Question: The High German consonant shift  took place in the Germanic family of languages that is larger than which other two branches?

full_context: Document 1: West Germanic languages: 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).
Document 2: Uerdingen line: 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.
Document 3: English language: English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and is now a global "lingua franca". Named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to England, it ultimately derives its name from the Anglia (Angeln) peninsula in the Baltic Sea. It is closely related to the Frisian languages, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), as well as by Latin and Romance languages, particularly French.
Document 4: High German consonant shift: 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.
Document 5: Languages of Scotland: The languages of Scotland are the languages spoken or once spoken in Scotland. Each of the numerous languages spoken in Scotland during its recorded linguistic history falls into either the Germanic or Celtic language families. The classification of the Pictish language was once controversial, but it is now generally considered a Celtic language. Today, the main language spoken in Scotland is English, while Scots and Scottish Gaelic are minority languages. The dialect of English spoken in Scotland is referred to as Scottish English.
Document 6: German language: German ("Deutsch" ] ) is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and (co-) official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
Document 7: West Low German: West Low German, also known as Low Saxon (German: "Niedersächsisch" or German: "Westniederdeutsch" ; literally: "Nether-saxon"; Low German: "Nedersassisch, Nedersaksies, Platduuts, Plat(t)" ; Dutch: "Nedersaksisch" ; ) is a group of Low German (also Low Saxon; German: "Niederdeutsch" or "Plattdeutsch", Dutch: "Nederduits") dialects spoken in parts of the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and southern Denmark (in North Schleswig by the German minority). It is one of two groups of mutually intelligible dialects, the other being East Low German dialects.
Document 8: Northwest Germanic: Northwest Germanic is a proposed grouping of the Germanic languages, 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 (i.e. all surviving Germanic languages today) 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.
Document 9: German dialects: 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.
Document 10: History of English: English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Germanic invaders and settlers from what is now northwest Germany, west Denmark and the Netherlands, displacing the Celtic languages that previously predominated.
Document 11: History of German: 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.
Document 12: Dutch language: Dutch (   ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken by around 24 million people as a first language—including the population of the Netherlands and about sixty percent that of Belgium—and by another 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German.
Document 13: Old Saxon: Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Europe). It is a West Germanic language, closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages. It has been documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it gradually evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken throughout modern northwestern Germany, primarily in the coastal regions and in the eastern Netherlands by Saxons, a Germanic tribe who inhabited the region of Saxony. It partially shares Anglo-Frisian's (Old Frisian, Old English) Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law which sets it apart from Low Franconian and Irminonic languages, such as Dutch, Luxembourgish and German.
Document 14: German Sign Language family: The German Sign Language family is a small language family of sign languages, including German Sign Language, Polish Sign Language and probably Israeli Sign Language. The latter also had influence from Austrian Sign Language, which is unrelated, and the parentage is not entirely clear.
Document 15: Middle High German: 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.
ground_truth: North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages