Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the
Germanic dialects, representing the current consensus among Germanic historical linguists. It does not challenge the late 19th-century tri-partite division of the Germanic dialects into
North Germanic,
West Germanic and
East Germanic, but proposes additionally that North and West Germanic remained as a subgroup after the southward migration of the East Germanic tribes, only splitting into North and West Germanic later. Whether this subgroup constituted a unified
proto-language, or simply represents a group of dialects that remained in contact and close geographical proximity, is a matter of debate. The date by which such a grouping must have dissolved—in that innovations ceased to be shared—is also contentious, though it seems unlikely to have persisted after 500 AD, by which time the
Anglo-Saxons had migrated to England and the
Elbe Germanic tribes had settled in Southern Germany.