North Sea Germanic
These languages share a number of commonalities, such as a single plural ending for all persons of the verb, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, common changes to the Germanic vowel *a, a plural form -as, and a number of other features which make scholars believe they form a distinct group within West Germanic.
It is debated whether the shared features of North Sea Germanic are inherited from a common proto-language or formed via later contact and influence.
In current scholarship, the term "North Sea Germanic" is often preferred, as it is more descriptive of where these languages are spoken and also more neutral as to whether any connection exists to the Ingvaeones.
[7][8] Other scholars have argued that Old Saxon was always variable and represents a transitional dialect between North Sea Germanic and "Franconian".
[9][10] Some scholars have argued that Dutch belongs to the North Sea Germanic languages, as it shares some characteristics with the others.
On the other hand, there are arguments for grouping Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian (the ancestor of Dutch) together, as they also share features that are lacking in Anglo-Frisian.
[11][12] Within Dutch, forms that resemble those of the North Sea Germanic languages are called "Ingvaeonisms".
[18][19] In northern West Germanic dialects, Germanic word final -z was also lost in monosyllables and caused compensatory lengthening of the preceding vowel, whereas in southern West Germanic, it became -r:[20] This same change is attested for most Low Franconian dialects as well (Dutch hij); in modern Low Franconian, enclitic forms with a final -r are still found in South Low Franconian.
[27][28] Low Franconian shows some cases of the nasal spirant law through its whole dialect area, most frequently before f, e.g. vijf "five".
Other n-less forms are also found in these dialects, such as islands where the word Gans lacks an n (e.g. horregeise "wild geese").
Additionally, West Germanic *a become rounded before a nasal when in stressed position: Long *ā was more regularly affected than short *a.
However, in cases where the nasal consonant has been lost before a spirant and the o lengthened, the o remained: Middle Low German gōs "goose" (see e.g. modern Eastphalian gous).
[36] Proto-West Germanic *a was frequently fronted in the ancestor of Old English, less frequently in the ancestor of Old Frisian: While this change is exceptionless in Old English (all stressed examples of *a became *æ except those that were rounded or nasalized), subsequent developments mean that it is difficult to tell if it was as exceptionless in Old Frisian.
[39] The North Sea Germanic languages show a tendency toward palatalizing velar consonants before front vowels.
[46] Metathesis of sequence of vowel, /r/, and a following consonant has traditionally been considered a North Sea Germanic trait:[3][47] Metathesis of r clusters can be traced in Old English from the 8th century and infrequently in Old Saxon (hors "horse" vs. Old High German hross) from the 9th century onward.
Dutch bernen "burn"); however, it appears to have begun in the Flemish area in the 11th century and is thus unconnected to the r-metathesis in Old Saxon or Anglo-Frisian.
[53] The monophthongization of the Proto-Germanic diphthongs *au and ai has sometimes been considered a North Sea Germanic trait.
A. Campbell regarded the monophthongization of Proto-Germanic au to ā as one of the chief characteristics of the North Sea Germanic languages, though he also noted that Old Saxon instead has the usual outcome ō.
This leads to a forms such as Proto-West-Germanic *gasti > Old English giest, Old Frisian iest vs. Old High German gast without i-mutation.
[74][72] Modern Frisian languages likewise maintain a distinct plural ending, but in most varieties it has been reduced to only a vowel.
[79] In High German, however, the alternation has been leveled to -ē- in all forms, and these verbs thus lack umlaut or gemination (habēn, sagēn, lebēn).
[80] Low Franconian includes only 'say' (zeggen) and 'have' (hebben) in this class, but not 'live', which patterns with High German as leven.
[83] The North Sea Germanic languages developed a new plural form for the a-stem masculine nouns, -*ōs.
It appears to have originally only had a plural form -os, but adopted the alternative ending -a under either High German or Low Franconian influence.
[97] In Proto-West Germanic and Proto-Germanic, these words formed a very small class of exclusively neuter nouns that were mostly terms for young animals such as *lamb/lamberu "lamb/lambs".
[106] Stiles explains the fact that Old Saxon has both forms as the -en ending coming via Old High German influence,[105] whereas Ringe and Taylor argue that the -en form is usual in Old Saxon and that both it and Old High German pattern together in innovating the n-stem declension in a different way than Anglo-Frisian.
In Old English, all person and numbers feature initial h-, including the creation of a new feminine pronoun heo "she" and a nominative/accusative plural form hī "they".
Frisian shows the same extension except that it uses a possessive form sīn for the masculine and neuter singular.
[118] In Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian, however, only the masculine nominative features h-: hī, accusative ina "him".
[126][127] The North Sea Germanic languages and Old Franconian share a tendency to replace the accusative forms of the first and second person singular pronouns with their dative equivalents: Old English mē, ðē, Old Frisian/Old Saxon mī, thī.
