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Well there are no parents or children in extant languages of course, only closest common ancestors. Dutch is much more in the middle between German and English
by 4gotunameagain 4y ago
Well there are no parents or children in extant languages of course, only closest common ancestors.
Dutch is much more in the middle between German and English while those two are at the edges of west Germanic languages, hence the joke
- CRConrad 4y agoDutch is to German like Danish is to Swedish, in the sense that it's easier to understand more from reading Dutch if you're a German-speaker, or Danish if you're a Swedish-speaker, than hearing them spoken. The pronunciation of Dutch and Danish feels like "almost intelligible, except it sounds so guttural, as if they have their mouths full of gravel and porridge". The written text is the same thing as the spoken, except much clearer, because you can see the letters where you can't hear the sounds.