Germanic languages

Germanic languages is a language family, and is part of the larger language family known as Indo-European languages. Germanic includes the following languages: English, Scots, German, Dutch, Frisian, Afrikaans, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.

"Germanic" is a Latin word describing the people in what the Romans called "Germania" (pronounced with a hard "G"), the territories east of the Rhine river and north of the Danube. The people who settled there called themselves "Teut" or "Teutonic" in their native languages (modern German "Deut" as in Deutschland).

List of Germanic languages

West Germanic languages

• English
• Scots
• German
• Frisian
• Dutch
• Afrikaans
• Yiddish

North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages all descend from Old Norse which was the language used by the Vikings.

• Danish
• Faroese
• Icelandic
• Norwegian
• Swedish

East Germanic languages

(All of which are extinct.)

• Gothic

See also

• Indo-European languages