The Neolithic Hypothesis

[Rick Mc Callister]

[snip]

>It should be noted that this so-called "Northwest Germanic" phase
>postdates the "Gotho-Nordic" phase, which accounts for the
>similarities between North and East Germanic.  We have:

>           Proto-Germanic
>          /              \
>     West Germanic       North-East Germanic
>                  \     /                   \
>            ("North-West Germanic")       East Germanic
>                  /     \
>     West Germanic      North Germanic

>>>The split with North and East Germanic was considerably earlier than that,
>>>possibly as early as 1500 BC (start of Scandinavian Bronze Age).

[snip]

	I've read in some places that the languages formerly spoken in
present Jutland, Schleswig & Holstein were "in between" North Germanic &
West Germanic and that when the Angles migrated to England, that a gradual
linguistic frontier was replaced by a barrier of non-mutually
comprehensible languages.
	On one level this has a certain logic but on the other hand,
English & Frisian do seem much closer to Low German. I can appreciate that
Frisian may have been affected by Low German and Dutch but English wasn't.
	Another contradiction that I've seen are charts that list East
Germanic with North Germanic.
	Why all the confusion? Has all of this been straightened out?