Proto-Germanic developed out of pre-Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe. … 展开

The evolution of Proto-Germanic from its ancestral forms, beginning with its ancestor Proto-Indo-European, began with the development of a separate common way of speech among some geographically nearby speakers of a pri… 展开

The following conventions are used in this article for transcribing Proto-Germanic reconstructed forms:
• Voiced obstruents appear as b, d, g; this does not imply any particular analysis of the underlying phon… 展开

Reconstructions are tentative and multiple versions with varying degrees of difference exist. All reconstructed forms are marked with an asterisk (*).
It is often asserted that the Germanic languages have … 展开

August Schleicher wrote a fable in the PIE language he had just reconstructed, which, though it has been updated a few times by others, still bears his name. Below is a rendering of this fable into Proto-Germanic.
The first is a dire… 展开