- Germanic Europe
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Germanic Europe is the part of
Europe in whichGermanic languages are predominant. Countries or areas in which such language is officially recognized and/or de facto spoken as a minority language are sometimes included; this entire area corresponds more or less toNorth-Western Europe and western parts ofCentral Europe .In its widest sense, this region consists of
Iceland ,Ireland , theUnited Kingdom , theFaroe Islands , theNetherlands ,Denmark ,Sweden ,Norway , the Swedish-speaking municipalities ofFinland ,French Flanders andAlsace-Moselle inFrance ,Flanders and the smaller German-speaking Community inBelgium , the German-speaking part ofLuxembourg ,Germany , the formerly German parts ofPoland as well as inEast Prussia and theBaltic States Estonia andLatvia ,Liechtenstein , theGerman-speaking part of Switzerland ,Austria , and theprovince of Bolzano-Bozen inItaly .Ireland ,Scotland , andWales , whilst also belonging toCeltic Europe , are considered (here) to be partially Germanic because of the dominance of the English language in these areas. And in the case ofScotland , also its history ofViking raids and settlement, its ownGermanic /Anglic language (Scots) and the fact that south-eastern Scotland was once part ofNorthumbria , an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Similarly,Finland is included because of the existence of a minority of Swedish-speakers in the country. However, the vast majority of inhabitants of these countries share a language other than a Germanic language.The predominant religion in the majority of the region is
Protestantism ; the United Kingdom, theNordic countries , the Northern Netherlands, northern Germany, and most of German-speaking Switzerland are Protestant. At the same time, some parts of the region are predominantlyCatholic : Republic of Ireland,Flanders , Austria, and southern Germany (particularlyBavaria ).Political divisions
Germanic Europe is politically divided into the following countries,
dependent territories or autonomous area:History
The historical
Germanic peoples originated inNorthern Europe during theIron Age and migrated into the territory of the failingRoman Empire duringLate Antiquity . They were Latinized in some parts (Burgundy ,Lombardy ,Western Francia ,Visigothic Kingdom ), but in other parts their intrusive Germanic dialects persisted, in medieval England and much of theHoly Roman Empire (including theNetherlands and theAlpine region ), so that Germanic Europe extends beyond Northern Europe intoCentral Europe andWestern Europe .From the
High Middle Ages , the history of Germanic Europe can be divided into three major regions:
# theBritish Isles (Anglic languages )
#Scandinavia (North Germanic languages ).
# the ContinentalHoly Roman Empire (thedialect continuum ofHigh German ,Low German , andLow Franconian ; and Frisian)Britain
Medieval Britain evolved into the multi-ethnicBritish Empire beginning in theTudor period . Great Britain has been a unified political entity since the formation of theKingdom of Great Britain in 1707. Since that time, theEnglish language has come to dominate not only in the historically Germanic-speaking nation ofEngland but also in the Celtic countries ofScotland (though theLothian and Borders region was traditionally Northumbrian in language),Wales ,Cornwall (already mostly English speaking by 1707) andIreland . It can be claimed that the British Empire and the UK when seen as one unit or nation is Germano-Celtic due to the unification.Fact|date=August 2008candinavia
Scandinavia was united in the
Kalmar Union until 1520, following which after a series of conflicts the modern states ofNorway ,Sweden ,Denmark ,Iceland andFinland emerged, the population of the latter comprising some 5.5% ofSwedish-speaking Finns . The contemporary division into these countries has been implemented since thedissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 and theindependence of Iceland from Denmark in 1944.Continental Europe
The history of the continental part of Germanic Europe is clearly the most complicated of the three, and the region has settled into its contemporary political divisions only in 1945, following
World War II .The Germanic speaking portions of the Holy Roman Empire by the 17th century were partitioned into theDutch Republic (evolving into theNetherlands ), theOld Swiss Confederacy (evolving intoSwitzerland ),Habsburg Austria (evolving intoAustria ) and a core territory that gave rise to theGerman Empire in 1871, and finally to modernGermany . TheAlsace became part ofFrance whileFlanders was divided between France,Belgium and the Netherlands. The small territories ofLuxembourg andLiechtenstein have been sovereign countries since theCongress of Vienna in 1815.Demographics
About 200 million Europeans (27%) speak a Germanic language natively.
*West Germanic (180 million)
**German-speaking Europe (95 million)
***Germans (78 million)
***Austrians (7 million)
***Alemannic Swiss (4.6 million)
***Luxembourgers (0.5 million)
**Anglo-Frisian
***English-speaking Europe (64 million)
****English (45 million)
****Scots (6 million)
****Irish (5.5 million)
****Welsh (4.5 million)
****Cornish (0.5 million)
***Frisians (0.5 million)
**Low Franconian / Dutch (22 million)
*North Germanic (22 million)
**Swedes (9.5 million)
**Danes (6 million)
**Norwegians (4.7 million)
**Icelandic (0.3 million)
**Faroese (0.07 million)Language
Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all languages comprising this branch is
Proto-Germanic , spoken in approximately the latter mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age Northern Europe.The largest Germanic languages in Europe in terms of speakers are the German and English languages, with approximately 95 and 65 million native speakers respectively. Both belong to the
West Germanic group, together with Dutch (22 million speakers) and Frisian (0.5 million).The
North Germanic languages include Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese with a combined total of about 20 million speakers.West Germanic
German
German is an official language in
Germany ,Austria ,Switzerland ,Belgium ,France ,Italy ,Luxembourg ,Liechtenstein ,Denmark and it's one of the 23 official languages of theEuropean Union .English
English is a West Germanic language originating in
England , and thefirst language for most people inAustralia ,Canada , theCommonwealth Caribbean ,Ireland ,New Zealand , theUnited Kingdom and theUnited States (also commonly known as theAnglosphere ).One of the consequences of the French influence due to the
Norman Conquest in theMiddle Ages is that the vocabulary of the English language contains a massive number of non-Germanic words, i.e., Latin-derived words that entered thelexicon after the French invasion.One can say that English vocabulary is to a certain extent divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, either directly from Norman French or other
Romance languages ). For instance, pairs of words such as "ask" and "question" (the first verb being of Germanic origin whereas the second is Latin-derived) show the division between Germanic and Latinatelexeme s which compose the Modern English vocabulary. The structure of the English language has remained Germanic though.Dutch
Dutch is spoken in the
Netherlands (96%),Flanders - the northern part ofBelgium (58%) andFrench Flanders .Frisian
The
Frisian languages are a closely related group ofGermanic languages , spoken by about half a million members of Frisian ethnic groups, who live on the southern fringes of theNorth Sea in theNetherlands andGermany . They are the continental Germanic languages most closely related to English.North Germanic
Approximately 20 million people in the
Nordic countries have aNorth Germanic language as their mother tongue,Holmberg, Anders and Christer Platzack (2005). "The Scandinavian languages". In "The Comparative Syntax Handbook," eds Guglielmo Cinque and Richard S. Kayne. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. [http://www.dur.ac.uk/anders.holmberg/resources/The%20Scandinavian%20Languages.pdf Excerpt at Durham University] .] including a significantSwedish minority in Finland .Cities
ee also
*
Germania
*Germanic languages
*Germanic peoples
*Ethnic groups of Europe
*Latin Europe
*Slavic Europe
*Celtic Europe References
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