 Germanic parent language

In historical linguistics, the Germanic parent language (GPL) includes the reconstructed languages in the Germanic group referred to as Pre-Germanic Indo-European (PreGmc), Early Proto-Germanic (EPGmc), and Late Proto-Germanic (LPGmc), spoken in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC.The less precise term "Germanic", that appears in etymologies, dictionaries, etc., loosely refers to a language spoken in the 1st millennium AD, proposedly at that time developing into the group of Germanic languages—a stricter term for that same proposition, but with an alternative chronography, is "Proto-Germanic language".As an identifiable neologism, "Germanic parent language" appears to have been first used by Frans Van Coetsem in 1994.