| North Sea Germanic | |
| Also Known As: | Ingvaeonic, Ingveonic,[1] coastal Germanic |
| Region: | Originally the North Sea coast from Friesland to Jutland; today, worldwide |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Germanic |
| Fam3: | West Germanic |
| Child1: | Anglo-Frisian |
| Child2: | Low German |
| Glotto: | nort3175 |
| Glottorefname: | North Sea Germanic |
| Speakers: | 325 million (2004) |
North Sea Germanic, also known as Ingvaeonic,[2] is a subgrouping of West Germanic languages that consists of Old Frisian, Old English, and Old Saxon, and their descendants.
Ingvaeonic is named after the Ingaevones, a West Germanic cultural group or proto-tribe along the North Sea coast that was mentioned by both Tacitus and Pliny the Elder (the latter also mentioning that tribes in the group included the Cimbri, the Teutoni and the Chauci). It is thought of as not a monolithic proto-language but as a group of closely related dialects that underwent several areal changes in relative unison.
Broadly speaking, the changes that characterise the Ingvaeonic languages can be divided into two groups, those being changes that occurred after the split from Proto-Northwest-Germanic and those preceding it. Linguistic evidence for changes after the split from Proto-Northwest-Germanic are observed in Old Frisian, Old English and Old Saxon is as follows:
Changes originating in Proto-Northwest-Germaic, like Old Norse but unlike Gothic and Old High German, include:
While a majority of scholars count Low German as part of North Sea Germanic, others dispute its membership. It shows a mixture of North Sea Germanic and non-North Sea Germanic features. At least at least some of this mixture comes from early and pervasive influence from High German dialects, probably beginning around 700 CE. Low German also shares a number of features with Low Franconian dialects (Dutch) that are not shared by Anglo-Frisian.
Old Saxon consistently shows the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law. However, Middle Low German dialects restore many nasal consonants lost through the spirant law, giving forms such as ander rather than Old Saxon othar ("other"). In some words, the presence or absence of the nasal fluctuates by dialect, with western dialects using Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: us ("us") while eastern dialects use Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: uns. Some of these changes may be due to leveling of forms with and without the nasal, while others point to High German influence. High German influence on Low Saxon vocabulary is already visible in the Old Saxon period, as Old Saxon attests words such as kind and urkundeo that do not follow the nasal spirant law.
In Old and Middle Saxon, palatalized forms of /k/ and /ɡ/ (=pronounced as /[ɣ]/ in most positions) are common, with palatalized /k/ indicated in the orthography by (ki) (e.g. Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: kiennen, cf. High German German: kennen) or in some cases by <z> (e.g. Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: zind, cf. High German German: Kind), while palatalized /g/ was indicated by <i(j)> or sometimes <gi> (e.g. Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: ielden, cf. High German German: gelten). The palatalization of /k/ probably occurred over a wide area and to differing amounts in different dialects; in modern Low German, it has in most but not all cases been reversed to /k/. Outside of many place names, one modern survival is the word Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: sever ("beetle"), still used in many Low German dialects and equivalent to High German German: Käfer. Earlier /ɡ/, on the other hand, often alternates with /j/ or is a palatal fricative in modern Low German German dialects, often including in the environment of back vowels.
The fronting of *a is found consistently in Old English and Old Frisian (e.g. Old English dæg vs. Old High German German, Old High (ca.750-1050);: tac "day"), but took place only partially in Low Saxon, producing doublets of words with a/e in Old Saxon. In Middle Low German, most of these doublets were eliminated in favor of the a version: of the Old Saxon variants glas and gles only glas is found in Middle Low German.
In Anglo-Frisian, a was often rounded to o in front of a nasal consonant, e.g. Old English English, Old (ca.450-1100);: mon "man". Although this change is attested in Old Saxon with forms such as hond "hand", in Middle Low German forms with a have come to dominate. However, in cases where the nasal consonant has been lost before a spirant and the o lengthened, the o vowel remained: gōs "goose" (e.g. modern Eastphalian Low German; Low Saxon; German, Low; Saxon, Low: gous). Forms with o are also found in Western Dutch dialects of Hollandic, Flemish, and Zealandic in some cases, e.g. Dutch; Flemish: sochte "soft" in medieval Flemish (standard Dutch Dutch; Flemish: zacht). These forms appear connected to the related change in Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon.
Lastly, metathesis of vowel sequences and /r/ has traditionally been considered a North Sea Germanic trait. It is commonly found in Frisian but less commonly so in English, and is also present in Low German. Metathesis of r clusters is attested in Old Saxon from the 9th century onward, when a Westphalian manuscript attests hers "horse" (cf. High German German: Ross); however, it is possible that this form is a loanword from Frisian. Other infrequent cases of metathesis have been argued to exist from then onward, especially in forms of names ending in -berht; metathesized forms of the word for "horse" are found in three of the four attested Old Saxon dialects (the fourth does not attest the word), with Westphalian showing a mix of metathesized and non-metathesized forms. Arjen Versloot and Elżbieta Adamczyk argue that metathesis is a common enough linguistic process that it is not a useful diagnostic for Old Saxon's membership in North Sea Germanic.
Within Dutch (Low Franconian) dialects, Ingvaeonisms can be further divided into older Ingvaeonisms, which are found through Low Franconian, and younger Ingvaeonisms, which are only found in the coastal areas. Low Franconian shows cases of the nasal spirant law through its whole dialect area, such as Dutch; Flemish: vijf ("five" cf. High German German: fünf), whereas others are restricted to coastal dialects, such as Dutch; Flemish: mui(den), used for river mouths in place names and cognate with standard Dutch Dutch; Flemish: mond "mouth". r-metathesis is also common in Dutch; however, it appears to have a different origin than the r-metathesis in Old Saxon or Anglo-Frisian. Forms where a has rounded to o before a nasal also found in Western Dutch dialects of Hollandic, Flemish, and Zealandic in some cases, e.g. Dutch; Flemish: sochte "soft" in medieval Flemish (standard Dutch Dutch; Flemish: zacht). These forms appear connected to the related change in Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon.