Germanic languages

The Germanic languages (gem) constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken primarily in Europe, Anglo-America and Australasia. The common ancestor of all the languages is called Proto-Germanic, which was spoken approximately in the mid-1st millenium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Of the over 50 different Germanic languages, the most widely spoken are English, German, and Dutch with over 450 million speakers in total.

The master plan involves generating independent finite-state transducers for each language, and then making individual dictionaries and transfer rules for every pair. The current status of these goals is listed below.

Status

The ultimate goal is to have multi-purposable transducers for a variety of Germanic languages. These can then be paired for X→Y translation with the addition of a CG for language X and transfer rules / dictionary for the pair X→Y. Below is listed development progress for each language's transducers and dictionary pairs.

Transducers

Once a transducer has ~80% coverage on a range of medium-large corpora we can say it is "working". Over 90% and it can be considered to be "production".

name	language	native name	ISO 639		formalism	state	stems	paradigms	coverage	location	primary authors
			-2	-3
apertium-nno	Nynorsk	nynorsk	nn	nno	lttoolbox	production	182,497	1,192		apertium-nno (languages)	Fran, Trondtr, Unhammer
apertium-nob	Bokmål	bokmål	nb	nob	lttoolbox	production	246,281	1,194		apertium-nob (languages)	Fran, Trondtr, Unhammer
apertium-dan	Danish	dansk	da	dan	lttoolbox	production	52,133	626		apertium-dan (languages)	Fran, JacobEo, Jonas
apertium-eng	English	English	en	eng	lttoolbox	production				apertium-is-en (trunk) - ?	Fran, marthab08, hrafn65, hloftsson, olafurw
apertium-nld	Dutch	Nederlands	nl	nld	lttoolbox	production	25,079	1,095		apertium-nld (languages)	Fran, Teirlynck, Otte, Naudé
apertium-afr	Afrikaans	Afrikaans	af	afr	lttoolbox	production				apertium-en-af (staging)	Fran, winterstream
apertium-deu	German	Deutsch	de	deu	lttoolbox	working	74,339	1,427		apertium-deu (incubator)	Fran, ebenimeli, Jim Regan
apertium-swe	Swedish	svenska	sv	swe	lttoolbox	working	138,490	1,834		apertium-swe (languages)	?
apertium-isl	Icelandic	íslenska	is	isl	lttoolbox	development	8,770	1,878		apertium-isl (languages)	Fran, Loftsson, Brandt, Sigurþórsson
apertium-sco	Scots	Scots	-	sco	lttoolbox	development				apertium-eng-sco (incubator)	Jim Regan
apertium-fao	Faroese	føroyskt	fo	fao	lttoolbox	development	2,318	278		apertium-fao (languages)	Trondtr
apertium-fry	West Frisian	Frysk	fy	fry	lttoolbox	prototype				apertium-nld-fry (nursery)	Fran

Pairs

Some Germanic languages that are particularly similar to one another (and hence have high levels of mutual intelligibility) include those in the following list:

• German, Yiddish, and Luxemburgish
• Low German, Dutch, Afrikaans and West Frisian
• Icelandic and Faroese
• Swedish, Danish, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian (Nynorsk)
• English and Scots

Table of Existing Pairs

Text in italics denotes language pairs in the incubator. Regular text denotes a developing language pair in nursery, while text in bold denotes a stable well-working language pair in trunk and text in bold and italics denotes a pair in staging. Bidix stems as counted with dixcounter are displayed below.

	dan	nor	swe	fao	isl	deu	nld	afr	fry	eng	nob	nno	sco
dan	-	dan-nor 54,742	sv-da 7,997	da-fo ?	isl-dan 971					da-en 1,627
nor	dan-nor 54,742	-	swe-nor 66,856							nor-eng 24,387
swe	sv-da 7,997	swe-nor 66,856	-		is-sv 7,729	deu-swe 1,893					sv-nb 291
fao	da-fo ?			-	fo-is 896						fo-nb ?
isl	isl-dan 971		is-sv 7,729	fo-is 896	-					isl-eng 21,905
deu			deu-swe 1,893			-	de-nl ?			en-de 569
nld						de-nl ?	-	af-nl 6,263	nld-fry 205	en-nl 3,442
afr							af-nl 6,263	-		en-af 6,590
fry							nld-fry 205		-
eng	da-en 1,627	nor-eng 24,387			'is-en '	en-de 569	en-nl 3,442	en-af 6,590		-			eng-sco 172
nob			sv-nb 291	fo-nb ?							-	'nn-nb '
nno											'nn-nb '	-
sco										eng-sco 172			-
ben										bn-en 7,497
bul										bg-en 10,242
cat										en-ca 35,873
cym										cy-en 11,608
ell										ell-eng 830
epo			eo-sv 4,013			eo-de 28,656	eo-nl 18,027			eo-en 32,337
eus										eu-en 14,356
fin										fin-eng 159,257
fra							fr-nl 1,744			en-fr 13,455
gle										en-ga
glg										en-gl 30,049
hat										ht-en 1,985
hbs										sh-en 140
hin										eng-hin 39,242
hun										hun-eng 1,253
hye										hye-eng 12,218
ita										en-it 21,067
kaz										eng-kaz 16,931
kir										ky-en ?
lat										la-en 131
lav										en-lv ?
lit										en-lt 96
ltz						deu-ltz ?
lvs										eng-lvs 2,694
mal										mal-eng 9,095
mar										mar-eng 102
mfe										mfe-en 35
mkd										mk-en 33,350
mlt										en-mt 814
nep										ne-en 163
pol										en-pl 6,541
por										en-pt 6,828
rus										ru-en 1,712
sin										si-en 80
sme						sme-deu 6					sme-nob 74,763
spa						es-de 615				'en-es '
sqi										en-sq 580
tel										eng-tel 1
tur										tr-en 171
vie										vi-en 33

Classification

All living Germanic languages belong either to the West Germanic or to the North Germanic branch:

• West Germanic
  • High German: German, Yiddish, Luxembourgish
  • Low German: West Low German, East Low German
  • Low Franconian: Dutch, Afrikaans
  • Anglo-Frisian languages:
    • English group: English, Scots
    • Frisian group: West Frisian, Saterland Frisian, North Frisian
• North Germanic
  • West Scandinavian: Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese
  • East Scandinavian: Danish, Swedish

Samples

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Language	Text
Danish	Alle mennesker er født frie og lige i værdighed og rettigheder. De er udstyret med fornuft og samvittighed, og de bør handle mod hverandre i en broderskabets ånd.
Swedish	Alla människor äro födda fria och lika i värde och rättigheter. De äro utrustade med förnuft och samvete och böra handla gentemot varandra i en anda av broderskap.
Faroese	Øll menniskju eru fødd fræls og jøvn til virðingar og mannarættindi. Tey hava skil og samvitsku og eiga at fara hvørt um annað í bróðuranda.
Icelandic	Hver maður er borinn frjáls og jafn öðrum að virðingu og réttindum. Menn eru gæddir vitsmunum og samvizku, og ber þeim að breyta bróðurlega hverjum við annan.
English	All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Scots	Aw human sowels is born free and equal in dignity and richts. They are tochered wi mense and conscience and shuld guide theirsels ane til ither in a speirit o britherheid.
Luxembourgeois	All Mënsch kënnt fräi a mat deer selwechter Dignitéit an dene selwechte Rechter op d'Welt. Jiddereen huet säi Verstand a säi Gewësse krut an soll an engem Geescht vu Bridderlechkeet denen anere géintiwwer handelen.
Yiddish, Eastern	יעדער מענטש װערט געבױרן פֿרײַ און גלײַך אין כּבֿוד און רעכט. יעדער װערט באַשאָנקן מיט פֿאַרשטאַנד און געװיסן; יעדער זאָל זיך פֿירן מיט אַ צװײטן אין אַ געמיט פֿון ברודערשאַפֿט.
Afrikaans	Alle menslike wesens word vry, met gelyke waardigheid en regte, gebore. Hulle het rede en gewete en behoort in die gees van broederskap teenoor mekaar op te tree.
Dutch	Alle mensen worden vrij en gelijk in waardigheid en rechten geboren. Zij zijn begiftigd met verstand en geweten, en behoren zich jegens elkander in een geest van broederschap te gedragen.
Saxon, Low	All de Minschen sünd frie un gliek an Wüürd un Rechten baren. Se hebbt Vernunft un een Geweten un se schüllt sik Bröder sien.
Norwegian, Nynorsk	Alle menneske er fødde til fridom og med same menneskeverd og menneskerettar. Dei har fått fornuft og samvit og skal leve med kvarandre som brør.
Norwegian, Bokmaal	Alle mennesker er født frie og med samme menneskeverd og menneskerettigheter. De er utstyrt med fornuft og samvittighet og bør handle mot hverandre i brorskapets ånd.

Vulnerability

This table summarizes the vulnerability of various Dravidian languages. Data is derived from the ‘Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, © UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/culture/languages-atlas’ and Ethnologue.

Language	ISO639-3	Location	Speakers	Status
				Ethnologue	UNESCO
Frankish	frk	Germany	0	10 (Extinct)	-
Wymysorys	wym	Poland	70	8b (Nearly extinct)	3 (Severely endangered)
Frisian, Eastern	frs	Germany	5,120	8a (Moribund)	-
Saterfriesisch	stq	Germany	1,000	7 (Shifting)	3 (Severely endangered)
German, Colonia Tovar	gct	Venezuela	1,500	7 (Shifting)	-
Yiddish, Western	yih	Germany	5,400	7 (Shifting)	-
Frisian, Northern	frr	Germany	10,000	7 (Shifting)	3 (Severely endangered)
Hunsrik	hrx	Brazil	3,000,000	7 (Shifting)	-
Walser	wae	Switzerland	22,780	6b (Threatened)	-
Vlaams	vls	Belgium	1,204,000	6b (Threatened)	-
Mócheno	mhn	Italy	1,900	6a (Vigorous)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Cimbrian	cim	Italy	2,230	6a (Vigorous)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Silesian, Lower	sli	Poland	22,900	6a (Vigorous)	-
Hutterisch	geh	Canada	40,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Kölsch	ksh	Germany	250,000	6a (Vigorous)	-
Jutish	jut	Germany, Denmark	?	6a (Vigorous)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Pfaelzisch	pfl	Germany, France	?	6a (Vigorous)	1 (Vulnerable)
Saxon, Low	nds	Germany	1,000	5 (Developing)	-
German, Pennsylvania	pdc	United States	133,000	5 (Developing)	-
Zeeuws	zea	Netherlands	220,000	5 (Developing)	-
Plautdietsch	pdt	Canada & Ukraine	394,900	5 (Developing)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Gronings	gos	Netherlands	592,000	5 (Developing)	-
Swabian	swg	Germany	819,000	5 (Developing)	-
Saxon, Upper	sxu	Germany	2,000,000	5 (Developing)	-
Mainfränkisch	vmf	Germany, Czech Republic	4,910,000	5 (Developing)	1 (Vulnerable)
German, Swiss	gsw	Switzerland	6,469,000	5 (Developing)	-
Bavarian	bar	Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic	13,259,000	5 (Developing)	1 (Vulnerable)
Achterhoeks	act	Netherlands	?	5 (Developing)	-
Drents	drt	Netherlands	?	5 (Developing)	-
Sallands	sdz	Netherlands	?	5 (Developing)	-
Stellingwerfs	stl	Netherlands	?	5 (Developing)	-
Twents	twd	Netherlands	?	5 (Developing)	-
Veluws	vel	Netherlands	?	5 (Developing)	-
Westphalien	wep	Germany	?	5 (Developing)	-
Scots	sco	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland	100,000	4 (Educational)	1 (Vulnerable)
Luxembourgeois	ltz	Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg	320,710	4 (Educational)	1 (Vulnerable)
Yiddish, Eastern	ydd	Israel & Germany, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Moldova, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Ukraine	1,505,030	4 (Educational)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Faroese	fao	Denmark & Faroe Islands	66,150	2 (Provincial)	1 (Vulnerable)
Frisian, Western	fry	Netherlands	467,000	2 (Provincial)	1 (Vulnerable)
Limburgish	lim	Netherlands	1,300,000	2 (Provincial)	-
Icelandic	isl	Iceland	243,840	1 (National)	-
Norwegian	nor	Norway	4,741,780	1 (National)	-
Afrikaans	afr	South Africa	4,949,410	1 (National)	-
Danish	dan	Denmark	5,592,490	1 (National)	-
Swedish	swe	Sweden	8,381,829	1 (National)	2 (Definitely endangered)
Dutch	nld	Netherlands	22,984,690	1 (National)	-
German, Standard	deu	Germany	83,812,810	1 (National)	-
English	eng	United Kingdom	334,800,758	1 (National)	-

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Germanic languages", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

See also

• North Germanic languages
• List of language pairs
• Romance languages
• Translation problems between romance and germanic languages