West Germanic languages: Quick Facts

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Thematic map of Europe displaying the distribution of Germanic languages, with different colors indicating regions where English, German, Netherlandic (Dutch), Frisian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese are spoken. Striped areas mark regions where bilingualism is common, and language regions cover countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, and parts of surrounding countries.

A family tree diagram shows the evolution of Germanic languages from Proto-Germanic, branching into West, North, and East Germanic groups. West Germanic splits into Anglo-Frisian (English, Frisian) and Netherlandic-German (Netherlandic, German). North Germanic divides into West Scandinavian (Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian) and East Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish). East Germanic is represented by Gothic.

Netherlandic-German dialect divisions

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