Surveys the East, North, and West branches of the Germanic language family, as well as the peoples who speak these languages today and spoke them many centuries ago. From Afrikaans to Yiddish and from Proto-Indo-European to Pennsylvania German and Berlin Kiezdeutsch, how do Germanic languages relate to each other and interact with other languages in contact? By investigating the Germanic languages in terms of their key linguistic features and their historical and geographic contexts, students will gain an understanding of one of the most influential language families of human history. Taught in English.