Languages can be classified acc. to different principles. The historical classification groups lang-s in accordance with their origin from a common linguistic ancestor. English belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic group of lang-s. The modern GL are 11 in number. They all go to ProtoGermanic. And protogerm. goes to the Indoeuropean tongues. The GL fall into: 1. East Germanic (The Gothic Lang.) – nowadays all of them are dead, 2. North Germanic : Swedish – in Sweden and Finland (ab. 9 mil people), Danish – in Danmark (ab. 5 mil), Icelandic – Iceland (270000 people), Norwegian – in Norway (ab.4 mil), Faroese – in the Faroe Islands (50000 people). 3. West Germanic English – GB, USA, Canada, Australia (ab. 400 mil people), German – Germany, Austria, Luxemburg (ab. 100 mil. people), Netherlandish (ab.20 mil), Afrikaans (ab. 6 mil), Frisian – a part of Denmark, Poland, Germany (ab. 400 thousand people), Yiddish. Lists of Germanic languages given in books differ in some points, for the distinction between separate languages and also between languages and dialects varies. For example, Frisian and Faroese are often referred to as dialects; BrE and AmerE are often regarded as 2 independent lang-s.
2. EXTRALINGUISTIC AND INTRALINGUISTIC FACTORS. The term ’extra-linguistic’ embraces a variety of conditions bearing upon different aspects of human life - the psychological or the physiological aspects. Firstly, these factors include events in the history of the people relevant to the development of the l-ge, such as the structure of society, expansion over new geographical areas, migrations, mixtures and separation of tribes, political and economic unity or disunity, contacts with other peoples, the progress of culture and literature.
Intralinguistic f-s arise from the l-ge system. To them belong: 1)General (operate in all l-ges as inherent properties of any l-ge system) 2)Specific (operate in 1 l-ge or in a group of related l-ges at a