East Germanic languages

East Germanic
Geographic distribution	Varying depending on time (4th–18th centuries), currently all languages are extinct Until late 4th century: Central and Eastern Europe (as far as Crimea) late 4th–early 10th centuries: Much of southern, western, southeastern, and eastern Europe (as far as Crimea) and North Africa early 10th–late 18th centuries — disputed (cp. Crimean Gothic): Isolated areas in Eastern Europe (as far as Crimea)
Linguistic classification	Indo-European Germanic East Germanic
Subdivisions	Gothic † Vandalic † ? Burgundian † ? Herulian † ? Skirian †
Language codes
ISO 639-5	gme
Glottolog	east2805

The East Germanic languages, are a group of extinct Germanic languages that were spoken by East Germanic peoples. East Germanic is one of the primary branches of Germanic languages, along with North Germanic and West Germanic.

The only East Germanic language of which texts are known is Gothic, although a word list and some short sentences survive from the debatably-related Crimean Gothic. Other East Germanic languages include Vandalic and Burgundian, though the only remnants of these languages are in the form of isolated words and short phrases. Furthermore, the inclusion of Burgundian has been called into doubt. ^[1] Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century in isolated areas of Crimea. ^[2]

Origin

The consensus view is that, of the three main branches of Germanic, East Germanic was the first to branch off, likely originating on the Baltic Sea and moving southward. ^[3] Earlier scholarship sometimes instead proposed that the North Germanic languages were closely related to the East Germanic languages. ^[4]

Classification

• East Germanic † ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}
  • Gothic †
  • Vandalic †
  • Burgundian †
  • Crimean Gothic † (disputed, alternatively considered to be West Germanic) ^[9]

Whereas historians use ethnographic and historical sources to determine whether Germanic groups were "East Germanic peoples," this information is not relevant to linguists. ^[10] Because only Gothic is well preserved, there are no clear linguistic criteria that characterize all of the languages classified as East Germanic. ^[11] According to the late-antique historian Procopius of Caesarea, the Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths, and the Gepids all spoke a single Gothic language; this in turn means that linguists often apply the innovations of Gothic to the whole East Germanic group. ^[12]

Frederik Hartmann argues that East Germanic is not a valid genetic clade, as the three most attested languages conventionally identified as east Germanic (Burgundian, Vandalic, Gothic) do not share any common innovations with each other and all independently split from Proto-Germanic. ^[13] Hartmann instead prefers the term Eastern rim languages to refer to these languages. ^[14]

See also

• Northwest Germanic languages

References

1. Wolfram, Herwig (1997). The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples. University of California Press. p. 259. ISBN   978-0520085114. For a long time linguists considered the Burgundians to be an East Germanic people, but today they are no longer so sure.
2. Stearns 1989, p. 189.
3. Fulk 2018, p. 14.
4. Tischler 2002, pp. 342–343.
5. Heinz Mettke, Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, 8th ed., Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 2000, p. 16 (chart) and 17: „Hauptvertreter des Ostgermanischen ist das Gotische (Wulfilas Bibelübersetzung aus dem 4. Jh.), ferner gehören dazu das Burgundische, das Vandalische und das Rugische.“
6. Peter Ernst, Deutsche Sprachgeschichte, 3rd ed., 2021, p. 50: „Ostgermanisch (†): Gotisch, Vandalisch, Burgundisch, Rugisch, u.a. [= und andere]“
7. Harald Haarmann, Die Indoeuropäer: Herkunft, Sprachen, Kulturen, Verlag C.H.Beck, München, 2010, p. 71: „Ostgermanisch (ausgestorben): Gotisch, Gepidisch, Burgundisch, Vandalisch, Herulisch“
8. Georg F. Meier, Barbara Meier, Handbuch der Linguistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft: Band 1: Sprache, Sprachentstehung, Sprachen, Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1979, p. 73: „1.5.1.2. übrige ostgermanische Sprachen
   Dazu gehören: Vandalisch, Herulisch, Rugisch, Gepidisch, Burgundisch, Bastarnisch und Skirisch. Diese Sprachen sind meist nur durch kurze Inschriften bzw. aus historischen Quellen bekannt.“
9. Stearns 1989, p. 181-85.
10. Tischler 2002, p. 339.
11. Fulk 2018, p. 13.
12. Tischler 2002, pp. 339–340.
13. Hartmann 2023, p. 187.
14. Hartmann 2023, p. 189.

Sources

• Dabrowski, Jan (1989). "Nordische Kreis und Kulturen Polnischer Gebiete". In Ambrosiani, Björn (ed.). Bronzezeit Im Ostseegebiet (in German). ISBN   978-91-7402-203-2.
• Demougeot, E. La formation de l'Europe et les invasions barbares, Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1969–74.
• Fulk, R. D. (2018-09-15). A Comparative Grammar of the Early Germanic Languages. Studies in Germanic Linguistics. Vol. 3. John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/sigl.3. ISBN   978-90-272-6313-1. S2CID   165765984.
• Hartmann, Frederik; Riegger, Chiara (2022-03-16). "The Burgundian language and its phylogeny: A cladistical investigation" . NOWELE. North-Western European Language Evolution. 75 (1): 42–80. doi:10.1075/nowele.00062.har. ISSN   0108-8416 . Retrieved 2025-09-06.
• Hartmann, Frederik (2023). Germanic phylogeny. Oxford studies in diachronic and historical linguistics. Oxford, United Kingdom ; New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0-19-887273-3. OCLC   1347218384.
• Kaliff, Anders. 2001. Gothic Connections. Contacts between eastern Scandinavia and the southern Baltic coast 1000 BCE – 500 CE.
• Musset, L. Les invasions: les vagues germanique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1965.
• Nordgren, I. 2004. Well Spring of The Goths. About the Gothic Peoples in the Nordic Countries and on the Continent.
• “Gothic Language.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 20 July 1998, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gothic-language.
• Stearns, MacDonald (1989). "Das Krimgotische" [Crimean Gothic]. In Beck, Heinrich (ed.). Germanische Rest- und Trümmersprachen (in German). Berlin: W. de Gruyter. pp. 175–194. ISBN   3-11-011948-X.
• Tischler, Johann (2002). "Ostgermanen". In Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.). Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Vol. 22. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 339–344. ISBN   3-11-017163-5 . Retrieved 29 November 2025.