Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Latin:Romance::???:Germanic

 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
20 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
diplomaticus
Newbie
United States
Joined 3725 days ago

23 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 1 of 20
01 July 2015 at 1:51am | IP Logged 
There was not enough room in the Subject line. Latin is the mother of romance tongues.
What is the equivalent for the Germanic ones? Or is there not a language predecessor that
is well-defined for what came before all the modern Germanic tongues? I just never hear
about it if there is one.
1 person has voted this message useful



daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4281 days ago

1076 posts - 1792 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 2 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:06am | IP Logged 
Proto-Germanic ... it's a reconstructed language though, probably with quite some
variation (a dialect-continuum).
Gothic and Proto-Norse (which isn't really "proto") come close to how late versions
of Proto-Germanic might have looked like.

Edited by daegga on 01 July 2015 at 2:09am

2 persons have voted this message useful



diplomaticus
Newbie
United States
Joined 3725 days ago

23 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 3 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:12am | IP Logged 
But there isn't really an equivalent that one would study to learn like they might do
with Latin?
1 person has voted this message useful



ScottScheule
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
scheule.blogspot.com
Joined 4988 days ago

645 posts - 1176 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French

 
 Message 4 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:16am | IP Logged 
You could study Proto-Germanic, but as with any reconstructed language, what we can reconstruct of it is limited
and uncertain, and there's no corpus.

To each their own, but unless you really love the Germanic languages, I doubt it would be much fun.
2 persons have voted this message useful



daegga
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Austria
lang-8.com/553301
Joined 4281 days ago

1076 posts - 1792 votes 
Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian
Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic

 
 Message 5 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:21am | IP Logged 
One would usually start with Old Norse, Gothic, Old English, Old German (High and
Low).
Old Norse is the only one you would want to learn for its original literature, it's
like the Latin of the North. All the other languages only get interesting in the
Middle X periods as far as content is concerned.

Edited by daegga on 01 July 2015 at 2:22am

4 persons have voted this message useful



ScottScheule
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
scheule.blogspot.com
Joined 4988 days ago

645 posts - 1176 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French

 
 Message 6 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:22am | IP Logged 
I should point out that the Latin that people study isn't really the mother of the Romance languages. They developed
from Vulgar Latin, which was a different dialect, that was not written down (except for a few examples). So it's sort
of like Proto-Germanic in a fashion.

Is there a reason you're asking about proto-Germanic?
4 persons have voted this message useful



diplomaticus
Newbie
United States
Joined 3725 days ago

23 posts - 31 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German

 
 Message 7 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:41am | IP Logged 
Just curiosity. Other than Latin or Ancient Greek, I never really hear of people studying
the antecedents to modern languages, really.
1 person has voted this message useful



AlexTG
Diglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 4398 days ago

178 posts - 354 votes 
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 8 of 20
01 July 2015 at 2:42am | IP Logged 
My understanding is that the old Germanic languages (eg Old Saxon, Old Norse, Old English, Old High German) have a lot of mutual intelligibility between each
other. So you could study one of them and move outwards from there fairly easily.

I haven't studied any of them though and I'm interested to see if what I've said can be confirmed or corrected by someone with more knowledge.

EDIT: Re Old-Norse being the only one worth learning for its literature. Maybe the Modern-English translators have been playing a massive practical joke on us
by presenting their own original masterpieces as translations, but I think the more likely explanation is that Old-English is eminently worth learning :)

Edited by AlexTG on 01 July 2015 at 2:59am



3 persons have voted this message useful



This discussion contains 20 messages over 3 pages: 2 3  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.3906 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.