East Germanic
Sign in to saveAlso known as East Germanic languages, Illevionic, Illevionic languages, Oder-Vistula Germanic, Oder-Vistula Germanic languages
group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family
East Germanic was a group of languages spoken by Germanic peoples in eastern Europe that has completely died out, leaving us with only fragments and records to study today. Understanding these extinct languages helps linguists piece together the history of how Germanic languages evolved and spread across Europe.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
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. Crimean Gothic is believed to have survived until the 18th century in isolated areas of Crimea.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “East Germanic” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.