Germanic parent language

In historical linguistics, the Germanic parent language (GPL) includes the reconstructed languages in the Germanic group referred to as Pre-Germanic Indo-European (PreGmc), Early Proto-Germanic (EPGmc), and Late Proto-Germanic (LPGmc), spoken in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC.

The less precise term Germanic, that appears in etymologies, dictionaries etcetera, loosely refers to a language spoken in the 1st millennium AD, proposedly at that time developing into the group of Germanic languages—a stricter term for that same proposition, but with an alternative chronography, is Proto-Germanic language. As an identifiable neologism, Germanic parent language appears to have been first used by Frans Van Coetsem in 1994. It also makes appearances in the works of Elzbieta Adamczyk, Jonathan Slocum, and Winfred P. Lehmann.

Several historical linguists have pointed towards the apparent material and social continuity connecting the cultures of the Nordic Bronze Age (1800 – 500 BC) and the pre-Roman Iron Age in Northern Europe (500 BC – 1 AD) as having implications in regard to the stability and later development of the Germanic language group. The emerging consensus among scholars is that the First Germanic Sound Shift, long considered to be the defining mark in the development of Proto-Germanic, happened as late as 500 BC.

Research conducted over the past few decades displays a notable interest in exploring the linguistic and sociohistorical conditions under which this sound shift occurred, and often formulates theories and makes reconstructive efforts regarding the periods immediately preceding Proto-Germanic as traditionally characterised. The notion of the Germanic parent language is thus used to encompass both the Pre-Proto-Germanic stage of development preceding the First Germanic Sound Shift (assumed to be contemporary with the Nordic Bronze Age) and that stage traditionally identified as Proto-Germanic up to the beginning of the Common Era.

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