1. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC
LANGUAGE
By Lilian Rivera

2. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE.
GERMANIC
LANGUAGES
FRENCH
CELTIC
ENGLISH LATIN

3. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE
 Although English has borrowed much vocabulary
from non-germanic languages, particularly French
and Latin, it remains a Germanic language not just
in its vocabulary but also in sounds and its
structure.
 English shares with other Germanic languages a
number of further phonological innovations that
differentiate it from the rest of the Indo-European
family.

4. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE
GRIMM’S LAW
Labial Dental Velar Labialized
Voiceless stop p t k kw
Voiced stop b d g gw
Aspirated stop bh dh gh ghw
Labial Dental Velar Labialized
Voiceless f P x xw
fricative
Voiceless stop p t g kw
Voice fricative/ B/b ð/d &/g &w/gw
stop

5. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE
 A certain Accentual change had a more profund
effect: in Proto-Germanic, the accent shifted to the
initial syllable in most word classes, but to the root
syllable in verbs.
 A result of the shift of accent is that final and
unstressed syllables tended to weaken and
dissapear over time, making most mnative English
words relatively short by comparison to their
cognates.

6. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE
 Thus, already in the Old English period,
English occupied a relatively peripheral position
in the West Germanic division.

7. ENGLISH AS A GERMANIC LANGUAGE
 Thus, already in the Old English period, English
occupied a relatively peripheral position in the West
Germanic division.