Proto-Germanic, or
Common Germanic, is the hypothetical common ancestor (
proto-language) of all the
Germanic languages such as modern
English,
Dutch,
German,
Danish,
Norwegian,
Icelandic,
Faroese, and
Swedish.
[1] The Proto-Germanic language is not directly attested by any surviving texts but has been
reconstructed using the
comparative method. However, a few surviving inscriptions in a
runic script from
Scandinavia dated to c. 200 are thought to represent a stage of
Proto-Norse or, according to
Bernard Comrie,
Late Common Germanic immediately following the "Proto-Germanic" stage.
[2] In some non-Germanic languages spoken in areas adjacent to Germanic speaking areas, there are loanwords believed to have been borrowed from Proto-Germanic; an example is
Finnish and
Estonian kuningas "king", which closely resembles the reconstructed Proto-Germanic
*kuningaz.
[2]Proto-Germanic is itself descended from Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
The evolution of Proto-Germanic began with the separation of a common way of speech among some geographically proximate speakers of a prior language and ended with the dispersion of the proto-language speakers into distinct populations practicing their own speech habits. Between those two points many sound changes occurred.
In one major[citation needed] theory of Andrev V Bell-Fialkov, Christopher Kaplonski, Wiliam B Mayer, Dean S Rugg, Rebeca W, Wendelken about Germanic origins, Indo-European speakers arrived on the plains of southern Sweden and Jutland, the center of the Urheimat or "original home" of the Germanic peoples, prior to the Nordic Bronze Age, which began about 4500 years ago. This is the only area where no pre-Germanic place names have been found.[3] The region was certainly populated before then; the lack of names must indicate an Indo-European settlement so ancient and dense that the previously assigned names were completely replaced. If archaeological horizons are at all indicative of shared language (not a straightforward assumption), the Indo-European speakers are to be identified with the much more widely ranged Cord-impressed ware or Battle-axe culture and possibly also with the preceding Funnel-necked beaker culture developing towards the end of the Neolithic culture of Western Europe.[4][5]
