# Is English More Like German Or More Like The Romance Languages?



## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

Conventional wisdom says that English would be more like German, because it's a Germanic language. A lot of the simple words in English like "house" are similar to their German counterparts. But I've studied a bit of German and I didn't really find it to be all that similar to English. The more complex, higher words in English tend to have latin roots. Words like competition and television clearly have Latin roots. I actually feel like I had an easier time learning Spanish words than German ones.

So even though the Old English might have been a Germanic language, it seems like most of the stuff that was added on top of that (and a lot of the words we use today) have Latin origins.


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## 3tmk (Nov 23, 2002)

It comes from the huge french influence on the english language.
But what does this issue have to do with travel? :dunno


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## hugh (Mar 8, 2005)

Paddington, I think the answer to your question might be a tough call for native English speakers. It might be useful to get opinions from speakers of German and Romance languages. That said, I remember flipping through the dial on the radio and catching what I thought might have been English - realizing only a split second later - it was German. I think you'd be hard pushed to do the same with French or Spanish.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

English is pretty weird because it doesn't sound latin AT ALL, but at the same time they have SO MANY words of their vocabulary that actually derived from latin words. I started learning German last March and I'm realising English has more to do with FRENCH rather than with German.


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## DonQui (Jan 10, 2005)

English is a fundamentally Germanic language that has been heavily Latinized due to French domination of English society. Even some of England's famous kings did not speak a lick of English.

French is correspondingly the most Germanized Romance language, but not becuase of contact with the English, but because the Germanic Franks overan the Kingdom to a greater extent than other Romance territories(i.e. in comparison, the Germanic invasions in Portugal with the Suevi and Visigoths, Spain with the Visigoths, and Italy with the Lombards/Ostrogoths were much lighter than in the Kingdom of the Franks, aka France).


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

schmidt said:


> English is pretty weird because it doesn't sound latin AT ALL, but at the same time they have SO MANY words of their vocabulary that actually derived from latin words. I started learning German last March and I'm realising English has more to do with FRENCH rather than with German.


That said spoken English sounds almost nothing like spoken French, which itself sounds little like the other Romance languages.


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## Rail Claimore (Sep 11, 2002)

French also has considerable Celtic influences IIRC.

As a native English speaker, to my ears German sounds closer to English than French, but Dutch sounds even closer. However, English speakers often find French easier to read than German because much of our vocabulary is very similar, and spellings have changed very little.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

Paddington said:


> That said spoken English sounds almost nothing like spoken French, which itself sounds little like the other Romance languages.


We could say that French and English are unique in their own groups. As well as the Romanian language in the Latin group, which sounds a bit slavic of course.


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

English is closer related to Swiss German than to German - especially several expressions and the easier grammar.

Otherwise: English originates from Saxon Germanistic tongues and after the battle of Hastings and the invasion of the Normands in the 11th century French became a big influence, BUT also a division of tongues: 
For centuries the lower class was speaking a germanistic language while the upper class an old French tongue. Some words mixed, others separeted til today. Some examples:

- Beaf: from Boeuf (F), Cow: from Kuh (G) - because the Germanistic lower class RAISED the animal, the upper class French ATE it.
- There are also a lot of English words with the same meaning that originate from both tongues. That's why the English dictionary is one of the biggest. 
- American English also has some own words that differ from the British (truck - lorry, pants - trousers, trash - rubbish etc)

So there is NO way to say that English is more latin or more german, it's the perfect mix and combination of both - historically and linguistically.


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## Ringil (Jul 28, 2004)

Personally I find French easier than German too.. Isn't dutch and the scandinavian langauges closer to English than the German?


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## Küsel (Sep 16, 2004)

Not necessarily. The more north the further developped the German language (also because of the influence of ports). The oldest kind of German is in the South (Swiss German - which is by Grammar already quite a different language, Bavarian, Austrian, Schwäbisch). They are by WORDS closer related to English, becaus of the 1000+ years German origins. 

Example: Swissgerman: Einewäg, English: Anyway


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## Josh (May 30, 2004)

Frisian is closest to English.


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## Facial (Jun 21, 2004)

More than 95% of normal English speech features the native (Germanic) vocabulary.

However, 70% of English vocabulary is derived in some way or another from Latin.


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## ♣628.finst (Jul 29, 2005)

Kuesel said:


> English is closer related to Swiss German than to German - especially several expressions and the easier grammar.


It's somewhat true. But Dutch and Afrikaans are clearly much closer to English than Swiss German in many aspects.

Swiss German--- I think Swiss German is one of the oldest type of German language and thus stays the closest to the original Alemmanic tongue but not necessarily the Saxon one, thus Swiss German is actually a Southwestern branch of Germanic Language, which is, excluded from many changes in Northern, Central and High German throughout the mediaeval period and subsequent centuries. One exception might be the Basel dialect, which sounds very High German like. The further east you goes, the dialect becomes even "higher", that's the usual Swiss German speech in Zuerich region, and a variation in Schaffhausen. In Bern, Luzern or Walais there are much more Romance influences, that makes another kind of Swiss German, which is, in one way, very conservative; but on the other hand, more heavily Latinised than other dialects (Even more so than English)

English--- Spoken English, especially in the Eastern Coast, which has the most characteristic "English" or "Scottish" accent, are typically different from both Low German or High German. But in some ways, however, resembles Swiss German. However, the most important influence is from Friesland with a variation of Old Saxon and to lesser extent, old Norse from Jutland. Due to geographic isolation, English still retains many features from mediaeval Jutland dialects--- indicates the presence of Danish influence (actually it's largely from Jutland and Friesland) in mediaeval period. Dutch, as well as Flanders, are somewhat separate influences to the Southeast England. Further South, in France, the influence is largely in the vocabularies, not the pronunciation. That is largely because French is the language of the upper class in Late Middle Age, but not the lower class since the native population of England is somewhat isolated from the Continent--- though later the contact become more significant, England had thus strengthen its influence and start influencing other parts of the world, especially in North America and later Australia. The English Channel, helps reduce influences of pronunciation of lower class, but could not prevent the communication between France and England of the upper class because France provided knowledge and money to England, and helped England to become the first industrialised country all around the world in early 19th century. English language, inevitably, having most of its technical terms, actually made up of Latin expressions or French expressions. Thus the tradition remains, and nowadays we kept using these Romance influenced words to express something which would not be easily, or commonly understood by original English expressions.

In my opinion, High German (Standard German), or in some extent, Austrian German are the most different Germanic Languages from English. While Romance languages, were once mostly act as "loan words" in English, which after centuries they became widely accepted in English Language, even for lower class Englishmen.


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## simplypotent (May 21, 2006)

So what does English sound like to a non-english speaking person?


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## shayan (Oct 9, 2005)

its more latin in my opinion..


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## Tiaren (Jan 29, 2006)

I'm german and learned English and French in school for many years. English is definitely more close to German than to French, or the other roman languages.


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## ♣628.finst (Jul 29, 2005)

shayan said:


> its more latin in my opinion..


No offence, but English sounds very Italian when spoken by a Southern European.


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## schmidt (Dec 5, 2002)

simplypotent said:


> So what does English sound like to a non-english speaking person?


Different. It doesn't *sound* Latin at all, but at the same time it doesn't sounds like German either! One of the main characteristics of English is the "R"s, everybody can recognize English from its R's


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## Bahnsteig4 (Sep 9, 2005)

> More than 95% of normal English speech features the native (Germanic) vocabulary.
> 
> However, 70% of English vocabulary is derived in some way or another from Latin.


I remember someone saying that there are at least two english expressions for everything. One of germanic and one of latin origin. I am not too sure as of how true this is but I like the idea.


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## GaryinSydney (Aug 4, 2004)

I was always taught that English vocab is 65% Germanic in origin (Anglo-Saxon & Viking) & 35% Latin (French) derived - but that the French words are supplementary for basic words (Chaise-Chair versus Stool-Stuhl etc) or were scientific/law words introduced by the Norman ruling class post 1066.

Having learnt both German & French & Spanish at school (In England), i certainly found German to be more instinctive and natural to learn (even with the tough grammar).


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## NothingBetterToDo (Sep 11, 2002)

Being a native english speaker, to me, German sounds closer to English when spoken. But when written, French seems closer. 

However, i have found French to be practically impossible to learn and speak, and i have had a hard time trying to pronounce the odd german word i have attempted. However, i have found Spanish to be very easy to pronounce, and relatively easier than French to learn.


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

GaryinSydney said:


> I was always taught that English vocab is 65% Germanic in origin (Anglo-Saxon & Viking) & 35% Latin (French) derived - but that the French words are supplementary for basic words (Chaise-Chair versus Stool-Stuhl etc) or were scientific/law words introduced by the Norman ruling class post 1066.


Well most words in the dictionary are of rare use.

I would be more willing to accept that 65% of the words spoken in conversation on average tend to be of Germanic origin, i.e. everyday words like "the", "and", "house", etc. But my guess is that the vast majority of dictionary words are probably of latin origin, since most words we don't use much and the bigger ones tend to be made up of latin prefixes and suffixes.


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## Facial (Jun 21, 2004)

Having studied Spanish, a Romance language, I find that many simple Spanish words have very derived, intellectual vocabulary-class relatives in English.

examples, just off my mind:

libro (book) - library
agua (water) - aqueous
luna (moon) - lunar
comer (eat) - comestible
facil (easy) - faculty, facilitate
mano (hand) - manage
correr (run) - corridor
saber (know) - sapient
fuerte (strong) - fortitude

and the list goes on and on.

Notice that all the words in parentheses are Germanic. The ones on the right are English too. Which words are more recognizable?


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## Facial (Jun 21, 2004)

GaryinSydney said:


> I was always taught that English vocab is 65% Germanic in origin (Anglo-Saxon & Viking) & 35% Latin (French) derived


When referring to vocabulary as in the frequency of occurrance in speech, this is probably correct. 

But if it refers to all words in existence of the English lexicon, then this proportion is definitely not correct.


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## Facial (Jun 21, 2004)

In one case, I have actually predicted the existence of an English word from a simple Spanish one - 'antipathetic'. It's less commonly used than 'sympathetic'.


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

What's interesting is that the English word for car is - well - car, which is very German sounding although I'm not sure what the exact origin is. The most popular German word for car, however, is "auto", which has Latin origins. :cheers:


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## Pobbie (Jul 16, 2005)

English has thousands of words of Romance and Greek origin. However, the most basic vocab is still thoroughly Germanic.

Modern English has changed quite considerably from Old English, the latter being closer to Modern German. In many ways, the Romance languages do seem more familiar than Dutch and German. However, the Scandinavian languages look more familiar still.





Paddington said:


> What's interesting is that the English word for car is - well - car, which is very German sounding although I'm not sure what the exact origin is. The most popular German word for car, however, is "auto", which has Latin origins.
> :cheers:


I think the word _car_ actually comes from Welsh.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Pobbie Rarr said:


> I think the word _car_ actually comes from Welsh.


and Welsh has several words which are similar to Latin languages and totally different to English even though Welsh has nothing to do with latin (or germanic languages).

Pont = Bridge
Eglwys = Church


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## Christoforo (Mar 26, 2006)

I think it's easier to read a language or atleast get the general idea of the sentence in a Romance language such as Italian with little fluency in the language than it is to read German. A lot of words in the Romance languages look and usually have the same or a similar meaning to a word in English. It does not appear as apparent with German to me when I see things like the German Wikipedia and other websites in German.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

Christoforo said:


> I think it's easier to read a language or atleast get the general idea of the sentence in a Romance language such as Italian with little fluency in the language than it is to read German. A lot of words in the Romance languages look and usually have the same or a similar meaning to a word in English. It does not appear as apparent with German to me when I see things like the German Wikipedia and other websites in German.


I agree, I can get the meaning of Spanish, Portuguese or Italian but German, Dutch or Swedish, forget it.


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## Pobbie (Jul 16, 2005)

Jonesy55 said:


> and Welsh has several words which are similar to Latin languages and totally different to English even though Welsh has nothing to do with latin (or germanic languages).
> 
> Pont = Bridge
> Eglwys = Church


Of all the Indo-European sub-families, the Celtic branch is closest to the Italic branch. That perhaps explains the similarity of a lot of Welsh and Romance words.


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## C-Beam (Apr 11, 2006)

I speak English, German and I learned Latin. I don' think that English is really "close" to German. It has simply been to heavily transformed by the Norman invasion. Languages which are truly "close" to German are Dutch and to a lesser degree Danish.


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

In American high schools, the general consensus is that Spanish is the easiest language to learn. Your other options are typically French and German. They say German is hardest.


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## Pobbie (Jul 16, 2005)

^^I agree with that, from an English-speaking point of view. However, I've been told that Italian is supposed to be easier still.


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## Christoforo (Mar 26, 2006)

Pobbie Rarr said:


> ^^I agree with that, from an English-speaking point of view. However, I've been told that Italian is supposed to be easier still.


I don't think so. Italian is considerably harder than Spanish from my experience. Italian has a lot more irregular verbs, its tenses are generally harder to form, and the definite and indefinite articles are a hell of a lot harder/a pain in the ass to form than Spanish among other things. I'm learning Italian now and I took Spanish for a year a while ago and dropped it(Just wasn't really getting into the language enough to have the will to remember it.)


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## sc4ish (Feb 12, 2006)

i speak very well german english and spanish (of course)

easiest: english
2- german
hardest: spanish

spanish has got some things similar to german like:

german: Ich fühle MICH schlecht (ich = i)
spanish: yo ME siento mal (yo = i)

english: i feel bad

spanish has got LOTS of synonims for each word or verb, weird verb tenses and stuff like that.


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## Brice (Sep 11, 2002)

Pobbie Rarr said:


> English has thousands of words of Romance and Greek origin. However, the most basic vocab is still thoroughly Germanic.
> 
> Modern English has changed quite considerably from Old English, the latter being closer to Modern German. In many ways, the Romance languages do seem more familiar than Dutch and German. However, the Scandinavian languages look more familiar still.
> 
> ...


Actually it's from french.


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## Chalaco (Aug 29, 2004)

This chart shows the influence of other languages in the english language:


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## Brad (May 19, 2006)

sc4ish said:


> spanish has got LOTS of synonims for each word or verb.


 The richest language (as far as synonims are concerned ) is English.
The total number of English words is already over 1 000 000 .
Spanish - 200 000.
French - 100 000.
PS Probably your native language is Spanish 


sc4ish said:


> easiest: english
> 2- german
> hardest: spanish


 I would say
easiet - Spanish
2 - English
hardest - German


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## sjwmoore (Feb 17, 2005)

The Welsh words that sound Latin are easy to explain- The Romans. As welsh was the languague spoken by the ancient Britons, years before the English arrived, it adopted a number of latin terms for things for which there was no native word- they still do it today, tractor, video recorder etc.


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## sc4ish (Feb 12, 2006)

Brad said:


> The richest language (as far as synonims are concerned ) is English.
> The total number of English words is already over 1 000 000 .
> Spanish - 200 000.
> French - 100 000.
> ...


speaking a complete spanish (all the tenses) is much harder than english and german
plus dont forget Spanish has got accents too and knowing when to put them is kinda shitty hehe, even native speakers got problems sometimes


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## YelloPerilo (Oct 17, 2003)

Paddington said:


> What's interesting is that the English word for car is - well - car, which is very German sounding although I'm not sure what the exact origin is. The most popular German word for car, however, is "auto", which has Latin origins. :cheers:


Car - Karre


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## Brad (May 19, 2006)

sc4ish said:


> speaking a complete spanish (all the tenses) is much harder than english and german


Probably the verb grammer in Spanish is harder than that in English, but this fact does not mean that Spanish is more difficult in general...


sc4ish said:


> plus dont forget Spanish has got accents too and knowing when to put them is kinda shitty hehe, even native speakers got problems sometimes


  After having started to learn Spanish one will be able to read ANY word correctly in a couple of hours....
One has to study English for a long time to get a feeling how to read an unfamiliar word. Still you may read it in a wrong way


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## Satsi (May 17, 2006)

*This one's a no-brainer. English is more like any other language - including German - than it is to the romance languages, whose roots are from Latin. Any similarity of an English word to a romance language is not homogenous, but adopted from a romance languages: Examples: Siesta, fiesta, sombrero, salsa, coup de grace, manage e trois, etc. I could go on, but I wont...*


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## Matthieu (Mar 7, 2004)

Rail Claimore said:


> French also has considerable Celtic influences IIRC.



That is highly debatable, only a very small part of the French vocabulary is indeed Celtic in origin. The grammar has nothing in common either and the spelling is also totaly distinct.


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## Matthieu (Mar 7, 2004)

SimplyPotent said:


> So what does English sound like to a non-english speaking person?


To my honest opinion, the English language would sound what a French kid would say. There are a lot of monosyllabic words, French does have a lot too that's true, in very large proportion I find. I think those monosyllabic words are mostly the Germanic ones, since old Germanic languages were using very short words and simple concepts (adapted to the devellopment of their civilizations that is, for example most of the military words in French are Germanic when most of the scientific ones are Romance).

Most of the English's sounds, like in that post "very, kid, say, have, words, ones, of, etc....", do really make English sounds simplified compared to French when heard by most of us. (this sentence was no so simple to put in order and I think the wording isn't so correct).

From my personnal view, the English grammar and vocabulary isn't so hard, the spelling isn't also so hard to me than people often say. What is trully hard is the wording, especially from people speaking a romance language the lack of wording rules in English makes it really hard to learn through theory (mostly what I did for years) and it only comes through pratice.



GaryinSydney said:


> I was always taught that English vocab is 65% Germanic in origin (Anglo-Saxon & Viking) & 35% Latin (French) derived - but that the French words are supplementary for basic words (Chaise-Chair versus Stool-Stuhl etc) or were scientific/law words introduced by the Norman ruling class post 1066.
> 
> Having learnt both German & French & Spanish at school (In England), i certainly found German to be more instinctive and natural to learn (even with the tough grammar).


It is very hard to quantify the amount of words composing English, but the Oxford dictionary, probably the most qualified authority when it comes to everything linguistic about English found out English had more romance words than germanic, and the French words composed the biggest proportion of those latin words (actually alone French words compose the largest group).

How to make the distinction though, well one example. In latin and most romance language, the term lingua (langue in French) is used for both the organ and the language, while the French language set the distinction between tongue and language, the French word for language is langage so it's fair to consider the word "language" comes from the French and not from Latin.

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/proportion?view=uk

Yet, the English we commonly speak here is more Germanic than Romance for the simple reason we use a fairly basic English. 

For the fun, here is a comparison list between English words I used in that post so far with their French counterparts. That doesn't mean all the words listed are from French though.

English = Anglais
French = Français

opinion = opinion
language = langage
monosyllabic = monosyllabique
large = large
proportion = proportion
Germanic = Germanique
concept = concept
to adapt = adapter
devellopment = devellopement
civilization = civilisation
example = exemple
military = militaire
scientific = scientifique
to sound = sonner (in the context I used)
really = réellement
to simplify = simplifier
to compare = comparer
to quantify = quantifier
to qualify = qualifier
authority = autorité
to compose = composer
dictionary = dictionaire
probably = probablement
romance = roman (false cognate)
proportion = proportion
group = groupe
distinction = distinction
term = terme
organ = organe
to consider = considerer



Pobbie Rarr said:


> I think the word car actually comes from Welsh.


That would be interesting to know, in that context a car in French is a voiture. Yet, in Quebec they use the term "char", which in French in pretty much everything wheeled and now also tracked (a battle tank is a "char d'assaut" in French for example).

There is a small story I've heard recently, an English teacher friend told me the English word "huge" comes from the French, first I didn't believe it, and he told me it was taken from the French king "Hugh Capet". After checking a dictionary it appeared the word "huge" comes from the old French "ahuge" itself taken from the king who was known for being really tall.

To answer the thread.



> > Is English More Like German Or More Like The Romance Languages?


Germanic languages to me, it's like asking the same question on French really, no one would argue though French isn't closer to romance languages.


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## kebabmonster (Jun 29, 2004)

English is classified as a West Germanic Language. Good sources tell me that Frisian is the closest language to English, Dutch the closest "major" language (no offence to Frisians intended).

Imagine for a quick example:

Wat is jouw naam? Mijn naam is Fred 

Hoe oud ben jij? Zeventien. En jij?

Wat do je hier op skyscrapercity? Ik wil wat over skyscrapers leren.

I should think that even someone from an English speaking background with no knowledge of dutch at all would be able to get the gist of the above. I doubt the same could be said of French.


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## v:zero (Aug 8, 2005)

I think english is more like German.. The word "Job" translation in French and Spanish are similar ("Travaille" Fr. "Trabajo" Sp.) while English to German, the translation is simply "job".


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## Pobbie (Jul 16, 2005)

kebabmonster said:


> English is classified as a West Germanic Language. Good sources tell me that Frisian is the closest language to English, Dutch the closest "major" language (no offence to Frisians intended).
> 
> Imagine for a quick example:
> 
> ...


Yes, in simple sentences English is still very similar to its Germanic counterparts. However, more advanced sentences are probably easier in French or Spanish, because of a more similar word order and lack of case system (which is still very much present in German).


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## kebabmonster (Jun 29, 2004)

v:zero said:


> while English to German, the translation is simply "job".


The Germans took that word from English ;-)


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## Juliebeth (Jun 22, 2006)

The English language includes words of various races, creeds and national origin. Fewer than thirty percent of the English language spring from the original Anglo-Saxons; the rest are imported. The following are a few familiar English words, along with the languages from which they descend: 

Anchovy - Basque 
Boss - Dutch 
Bungalow - Bengali 
Canoe - Haitian Creole 
Jaguar - Guarani 
Ketchup - Malay 
Kindergarten - German 
Polka - Czech 
Sauna - Finnish 
Shingle - Norwegian 
Ukulele - Hawaiian 
Zebra - Bantu


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## Askal82 (Dec 9, 2005)

Détritus said:


> To my honest opinion, the English language would sound what a French kid would say. There are a lot of monosyllabic words, French does have a lot too that's true, in very large proportion I find. I think those monosyllabic words are mostly the Germanic ones, since old Germanic languages were using very short words and simple concepts (adapted to the devellopment of their civilizations that is, for example most of the military words in French are Germanic when most of the scientific ones are Romance).
> 
> Most of the English's sounds, like in that post "very, kid, say, have, words, ones, of, etc....", do really make English sounds simplified compared to French when heard by most of us. (this sentence was no so simple to put in order and I think the wording isn't so correct).


Well I have heard from people that English is the easiest language to learn but the hardest to master. If you know what I am saying, how come average Anglophones still can not speak or write English properly (pronunciation, grammar, and spelling) despite of the native tongue (like me)? I used to pronounce margarine with a hard 'g' until I found out that it should sound 'j'. Pneumonia and Pneumatic have silent 'p's. If you don't know how to spell it, you might think it starts with N.


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## Englishman (May 3, 2003)

Juliebeth said:


> The English language includes words of various races, creeds and national origin. Fewer than thirty percent of the English language spring from the original Anglo-Saxons; the rest are imported. The following are a few familiar English words, along with the languages from which they descend:
> 
> Anchovy - Basque
> Boss - Dutch
> ...



Some of those obviously aren't gonna be anglo saxon words, how Zebras and jaguars do you see walking about?


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## Juliebeth (Jun 22, 2006)

Englishman said:


> Some of those obviously aren't gonna be anglo saxon words, how Zebras and jaguars do you see walking about?


How many zebras and jaguars do I see walking around? Not too many. But if I see them, that is what I call them.


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## Juliebeth (Jun 22, 2006)

...


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## JValjean (Oct 15, 2009)

the words liberty and freedom come to my mind.

liberty derived from French liberté and freedom (free) from German Freiheit (frei)

So it's clear that the base of the English language is Germanic but with a huge French/Latin influence.

But also German took a lot of loan words from Latin, Italian, French and Greek.

And in some cases there are German words of Latin origin while in English is used a Germanic word:

For example for window, which is a Germanic word (wind-og = eye to/of the wind)we use in German a Latin word: Fenster (italian: fenestra, french: fenêtre)


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## krispykreme22 (May 14, 2010)

English is not the only language that has borrowed a lot from Latin and the Romance languages. There are also a lot of Latin borrowings in Welsh like ciwdod "community" from Latin civitatis, Albanian like qytet "city" from civitatis also, and Basque grutz "cross" from Latin crux. There is more Latin / Romance than meets the eye in German and Russian too because Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great in the 18th century were both super admirers of the French language.


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## Tiaren (Jan 29, 2006)

Paddington said:


> What's interesting is that the English word for car is - well - car, which is very German sounding although I'm not sure what the exact origin is. The most popular German word for car, however, is "auto", which has Latin origins. :cheers:


We say Karre in German. That's a pretty degorative word for Auto though.


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## Mr Equis (Aug 15, 2007)

Küsel said:


> For centuries the lower class was speaking a germanistic language while the upper class an old French tongue. Some words mixed, others separeted til today. Some examples:
> 
> - Beaf: from Boeuf (F), Cow: from Kuh (G) - because the Germanistic lower class RAISED the animal, the upper class French ATE it.


this may support my theory that British high society is darker than the lower class, which looks more blonde :lol::lol::lol:


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## brisavoine (Mar 19, 2006)

Tiaren said:


> We say Karre in German. That's a pretty degorative word for Auto though.


Yes, but English "car" comes from French "char", more precisely from its Norman French form "car". In Norman French the "c" of Latin was kept, whereas in Parisian French the "c" became "ch", thus castle vs. château, car vs. char, cat vs. chat, candle vs. chandelle, caldron vs. chaudron, escape vs. échapper, fork vs. fourche, market vs. marché, pocket vs. poche, carry vs. charrier, and so on.

In other cases English borrowed words from Parisian French and not Norman French, so you also find the "ch" of Parisian French in English in words such as chivalry, chief, charter, choice, chimney, charm, charge, change, chair, chamber, and many more.


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

The English word for "France" is also borrowed from French. :yes:


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## 3SPIRES (Dec 14, 2006)

Küsel said:


> Beaf: from Boeuf (F), Cow: from Kuh (G) - because the Germanistic lower class RAISED the animal, the upper class French ATE it.


Steak is a Germanic word (from Old Norse) which makes your theory BS.



> So there is NO way to say that English is more latin or more german, it's the perfect mix and combination of both - historically and linguistically.


Agreed


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## Federicoft (Sep 26, 2005)

3SPIRES said:


> Agreed


Tell that to a linguist. English is a Germanic language whose vocabulary has a large proportion of word of Latin/Romance origin. Period.


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## 3SPIRES (Dec 14, 2006)

Federicoft said:


> English is a Germanic language whose vocabulary has a large proportion of word of Latin/Romance origin. Period.


I agree with this too.

I'm blatantly not a linguist but I can tell you as a native English speaker that other Germanic languages are more familiar when spoken in terms of the basic flow of the language. Where as I find Latin more familiar when reading text - for example I'm sure I would understand more French words than Dutch because of the latin influence in English, Dutch looks strange to me with all it's j's and uu's.


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## Bentag (Apr 14, 2006)

Pobbie said:


> I think the word _car_ actually comes from Welsh.




According to the spanish academy dictionary:

http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltObtenerHtml?LEMA=carro&SUPIND=1&CAREXT=10000&NEDIC=No

"Del lat. carrus, y este del galo carros"
-
From latin "carrus" and this from gaulish "carros"




Mr Equis said:


> this may support my theory that British high society is darker than the lower class, which looks more blonde :lol::lol::lol:


I've been always astonished by this fact :sly: 

The classical Englishman is man tall, thin, dark haired (moderate) but pale skin, blue eyed



















:lol:











This is probably not true at all because had been leaders blonde and robust. I have tend to interpret this situation because most leaders were from southern England, were people are darker and people say, thinner; an image repeated with sailors and shepherds from Wessex. But I live in touristic place and millions britons come here every year, usually from worker cities: many of they are blonde and if you include red blonde, probablity you have a majority; phisically robust and strong, not very different from their nordic and centraleuropean cousins.


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## Paddington (Mar 30, 2006)

Classic Englishman right here:


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## daniel84 (Apr 24, 2013)

I like Mr. Peanut, it reminds me on some old commercials on television.. Anyway, I read some posts here, and i want to say that English don't have any connection with the German language. 

I know a few words of German (I studied German in high school, but totally unsuccessfully), not like English of course, but their grammar is a bit easier then English grammar.. 

But pronunciation of German words is totally other story, they words are very difficult to pronounce because they have complex word with 25-30 or more letters..


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## ArtZ (Feb 17, 2006)

If we think on roots of English language, is worth to notice that English has many similarities among words abt relatives. For example:

Brother - Bruder
Mother - Mutter
Son - Sohn
Daughter - Tochter
etc.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Of course it is a Germanic language, it's grammar is unarguably Germanic, it just received a heavy Romance influence from French, but also from Old Norse.. while lexicon is always prone to enrichment or changes, grammar generally is not influenced by languages of other families so simply (it can change by itself mostly), which is the real core of the language, and despite the fact English went to lot of phonetic changes and grammar simplifications (the one who changed the most in its family), things like its phonology system and intonation are quite similar to the ones found in other Germanic languages (like Dutch or Frisian)


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

Matthieu said:


> That is highly debatable, only a very small part of the French vocabulary is indeed Celtic in origin. The grammar has nothing in common either and the spelling is also totaly distinct.


But phonology and susbstratum is very Celtic, and it is Celtic even in Northern Italy where some of the phonology of Northern italian dialects resembles pretty much French; Celtic tribes inhabited those areas until they were Latinised.. Germanic influence is in the lexicon, but not on the substratum (phonology mostly)


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## Yellow Fever (Jan 3, 2008)

sounds like german to me.


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## ArtZ (Feb 17, 2006)

Yellow Fever said:


> sounds like german to me.


In my opinion, the language that sounds most similar to English is Danish.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

ArtZ said:


> In my opinion, the language that sounds most similar to English is Danish.


Danish has just some characteristics in common with English, like vocalisation of postvocalic R (in British), the pronunciation of the "t, d" and a few others, but it's still too distant when other parts of its phonologies are concerned (although the grammars are both rather simple), also, it's not part of the same group (Danish = North Germanic, English = West Germanic); I would say that sounds-wise Dutch (excluding the "throaty G and R") is more similar, as Frisian and Low Saxon are as well, but it's just the sound, as English has changed considerably grammar-wise and lexically-wise


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## askar9992 (Dec 23, 2012)

Low german is much more similar to english language than standart "hoch deutsch".

Low german is spoken in Northern Germany, from where Saxons came to Britain.


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## AmoreUrbs (Mar 6, 2013)

askar9992 said:


> Low german is much more similar to english language than standart "hoch deutsch".
> 
> Low german is spoken in Northern Germany, from where Saxons came to Britain.


Agreed ; it's even more similar than Dutch to English is.. however Frisian (esp. West Frisian) is the most similar to English, and belongs to the same subgroup English belongs


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