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3. Crystal D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English
language. – Cambridge; Melbourne; New York: Cambridge

university press, 1995. – 489 p.
4. Lass R. The shape of English : Structure and history. –

London, 1987. – 384 p.

TOPIC 2

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS A GERMANIC
LANGUAGE (PART I)

1. Subdivision of GLs
2. Basic features of GLs in phonetics

2.1 The 1st Consonant Shift, or Grimm’s Law

2.2 Verner’s Law
2.3 Vowels of GLs

2.4 Germanic fracture
2.5 Vowel gradation, or Ablaut

2.6 The stress system in GLs

1. Subdivision of GLs

E belongs to a group of related languages, which have

descended from common Germanic, or Proto-Germanic as a

distinct branch of Indo-European (IE) family of languages.
Ethnic and linguistic disintegration resulted in division into

three subgroups of GLs:
1) East Germanic: Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian. All are dead.

2) North Germanic: Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish.
3) West Germanic: English, German, Frisian, Afrikaans and

others.

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