4 ms·
Interesting! I think Dutch (Mix between french, german and english) is even closer to English. I am not an expert, just thinking out loud. de -> the drie -
by mokkol 13y ago
Interesting! I think Dutch (Mix between french, german and english) is even closer to English. I am not an expert, just thinking out loud.
de -> the
drie -> three (ie and ee got the same pronunciation)
donder -> thunder
ding -> ding
daarvoor -> therefore
dit -> this
dat -> that
donderdag -> thursday
vader -> father
moeder -> mother
and a lot more similarities:
school -> school
week -> week
weekend -> weekend
maand -> month
vrijdag -> friday
maandag -> monday
uit -> out
goed -> good
voor -> for
je -> you
mij -> my (pronounced the same)
wij -> we
auto -> auto
wagen -> wagen
kar -> car
And the p to f (I guess also in german)
slaap -> sleep
schip -> ship
- vidarh 13y agoI mentioned the similarly of Dutch in a different reply. You'll actually also find quite a few places where Dutch is more similar to Scandinavian languages than to English as well. Norway has two official languages, for the most part my examples are from Bokmål ("book language") which basically started out as a formalisation of Danish as used in Norway. I've prepended the Norwegian: tre -> drie -> three (ie and ee got the same pronunciation) torden -> donder -> thunder ting -> ding -> ding derfor -> daarvoor -> therefore dette -> dit -> this det -> dat -> that But, we also have the term "ditt og datt" -> this and that... torsdag -> donderdag -> thursday far, but also the informal/slang "fatter" and the old-fashioned "fader" -> vader -> father mor, and the older/slang form "moder" (mødre, transliterated "moedre" is the plural form of both versions) -> moeder -> mother and a lot more similarities: skole -> school -> school uke in bokmål, but "veke" in Nynorsk (based on spoken Norwegian dialects) -> week -> week weekend (though that is a modern import from English) -> weekend -> weekend måned (maaned) -> maand -> month fredag -> vrijdag -> friday mandag -> maandag -> monday ut -> uit -> out god -> goed -> good for -> voor -> for du -> je -> you min -> mij -> my (pronounced the same) vi -> wij -> we auto -> auto -> auto vogn -> wagen -> wagen bil (we got our word from the end of automobil; English got its from old French, I assume that's where yours come from too) -> kar -> car And the p to f (I guess also in german) søvn / sove (but we also have "slappe av" -> relax, rest) -> slaap -> sleep skip -> schip -> ship
- wtbob 13y agoFriesan is even more similar: Rye bread, butter and green cheese is good English and good Friese.
- felxh 13y agoYour observations of dutch being closer to English in some way than German, is correct. However, saying that Dutch is mix between German, English and French is quite wrong (disclaimer: I am not Dutch). English, Dutch and German are all classified as western germanic languages, meaning they probably derived from a single ancestor language some time ago. Note that 'germanic' has nothing to do with German or Germany, a common misconception because the two words are similar in English. Dutch is often more similar to English because German underwent the so called high german consonant shift (essentially changing t -> s or z, p -> pf and some others I think), in which Dutch and English didn't participate. There are some words that highlight this quite nicely: english dutch german appel appel apfel plough ploeg pflug better beter besser toth tand zahn