Question: The High German consonant shift  took place in the Germanic family of languages that is larger than which other two branches?
Context: Rupert is an English truncation of Latin "Rupertus", which derives from Old High German "Hruodoperht/Hruodoberht" ('p' and 'b' are the voiceless and voiced cognates of the same consonant); which is also the source of the name Robert.  Thus, "Rupert" and "Robert" are different modern forms of the same name.  The Old High German form of the name evolved from Germanic Hrothi, "fame, glory" + Berht, "bright"; thus, Rupert and Robert mean "bright fame." The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases.  It probably began between the third and fifth centuries and was almost complete before the earliest written records in High German were produced in the ninth century.  The resulting language, Old High German, can be neatly contrasted with the other continental West Germanic languages, which for the most part did not experience the shift, and with Old English, which remained completely unaffected. The Uerdingen Line (named after Uerdingen by Georg Wenker) is the isogloss within West Germanic languages that separates dialects which preserve the -"k" sound in the first person singular pronoun word "ik" (north of the line) from dialects in which the word final -"k" has changed to word final -"ch" in the word "ich" (IPA [ç] ) (south of the line).  This sound shift is the one that progressed the farthest north among the consonant shifts that characterize High German and Middle German dialects.  The line passes through Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. Middle High German (abbreviated "MHG", German: "Mittelhochdeutsch" , abbr.  "Mhd. ")  is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages.  It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German.  High German is defined as those varieties of German which were affected by the Second Sound Shift; the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch languages spoken to the North and North West, which did not participate in this sound change, are not part of MHG. Ēostre or Ostara (Old English: "Ēastre" ] , Northumbrian dialect "Ēostre " ] ; Old High German: "*Ôstara" (reconstructed form)) is a Germanic goddess who, by way of the Germanic month bearing her name (Northumbrian: "Ēosturmōnaþ "; West Saxon: "Ēastermōnaþ "; Old High German: "Ôstarmânoth" ), is the namesake of the festival of Easter in some languages.  Ēostre is attested solely by Bede in his 8th-century work "The Reckoning of Time", where Bede states that during "Ēosturmōnaþ " (the equivalent of April), pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts in Ēostre's honor, but that this tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Wolfgang is a German male given name traditionally popular in Germany and Austria.  The name is a combination of the Old High German word "wolf", meaning "wolf" and "gang", meaning "path, journey".  Besides the regular "wolf", the first element also occurs in Old High German as the combining form "-olf".  "Wolf" (in Old High German) or "wulf" (in most other Germanic languages) is a popular element of the common dithematic Germanic names.  The word is present in hundreds of German names.  Some Germanic names with this element include Adolf, Aethelwulf, Beowulf, Cynewulf, Rudolf, Wulfstan, Ulfilas, and Wulf.  "Gang" is found in such names as Gangperht, Gangulf, Bertegang, Druhtgang, Hildigang, Hrodegang, and Wiligang. The history of the German language as separate from common West Germanic begins in the Early Middle Ages with the High German consonant shift.  Old High German, Middle High German and Early New High German span the duration of the Holy Roman Empire.  The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise of Standard German and a decrease of dialectal variety. German dialect is dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant shift, and the dialect continua that connect German to the neighbouring varieties of Low Franconian (Dutch) and Frisian. Preposition stranding, sometimes called P-stranding, is the syntactic construction in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately adjacent to its object; for example, at the end of a sentence.  The preposition is then described as stranded, hanging, or dangling.  This kind of construction is found mainly in English and in some other Germanic languages or dialects.  Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (two languages in the Niger–Congo family), and certain dialects of French spoken in North America.
Answer: North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages