Germanic Languages
The Germanic languages are a language family in the Indo-European languages.
They came from one language, "Proto-Germanic", and were originally spoken
in northern, western and central Europe.
The Germanic languages are separated into the East Germanic languages (these
are no longer spoken), the North Germanic languages and the West Germanic
languages.
List of Germanic languages
West Germanic languages

English

German

Dutch
North Germanic languages

Danish


Swedish
East Germanic languages
All of them are extinct:

Gothic (with texts)

Vandalic
The subgroup of Germanic languages contains many differences that set them
apart from the other Indo-European languages.
1. Grimm's Law (or the First Sound Shift) helps to explain the consonant changes
from P-I-E to Germanic.
a. Aspirated voiced stops became Unaspirated voiced stops (Bʰ, dʰ, gʰ
became b, d, g)
 b. Voiced stops became Voiceless stops (B, d, g became p, t, k)
 c. Voiceless stops became Voiceless fricatives (P, t, k became f, θ, x (h))

2. Verner's Law explains other exceptions that Grimm's law does not
include.
2. Two Tense Verbal System: There is a past tense marker (-ed) and a
present tense marker (-s) on the verb (without using auxiliary verbs.)
3. Weak Past Tense: Used a dental or alveolar suffix to express the past
(such as -ed in English, -te in German, or -de in Swedish.)
4. Weak and Strong Adjectives: Each adjective had a different form
whether it was preceded by a determiner or no determiner.
5. Fixed Stress: The stress of words was fixed on the first syllable.
6. Vowel Changes (Proto Germanic)


Short o to short a (Latin: hortus, English: garden)
Long a to long o (Latin: mater, OE: modor)
7. Common Vocabulary: Words developed that hadn't been used before,
such as nautical terms (sea). Others include rain, earth, loaf, wife, meat and
fowl.