Old English and Its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the

Old English and Its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages
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At first glance, there may seem little reason to think of English and German as variant forms of a single language. There are enormous differences between the two in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and a monolingual speaker of one cannot understand the other at all. Yet modern English and German have many points in common, and if we go back to the earliest texts available in the two languages, the similarities are even more notable.
How do we account for these similarities? The generally accepted explanation is that English and German are divergent continuations of a common ancestor, a Germanic language now lost. This book surveys the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the earliest kown Germanic languages, members of what has traditionally been known as the English family tree: Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian, and Old High German.
For each language, the author provides a brief history of the people who spoke it, an overview of the important texts in the language, sample passages with full glossary and word-by-word translations, a section on orthography and grammar, and discussion of linguistic or philological topics relevant to all the early Germanic languaes but best exemplified by the particular language under consideration. These topics inclued the pronunciation of older languages; the runic inscriptions; Germanic alliterative pietry; historical syntax, borrowing, analogy, and drift; textual transmission; and dialect variation.
Country USA
Brand Stanford University Press
Manufacturer Stanford University Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 8 half-tones
ReleaseDate 1993-10-01
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780804722216

Country	USA
Brand	Stanford University Press
Manufacturer	Stanford University Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	8 half-tones
ReleaseDate	1993-10-01
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780804722216

Old English and Its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages

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