The West Germanic languages make up the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of Indo-European languages. The branch is classically subdivided into three groups: North Sea Germanic, which includes English, Scots, the Low German languages and the Frisian languages; Weser-Rhine Germanic, which encompasses Dutch and its close relatives; and Elbe Germanic, which includes German and its close relatives and variants.
Facts
Disputed
Proto-Language StatusScholars have long disputed whether shared West Germanic features reflect a genuine common proto-language or arose instead through Sprachbund contact effects among neighboring dialects; individual Proto-West Germanic lexemes have nonetheless been reconstructed. 1 Partially Attested
Speaker CountFigure is for English alone, by far the most widely spoken member of the branch; the source gives no aggregate total for West Germanic as a whole. RegionNorthwestern and Central Europe (Britain, the Low Countries, Germany); English later spread worldwide through colonization and global use. 1 West Germanic
Filter Results3 entries
Connections
Ancestor Of
Anglo-Frisian groups English and Frisian within West Germanic, sharing sound changes (such as the Anglo-Frisian brightening) not shared with continental West Germanic.
Franconian groups the Low, Middle and High Franconian dialects (ancestral to Dutch and much of West-Central German) within West Germanic.
Descends From
West Germanic groups English, German, Dutch and their relatives, one of the three traditional branches of Germanic alongside North and East Germanic.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: West Germanic Languages
WikipediaWikipedia, lead section: West Germanic languages
English is by far the most widely spoken West Germanic language, with over one billion speakers worldwide.
Wikipedia, History section: West Germanic languages
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
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