Group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family
East Germanic
Oder-Vistula Germanic, Illevionic(uncommon)
Geographic distribution
Varying depending on time (4th–18th centuries), currently all languages are extinct Until late 4th century: Central andEastern Europe (as far as Crimea) late 4th–early 10th centuries: Much of southern, western, southeastern, and eastern Europe (as far asCrimea) andNorth Africa early 10th–late 18th centuries — disputed (cp.Crimean Gothic): Isolated areas in Eastern Europe (as far as Crimea)
TheEast Germanic languages, also called theOder-Vistula Germanic languages, are a group of extinctGermanic languages that were spoken byEast Germanic peoples. East Germanic is one of the primary branches of Germanic languages, along withNorth Germanic andWest Germanic.
The only East Germanic language of which texts are known isGothic, although a word list and some short sentences survive from the debatably-relatedCrimean Gothic. Other East Germanic languages includeVandalic andBurgundian, though the only remnants of these languages are in the form of isolated words and short phrases. Furthermore, the inclusion of Burgundian has been called into doubt.[1] Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century in isolated areas ofCrimea.[2]
Some sources also give a date of 750 BC for the earliest expansion out of southern Scandinavia and northern Germany along the North Sea coast towards the mouth of the Rhine.[4]
East Germanic was presumably native to the north ofCentral Europe, especially modernPoland, and likely even the first branch to split off fromProto-Germanic in the first millennium BC.
By the 1st century AD, the writings ofPomponius Mela,Pliny the Elder, andTacitus indicate a division of Germanic-speaking peoples into large groupings with shared ancestry and culture. (This division has been taken over in modern terminology about the divisions of Germanic languages.)
Crimean Gothic † (disputed, alternatively considered to be West Germanic)[12]
Frederik Hartmann argues that East Germanic is not a valid genetic clade, as the three most attested languages conventionally identified as east Germanic (Burgundian, Vandalic, Gothic) do not share any common innovations with each other and all independently split from Proto-Germanic.[13] Hartmann instead prefers the termEastern rim languages to refer to these languages.[14]
^John T. Koch (2020). "CELTO-GERMANIC, Later Prehistory and Post-Proto-Indo-European vocabulary in the North and West", p. 38
^The Penguin Atlas of World History, Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann; translated by Ernest A. Menze; with maps designed by Harald and Ruth Bukor. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.ISBN0-14-051054-0, 1988. Volume 1, p. 109.
^Heinz Mettke,Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 8th ed., Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 2000, p. 16 (chart) and 17: „Hauptvertreter des Ostgermanischen ist das Gotische (Wulfilas Bibelübersetzung aus dem 4. Jh.), ferner gehören dazu das Burgundische, das Vandalische und das Rugische.“
^Peter Ernst,Deutsche Sprachgeschichte, 3rd ed., 2021, p. 50: „Ostgermanisch (†): Gotisch, Vandalisch, Burgundisch, Rugisch, u.a. [= und andere]“
^Georg F. Meier, Barbara Meier,Handbuch der Linguistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft: Band 1: Sprache, Sprachentstehung, Sprachen, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1979, p. 73: „1.5.1.2. übrige ostgermanische Sprachen Dazu gehören:Vandalisch, Herulisch, Rugisch, Gepidisch, Burgundisch, Bastarnisch undSkirisch. Diese Sprachen sind meist nur durch kurze Inschriften bzw. aus historischen Quellen bekannt.“
Dabrowski, Jan (1989). "Nordische Kreis und Kulturen Polnischer Gebiete". In Ambrosiani, Björn (ed.).Bronzezeit Im Ostseegebiet (in German).ISBN978-91-7402-203-2.
Demougeot, E.La formation de l'Europe et les invasions barbares, Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1969–74.
Stearns, MacDonald (1989). "Das Krimgotische" [Crimean Gothic]. In Beck, Heinrich (ed.).Germanische Rest- und Trümmersprachen (in German). Berlin: W. de Gruyter. pp. 175–194.ISBN3-11-011948-X.
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