4 ms·

You're aware English is primarily a Germanic language, right?

• TillE 13y ago
  Not particularly relevant, partly because English has been corrupted by all sorts of influences. There's some common vocabulary, but the syntax and sound are very very different. Look at it from the other perspective: German is commonly (and IMO properly) considered a bit harder for anglophones to learn as compared to Spanish or Italian. The linguistic family is only a small piece of information, and doesn't tell the whole story.
  • asveikau 13y ago
    As far as I know the fact that "the sound is different" from most European languages is not really due to any "corruption" (like the Norman Conquest) but due to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift Quoting from the Wikipedia article linked above: > Vowels of Middle English had "continental" values much like those remaining in Spanish and liturgical Latin. However, during the Great Vowel Shift, the two highest long vowels became diphthongs, and the other five underwent an increase in tongue height. As for syntax I've always heard and read that it sounds very natural to speakers of Germanic languages.
• willvarfar 13y ago
  I was recently listening to some real Saxon from the dark ages and was struck by how, knowing modern Swedish and English, I could sort of understand it. The big thing about modern German is the word order, which is what makes machine translation so daunting iirc some Google presentations on the subject.