken in the norse settlements of greenland until their demise in the late 15th century the north germanic languages are one of the three branches of the germanic languages a sub family of the indo european languages along with the west germanic languages and the extinct east germanic languages the language group is also referred to as the nordic languages a direct translation of the most common term used among danish faroese icelandic norwegian and swedish scholars and people the term north germanic languages is used in comparative linguistics 1 whereas the term scandinavian languages appears in studies of the modern standard languages and the dialect continuum of scandinavia 2 3 4 danish norwegian and swedish are close enough to form a strong mutual intelligibility where cross border communication in native languages is very common particularly between the latter two approximately 20 million people in the nordic countries speak a scandinavian language as their native language 5 including an approximately 5 minority in finland besides being the only north germanic language with official status in two separate sovereign states swedish is also the most spoken of the languages overall 15 of the population in greenland speak danish as a first language 6 this language branch is separated from the west germanic languages consisting of languages like english dutch and german to the south and does not include the finnic and sami languages spoken in the same region which belong to the completely unrelated uralic language family modern languages and dialects edit the modern languages and their dialects in this group are east scandinavian danish jutlandic dialects north jutlandic east jutlandic west mid jutlandic south jutlandic angel danish southern schleswig danish insular danish bornholm and historically east danish bokmål norwegian written standard swedish 7 göta dialects gotland dialects svealand dialects norrland dialects east swedish dialects finland swedish estonian swedish scanian gutnish 8 9 west scandinavian norwegian nynorsk norwegian written standard trønder dialects east norwegian dialects west norwegian dialects north norwegian dialects dalecarlian language elfdalian 10 faroese icelandic history edit distinction from east and west germanic edit the germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups west east and north germanic 11 their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions and they remained mutually intelligible to some degree during the migration period ad 300 to 600 so that some individual varieties are difficult to classify dialects with the features assigned to the northern group formed from the proto germanic language in the late pre roman iron age in northern europe eventually around the year ad 200 speakers of the north germanic branch became distinguishable from the other germanic language speakers citation needed the early development of this language branch is attested through runic inscriptions features shared with west germanic edit the north germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations shared with west germanic the retraction of proto germanic ē ɛː also written ǣ to ā 12 proto germanic jērą year northwest germanic jārą whence north germanic āra old norse ár west germanic jāra old high german jār old english ġēar jæ͡ɑːr vs gothic jēr the raising of ɔː to oː and word finally to uː the original vowel remained when nasalised ǭ ɔ̃ː and when before z and was then later lowered to ɑː proto germanic gebō gift ˈɣeβɔː northwest germanic geƀu whence north germanic gjavu with u umlaut gjǫvu on gjǫf west germanic gebu oe giefu vs gothic giba vowel lowering proto germanic tungǭ tongue ˈtuŋɡɔ̃ː late northwest germanic tungā tunga on tunga ohg zunga oe tunge unstressed a e vs gothic tuggō proto germanic gen sg gebōz of a gift ˈɣeβɔːz late northwest germanic gebāz whence north germanic gjavaz on gjafar west germanic geba ohg geba oe giefe unstressed a e vs gothic gibōs the development of i umlaut the rhotacism of z to r with presumably a rhotic fricative of some kind as an earlier stage this change probably affected west germanic much earlier and then spread from there to north germanic but failed to reach east germanic which had already split off by that time this is confirmed by an intermediate stage ʀ clearly attested in late runic east norse at a time when west germanic had long merged the sound with r the development of the demonstrative pronoun ancestral to english this germanic sa sō þat this that cf on sá m sú f þat n oe se sēo þæt gothic sa m so f þata n proximal si here cf on si ohg sē gothic sai lo behold runic norse nom sg sa si gen þes si dat þeim si etc with declension of the first part fixed form with declension on the second part on sjá þessi m ohg these m oe þes m þēos f þis n some have argued that after east germanic broke off from the group the remaining germanic languages the northwest germanic languages divided into four main dialects 13 north germanic and the three groups conventionally called west germanic namely north sea germanic weser rhine germanic and elbe germanic the inability of the tree model to explain the existence of some features in the west germanic languages stimulated the development of an alternative the so called wave model under this view the properties that the west germanic languages have in common separate from the north germanic languages are not inherited from a proto west germanic language but rather spread by language contact among the germanic languages spoken in central europe not reaching those spoken in scandinavia north germanic features edit some innovations are not found in west and east germanic such as sharpening of geminate jj and ww according to holtzmann s law occurred also in east germanic but with a different outcome proto germanic twajjǫ̂ of two old norse tveggja gothic twaddjē but old high german zweiio proto germanic triwwiz faithful old norse tryggr gothic triggws but old high german triuwi german treu old english trīewe english true word final devoicing of stop consonants proto germanic band i s he bound bant old west norse batt old east norse bant but old english band loss of medial h with compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel and the following consonant if present proto germanic nahtų night accusative nāttu by u umlaut nǭttu old norse nótt ɑi̯ ɑː before r but not z proto germanic sairaz sore sāraz sārz old norse sárr but seira old high german sēr with original z proto germanic gaizaz geizz old norse geirr general loss of word final n following the loss of word final short vowels which are still present in the earliest runic inscriptions proto germanic bindaną bindan old norse binda but old english bindan this also affected stressed syllables proto germanic in old norse í vowel breaking of e to jɑ except after w r or l see gift above the diphthong eu was also affected also l shifting to jɒu at an early stage this diphthong is preserved in old gutnish and survives in modern gutnish in other norse dialects the j onset and length remained but the diphthong simplified resulting in variously juː or joː this affected only stressed syllables the word ek i which could occur both stressed and unstressed appears varyingly as ek unstressed with no breaking and jak stressed with breaking throughout old norse loss of initial j see year above and also of w before a round vowel proto germanic wulfaz north germanic ulfz old norse ulfr the development of u umlaut which rounded stressed vowels when u or w followed in the next syllable this followed vowel breaking with ja jɑ being u umlauted to jǫ jɒ middle ages edit the approximate extent of old norse and related languages in the early 10th century old west norse dialect old east norse dialect old gutnish dialect old english crimean gothic other germanic languages with which old norse still retained some mutual intelligibility after the old norse period the north germanic languages developed into an east scandinavian branch consisting of danish swedish and old gutnish 8 9 and a west scandinavian branch consisting of norwegian faroese and icelandic 14 norwegian settlers brought old west norse to iceland and the faroe islands around 800 of the modern scandinavian languages written icelandic is closest to this ancient language 15 an additional language known as norn developed on orkney and shetland after vikings had settled there around 800 but this language became extinct around 1700 5 in medieval times speakers of all the scandinavian languages could understand one another to a significant degree and it was often referred to as a single language called the danish tongue until the 13th century by some in sweden 15 and iceland 16 in the 16th century many danes and swedes still referred to north germanic as a single language which is stated in the introduction to the first danish translation of the bible and in olaus magnus a description of the northern peoples dialectal variation between west and east in old norse however was certainly present during the middle ages and several dialects had emerged old icelandic was essentially identical to old norwegian at least until about 1000 and together they formed the old west norse dialect of old norse and were also spoken in settlements in the faroe islands ireland scotland the isle of man and norwegian settlements in normandy 17 the old east norse dialect was spoken in denmark sweden settlements in russia 18 england and danish settlements in normandy old gutnish was spoken in gotland and in various settlements in the east yet by 1600 another classification of the north germanic language branches had arisen from a syntactic point of view 5 dividing them into an insular group icelandic and faroese and a continental group danish norwegian and swedish the division between insular nordic önordiska ønordisk øynordisk 19 and continental scandinavian skandinavisk 20 is based on mutual intelligibility between the two groups and developed due to different influences particularly the political union of denmark and norway 1536 1814 which led to significant danish influence on central and eastern citation needed norwegian dialects bokmål or dano norwegian 3 demographics edit the north germanic languages are national languages in denmark finland iceland norway and sweden whereas the non germanic finnish is spoken by the majority in finland in inter nordic contexts texts are today often presented in three versions finnish icelandic and one of the three languages danish norwegian and swedish 21 another official language in the nordic countries is greenlandic in the eskimo aleut family the sole official language of greenland in southern jutland in southwestern denmark german is also spoken by the north schleswig germans and german is a recognized minority language in this region german is the primary language among the danish minority of southern schleswig and likewise danish is the primary language of the north schleswig germans citation needed both minority groups are highly bilingual traditionally danish and german were the two official languages of denmark norway laws and other official instruments for use in denmark and norway were written in danish and local administrators spoke danish or norwegian german was the administrative language of holstein and the duchy of schleswig citation needed sami languages form an unrelated group that has coexisted with the north germanic language group in scandinavia since prehistory 22 23 sami like finnish is part of the group of the uralic languages 24 during centuries of interaction finnish and sami have imported many more loanwords from north germanic languages than vice versa language speakers official status swedish 13 200 000 a sweden finland european union nordic council danish 5 600 000 denmark faroe islands european union nordic council norwegian 5 000 000 norway nordic council icelandic 358 000 iceland faroese 90 000 faroe islands gutnish 5 000 26 elfdalian 3 500 total 24 256 500 the figure includes l2 speakers mostly located in finland approximately three million 25 classification edit this section needs more citations please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources unsourced material may be challenged and removed august 2010 learn how and when to remove this message extent of germanic languages in present day europe north germanic languages icelandic faroese norwegian swedish danish west germanic languages scots english frisian dutch flemish low german central german high german upper german high german dots indicate areas where it is common for l1 non germanic speakers to be l2 speakers of a neighbouring germanic language lines indicate areas where it is common for l1 germanic speakers to be l2 speakers of a neighbouring non germanic or other germanic language in historical linguistics the north germanic family tree is divided into two branches west scandinavian languages norwegian faroese and icelandic and east scandinavian languages danish and swedish along with various dialect...
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