Ingvaeonic

Ingvaeonic is (according to one theory) a subset of West Germanic (WGmc), perhaps corresponding to a putative ancestor of English, Dutch and Frisian, which might have existed in western Europe in the early part of the first millennium AD.

It is characterised by the following main innovations:

Loss of the nasal consonant in groups /mf/ /ns/ /nth/, with compensatory lengthening and nasalisation of the preceding vowel eg. Old English go:s, German gans "goose"; OE fi:f, Ger fuenf "five"
Merger of the three persons of the plural in all verb form

               	            Ingvaeonic    
	                  ______|______
                         |      |      |
	             English Frisian  Dutch