The Germanic languages divide into three subgroups, Eastern, Northern, and Western. The only language that can be placed with certainty in the Eastern subgroup is Gothic, which is now extinct, although it continued to be spoken in the Crimea into the sixteenth century CE. Historical evidence suggests that both Vandalic and Burgundian were East Germanic, but the few proper nouns that remain do not allow a positive identification.

North Germanic subdivides into Old West Norse (or Old Icelandic), an important language of literature in the medieval West, and Old East Norse. The former gave rise to Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic; the latter gave rise to Danish and Swedish.

West Germanic subdivides into Anglo-Frisian and Netherlandic-German. The former gave rise to English and Frisian , a language once spoken along a portion of the coastal Lowlands, but now found only among a few speakers on a cluster of islands off the coast. Netherlandic-German subdivides into High and Low, the references being to the lowlands of the northern continental Germanic area and the highlands to the south. The High branch gives rise to modern High German (taught in all schools) and Yiddish, although the latter is heavily influenced by several Eastern European languages and Hebrew. The Low branch gives rise to modern Low German (or Plattdeutsch, spoken in parts of northwestern Germany) and to Dutch, Flemish, and Afrikaans.