Case Studies of Cultural Communication Concepts Expressed in the Germanic Terms for ‘Speech’

Abstract

This article refers to the studies of ‘contrastive rhetoric’ from a historical perspective examining ‘language contact’-situations within the Indo-European group of Germanic languages. We demonstrate that within this group of European languages specific forms of speech exist, which are uniquely bound to this group of languages. In our analysis we discuss those specific speech conceptions and trace their roots back to the Proto-Germanic roots. This historical analysis of specific Germanic roots provides an access to the understanding of culturally contrastive conceptions of speech communication within this group of languages contrasting with conceptions of speech in other language families.