The Proto-Germanic reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Proto-Germanic

Proto-Germanic, the proto-language believed by scholars to be the common ancestor) of the Germanic languages, includes among its descendants Dutch, Yiddish, German, English, Afrikaans, Norwegian, Old Norse, Swedish, Icelandic and Danish. There are no extent documents in Proto-Germanic, which was unwritten, and virtually all our knowledge of this extinct language has been obtained by application of the comparative method.

Proto-Germanic is itself descended from Proto-Indo-European, which is also the distant ancestor of a great many other languages in Europe and Asia. For the changes undergone by Proto-Germanic during its descent from Proto-Indo-European, see Germanic languages.

Proto-Indo-European speakers probably arrived in the western Baltic region (including Denmark and southern Sweden), conjectured to be the original dwelling-place of the Germanic peoples, during the early Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BCE).

The reconstructed Proto-Germanic vocabulary includes a number of fundamental words (referring to animals and nature) which are clearly non-Indo-European in origin, suggesting a vocabulary influence from the earlier inhabitants of northern Europe. The mechanism of this influence is unknown; it may have been simple borrowing, or perhaps retention of old words by people who adopted Proto-Germanic as their new language. For examples, see Non-Indo-European roots of Germanic.

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