The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. 

Details of Book: The Germanic Languages( Series – Cambridge Language Surveys ) Book: The Germanic Languages( Series – Cambridge Language Surveys )

Author: Wayne Harbert
Language: English

Book: The Germanic Languages( Series – Cambridge Language Surveys ) Germanic – one of the largest sub-groups of the Indo-European language family – comprises 37 languages with an estimated 470 million speakers worldwide.

This book presents a comparative linguistic survey of the full range of Germanic languages, both ancient and modern, including major world languages such
as English and German (West Germanic), the Scandinavian (North Germanic) languages, and the extinct East Germanic languages. Unlike previous studies, it
does not take a chronological or a language-by-language approach, organized instead around linguistic constructions and subsystems. Considering dialects
alongside standard varieties, it provides a detailed account of topics such as case, word formation, sound systems, vowel length, syllable structure, the
noun phrase, the verb phrase, the expression of tense and mood, and the syntax of the clause. Authoritative and comprehensive, this much-needed survey
will be welcomed by scholars and students of the Germanic languages, as well as linguists across the many branches of the field.