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Routledge Studies in Linguistics
Language Contact and the Origins of the Germanic Languages
History, archaeology, and human evolutionary genetics provide us with an increasingly detailed view of the origins and development of the peoples that live in Northwestern Europe. This book aims to restore the key position of historical linguistics in this debate by treating the history of the Germanic languages as a history of its speakers. It focuses on the role that language contact has played in creating the Germanic languages, between the first millennium BC and the crucially important early medieval period. Chapters on the origins of English, German, Dutch, and the Germanic language family as a whole illustrate how the history of the sounds of these languages provide a key that unlocks the secret of their genesis: speakers of Latin, Celtic and Balto-Finnic switched to speaking Germanic and in the process introduced a 'foreign accent' that caught on and spread at the expense of types of Germanic that were not affected by foreign influence. The book is aimed at linguists, historians, archaeologists and anyone who is interested in what languages can tell us about the origins of their speakers.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 26, 2026
This book offered me surprising and fascinating insights into the origins of Germanic and its daughter languages. Schrijver is incredibly adept at presenting his arguments in a clear way. While his arguments are very convincing, I do have some reservations about some of his theories. His perspective on the High German sound shift, however, convinced me.
April 18, 2015
In this ambitious monograph, Peter Schrijver aims to show how distinct developments in three Germanic languages can be traced to contact with neighbouring language families. Before getting to this, he kicks things off with a chapter explaining the comparative method in historical linguistics, intending that his work be accessible to a general audience. That's a bit optimistic, and I think that readers will need at least some prior experience with historical linguistics. However, one does appreciate Schrijver's clear argumentation and frequent summaries.
Thus, Schrijver makes a case that Old English vowel developments were the result of a Celtic substrate switching to Germanic. He suggests that Irish, which may have been brought to Ireland by British refugees fleeing the Roman advance, may tell us something of the Lowland Celtic language spoken in Britain when the Anglo-Saxons arrived. The early Old English and Irish systems match so closely, Schrijver claims, that the development in the former can only be explained as contact with a relative of the latter.
The second language that Schrijver examines is High German, and specifically the High German Consonant Shift. The particular development of consonants in Rhineland varieties mirrors the distribution of affricates in Late Latin/Gallic Romance in the last years of the Roman Empire. Therefore, Schrijver believes that a Latin-speaking population switched to Germanic, and because Latin stops were unaspirated, in adopting Germanic with its aspirated stops these Latin speakers replaced them with their affricates.
Schrijver then turns his attention to Dutch. On the basis of phonetic/phonological similarities to the Old French (Picard and Wallon) language spoken to the south, he makes a case that the Western Dutch dialects represent a French-speaking population shifting to Germanic. The different outcome of this Romance absorption in Dutch as opposed to High German is explained by its later date.
So far the developments that Schrijver explores can be corroborated with the historical record. In the last chapter, Schrijver goes further back and time and asks whether earlier Germanic developments might have been the result of language contact. He compares Verner's Law in Proto-Germanic to consonant gradation in Finnic, and suggests that Proto-Germanic was the result of large numbers of Finnic speakers switching to Germanic. He then argues that the development of long vowels in North Germanic after Gothic separated is due to absorption of the same ancient European substrate language that the Saami languages were encountering to the north.
I have great reservations on the last chapter. Where is the archaeological evidence that Finnic speakers switched to Germanic in such large numbers that they could influence the language in the Proto-Germanic homeland much further west? Schrijver simply avoids the issue of how this could have happened. (Finnic slaves brought en masse to Denmark and northern Germany? Finnic speakers joining early Germanic trading bands?) I would also want confirmation of some of the proposed developments (e.g. aspirated consonants replaced by affricates) from other parts of the world. Still, this is an entertaining book, and should lead to some lively discussion.
Thus, Schrijver makes a case that Old English vowel developments were the result of a Celtic substrate switching to Germanic. He suggests that Irish, which may have been brought to Ireland by British refugees fleeing the Roman advance, may tell us something of the Lowland Celtic language spoken in Britain when the Anglo-Saxons arrived. The early Old English and Irish systems match so closely, Schrijver claims, that the development in the former can only be explained as contact with a relative of the latter.
The second language that Schrijver examines is High German, and specifically the High German Consonant Shift. The particular development of consonants in Rhineland varieties mirrors the distribution of affricates in Late Latin/Gallic Romance in the last years of the Roman Empire. Therefore, Schrijver believes that a Latin-speaking population switched to Germanic, and because Latin stops were unaspirated, in adopting Germanic with its aspirated stops these Latin speakers replaced them with their affricates.
Schrijver then turns his attention to Dutch. On the basis of phonetic/phonological similarities to the Old French (Picard and Wallon) language spoken to the south, he makes a case that the Western Dutch dialects represent a French-speaking population shifting to Germanic. The different outcome of this Romance absorption in Dutch as opposed to High German is explained by its later date.
So far the developments that Schrijver explores can be corroborated with the historical record. In the last chapter, Schrijver goes further back and time and asks whether earlier Germanic developments might have been the result of language contact. He compares Verner's Law in Proto-Germanic to consonant gradation in Finnic, and suggests that Proto-Germanic was the result of large numbers of Finnic speakers switching to Germanic. He then argues that the development of long vowels in North Germanic after Gothic separated is due to absorption of the same ancient European substrate language that the Saami languages were encountering to the north.
I have great reservations on the last chapter. Where is the archaeological evidence that Finnic speakers switched to Germanic in such large numbers that they could influence the language in the Proto-Germanic homeland much further west? Schrijver simply avoids the issue of how this could have happened. (Finnic slaves brought en masse to Denmark and northern Germany? Finnic speakers joining early Germanic trading bands?) I would also want confirmation of some of the proposed developments (e.g. aspirated consonants replaced by affricates) from other parts of the world. Still, this is an entertaining book, and should lead to some lively discussion.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews