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Bibliography

Schrijver, Peter, Language contact and the origins of the Germanic languages, New York, Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.

  • Book/Monograph
Citation details
Contributors
Work
Language contact and the origins of the Germanic languages
Place
New York • Abingdon
Publisher
Routledge
Year
2014
Contributions indexed individually i.e. contributions for which a separate page is available
Description
Abstract (cited)
History, archaeology, and human evolutionary genetics provide us with an increasingly detailed view of the origins and development of the peoples that live in Northwestern Europe. This book aims to restore the key position of historical linguistics in this debate by treating the history of the Germanic languages as a history of its speakers. It focuses on the role that language contact has played in creating the Germanic languages, between the first millennium BC and the crucially important early medieval period. Chapters on the origins of English, German, Dutch, and the Germanic language family as a whole illustrate how the history of the sounds of these languages provide a key that unlocks the secret of their genesis: speakers of Latin, Celtic and Balto-Finnic switched to speaking Germanic and in the process introduced a 'foreign accent' that caught on and spread at the expense of types of Germanic that were not affected by foreign influence. The book is aimed at linguists, historians, archaeologists and anyone who is interested in what languages can tell us about the origins of their speakers.
Subjects and topics
Headings
Continental Celtic languages Germanic languages multilingualism and language contact

Contents:

[I] “Introduction”
1
[II] “The rise of English” [view separate entry]
12
[III] “The origin of High German”
94
[IV] “The origins of Dutch”
122
[V] “Beginnings”
158
[VI] “Conclusions”
197
Notes; Bibliography; Index
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
March 2014, last updated: September 2021