126-475 Germanic Languages

Note

Available as 126-375 at 3rd-year level.

Credit Points

Coordinator

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

Germanic languages constitute one branch of the Indo-European language family. Languages as diverse as German, English, Icelandic, Afrikaans, Yiddish and Pennsylvania German (and quite a few more) all share a common origin. How such languages now differ from each other, how they came to achieve the status of separate languages and how a knowledge of one or more sheds light on developments in the other, including for instance dialectal variation, will form the content of this course. Only a knowledge of English and German will be presupposed, but students with a knowledge of other Germanic languages will be most welcome in the course as they will be able to indicate where their language differs from the other two. It is a goal of the course to analyse such differences.

Assessment

Written work in German of no more than 5,000 words for MA, 4,000 words for 4th year and 3,000 words for 3rd year

Prescribed Texts

See Departmental Course and Subject Guide for details.