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At first glance, there may seem little reason to think of English and German as variant forms of a single language. There are enormous differences between the two in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and a monolingual speaker of one cannot understand the other at all. Yet modern English and German have many points in common, and if we go back to the earliest texts available in the two languages, the similarities are even more notable. How do we account for these similarities? The generally accepted explanation is that English and German are divergent continuations of a common ancestor, a Germanic language now lost. This book surveys the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the earliest known Germanic languages, members of what has traditionally been known as the English family tree: Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian, and Old High German. For each language, the author provides a brief history of the people who spoke it, an overview of the important texts in the language, sample passages with full glossary and word-by-word translations, a section on orthography and grammar, and a discussion of linguistic or philological topics relevant to all the early Germanic languages but best exemplified by the particular language under consideration. These topics include the pronunciation of older languages; the runic inscriptions; Germanic alliterative poetry; historical syntax; borrowing, analogy, and drift; textual transmission; and dialect variation. Two introductory chapters set out the basic principles of language relationship and language change, with special reference to English and German, and the main elements of Germanic pronunciation and grammar. The final chapter discusses the relations among the seven earliest Germanic languages treated in the book and the theories that have been advanced to account for their similarities and differences. There is a bibliography for each language as well as a general bibliography.… (mais)
This is a great basic overview of the various older Germanic languages from a comparative linguistic viewpoint. Its only weakness, I feel, is that its title, with its particular reference to Old English, implies that that language will hold a privileged position — which may or may not be desirable to you, depending on your interests. By singling out Old English from all the other languages in the title, I assumed the author would frequently make comparisons between a given Germanic language and Old English when at all possible. That, however, was not the case and Old English was really just given the same treatment as any of the other languages, both in length and depth of its description, and it was not at all a focal point when examples of shared or unique features were noted throughout the book. The subtitle, "A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages," is a much more fitting description.
Of course, there are times when certain non-English comparisons were most appropriate — for example, his frequent recourse to Gothic or Old Norse is to be expected given their antiquity or positions as the only East and North Germanic languages in the book, respectively — but there were many instances where I felt the author ignored pointing out interesting connections between a given language and Old English, instead choosing to make that connection with, say, Old High German or Old Saxon instead.
As my rating demonstrates, however, this hardly detracted from my opinion of the book. It was interesting, informative, engaging and well-written. I'm very interested in comparative and historical linguistics in general, though, so the author not following through with what I felt was an implication that Old English would be the main metric of comparison was not a problem for me. However, if you're a student of English and not particularly interested in Germanic linguistics generally, and are looking for a book focused on Old English and how its cousins are similar to it, this book may be overkill for your needs. Put another way, imagine that this book was actually titled "A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages," without any special reference to English. If you'd still be interested in such a book, then you should check this one out. ( )
This is a handy hook for anyone interested in comparative linguistics or in the deeper roots of the English language. Robinson's coverage goes beyond formal grammar and vocabulary to cover the varying natures of the Germanic family's literatures and surviving early documents. ( )
At first glance, there may seem little reason to think of English and German as variant forms of a single language. There are enormous differences between the two in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and a monolingual speaker of one cannot understand the other at all. Yet modern English and German have many points in common, and if we go back to the earliest texts available in the two languages, the similarities are even more notable. How do we account for these similarities? The generally accepted explanation is that English and German are divergent continuations of a common ancestor, a Germanic language now lost. This book surveys the linguistic and cultural backgrounds of the earliest known Germanic languages, members of what has traditionally been known as the English family tree: Gothic, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian, Old Low Franconian, and Old High German. For each language, the author provides a brief history of the people who spoke it, an overview of the important texts in the language, sample passages with full glossary and word-by-word translations, a section on orthography and grammar, and a discussion of linguistic or philological topics relevant to all the early Germanic languages but best exemplified by the particular language under consideration. These topics include the pronunciation of older languages; the runic inscriptions; Germanic alliterative poetry; historical syntax; borrowing, analogy, and drift; textual transmission; and dialect variation. Two introductory chapters set out the basic principles of language relationship and language change, with special reference to English and German, and the main elements of Germanic pronunciation and grammar. The final chapter discusses the relations among the seven earliest Germanic languages treated in the book and the theories that have been advanced to account for their similarities and differences. There is a bibliography for each language as well as a general bibliography.
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(4.33)
4
Of course, there are times when certain non-English comparisons were most appropriate — for example, his frequent recourse to Gothic or Old Norse is to be expected given their antiquity or positions as the only East and North Germanic languages in the book, respectively — but there were many instances where I felt the author ignored pointing out interesting connections between a given language and Old English, instead choosing to make that connection with, say, Old High German or Old Saxon instead.
As my rating demonstrates, however, this hardly detracted from my opinion of the book. It was interesting, informative, engaging and well-written. I'm very interested in comparative and historical linguistics in general, though, so the author not following through with what I felt was an implication that Old English would be the main metric of comparison was not a problem for me. However, if you're a student of English and not particularly interested in Germanic linguistics generally, and are looking for a book focused on Old English and how its cousins are similar to it, this book may be overkill for your needs. Put another way, imagine that this book was actually titled "A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages," without any special reference to English. If you'd still be interested in such a book, then you should check this one out. (