The Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The descendants of these peoples became the ethnic groups of North Western Europe: the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Faroese and Icelanders in Scandinavia, the Germans and Austrians, Dutch and Flemish on the continent, and the inhabitants of South-East Scotland, East England and South-East England in Great Britain.

Migrating Germanic peoples spread throughout Europe in Late Antiquity (AD 300-600) and the Early Middle Ages. Germanic languages became dominant along the Roman borders (Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and England), but in the rest of the (western) Roman provinces, the Germanic immigrants adopted Latin (Romance) dialects. Furthermore, all Germanic peoples were eventually Christianized to varying extents. The Germanic people played a large role in transforming the Roman empire into Medieval Europe, and they contributed in developing a common identity, history, and culture which transcended linguistic borders.

Germanic Peoples -  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia