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I'm a native English speaker from the USA and I'd like to self-study Germanic linguistics. I've found little success understanding what a degree in the field would even look like because search engines love to render "Germanic" as "German".

I'm looking to become literate in Old English and Old Norse at the level of maybe 1-2 semesters at a university, if possible also Old High German. I then want to become acquainted with Middle English and Icelandic, and obtain a working knowledge of some modern languages.

During this time, or after it, I want to really put all the pieces together with historical and general linguistics of the North and West families.

What would you all recommend for resources?

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    Old Norse, Old English, Old High German, Middle English and Icelandic and "a working knowledge of some modern languages"? That is a tall order. Resources questions are better on the META site. But I ask you this: Do you know any language besides English yet? Try: searching for Anglo-Saxon languages. Also, find universities that teach these and look at bibliografies provided by professors. For example: https://medievalstudies.uconn.edu/resources/electronic-resources/old-english-language-literature/ – Lambie Mar 06 '24 at 19:31
  • Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures: Harvard University. https://german.fas.harvard.edu/ Bear in mind, first you have to know the languages before attempting to study their linguistics... – Lambie Mar 06 '24 at 19:42
  • This article lays out the chronology very well of Germanic languages. https://www.polilingua.com/blog/post/origin-evolution-of-group-germanic-languages.htm – Lambie Mar 06 '24 at 19:44

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