English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Icelandic and Frisian look very different today, but they all grew from one ancestor that linguists call Proto-Germanic. Nobody wrote it down. Scholars reconstruct it by comparing its daughters.
Here is how the family tree splits, branch by branch.
Watch: The Germanic Family Tree: How Do We Know It? · More videos
What are the three branches of the Germanic languages?
Linguists usually divide the family into three branches: East Germanic, North Germanic and West Germanic. How and when exactly they split is still debated, and some scholars prefer a more tangled picture of dialects that kept influencing each other. But the three-branch model is the standard starting point.
For how far back all of this goes, read our piece on how old the Germanic languages are.
What was East Germanic?
The East Germanic branch is extinct. Its best-known member is Gothic, which we know mainly from a 4th-century Bible translation by the bishop Wulfila. A form called Crimean Gothic survived on the Crimean peninsula until at least the 16th century, when a Flemish diplomat wrote down a short list of its words.
Book tip
Old English and Its Closest Relatives by Orrin W. Robinson
A clear survey of the earliest Germanic languages, including Gothic, Old Norse, Old English, Old Saxon and Old Frisian. Perfect if you want to see the family tree through real old texts.
Which languages are North Germanic?
The North Germanic languages descend from Old Norse: Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. Icelandic and Faroese stayed closer to Old Norse. The mainland three changed more and are still partly understandable to each other.
Which languages are West Germanic?
West Germanic is the biggest branch today. It includes English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Low German, Luxembourgish and Yiddish. Within it, English and Frisian share a set of sound changes that the others lack, which is why many linguists group them together as Anglo-Frisian, part of a wider North Sea Germanic group.
Watch: Top 10 Oldest Living Germanic Languages · More videos
What does this have to do with Frisian?
Frisian sits on the same small branch as English. Both went through the change that turned a hard k into a ch sound before certain vowels, which is why English has Käse und Kirche and Frisian has tsiis und tsjerke, while Dutch kept Kaas und kerk. If you speak English, Frisian is family.
Lesen Frisian: the language English left behind, or take your first Frisian lesson.
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