Elbe Germanic, also called Irminonic or Erminonic, is a proposed subgrouping of West Germanic languages introduced by the German linguist Friedrich Maurer (1898–1984) in his book, Nordgermanen und Alemanen, to describe the West Germanic dialects ancestral to Lombardic, Alemannic, and Bavarian. During late antiquity and the Middle Ages, its supposed descendants had a profound influence on the neighboring West Central German dialects and, later, in the form of Standard German, on the German language as a whole. While most scholars accept the existence of an Elbe Germanic archaeological group, the existence of a linguistic group remains controversial.
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
👉 Irminonic in the context of West Germanic language
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into three branches: Ingvaeonic, which includes English, Scots, the Low German languages, and the Frisian languages; Istvaeonic, which encompasses Dutch and its close relatives; and Irminonic, which includes German and its close relatives and variants.
English is by far the most widely spoken West Germanic language, with over one billion speakers worldwide. Within Europe, the three most prevalent West Germanic languages are English, German, and Dutch. Frisian, spoken by about 450,000 people, constitutes a fourth distinct variety of West Germanic. The language family also includes Afrikaans, Yiddish, Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, Hunsrik, and Scots. Additionally, several creoles, patois, and pidgins are based on Dutch, English, or German.