The usual form of reconstructed ProtoGermanic if fairly close to attested ProtoNorse and relies strongly on Gothic for its forms, reflecting a language stage spoken around 0 ad.

However, the time depth between this language and its split from PIE is vast and many changes happened during these two millennia. There are many examples that show that an earlier stage of the language was markedly different, and that many of these traits might have persisted longer than one might think.