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English is one of the West Germanic languages. To avoid confusion, dont confuse the word German with Germanic, they are 2 different things and German is just one of the Germanic languages, infact, in other languages Germany is called Deutschland, Tyskland, Alemagne etc, it is only in English they have named it "Germany".
There is of course other Germanic languages, that is Dutch, Frisian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian etc and you can find similarities with English in all of them. The English grammar and structure for example is more similar to the Scandinavian langauges (Swedish, Danish etc) than German, and the Scandinavian languages are Germanic.
There is lots of Romance influences and loan words in other Germanic languages as well except the isolated languages Icelandic and Faroese. But influences and loan words does not change the language group it belongs to. The common ancestor of all Germanic languages including English is Proto-Germanic.
The Germanic languages originated from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany, infact the major part of Germany was NOT a part of the Proto-Germanic area. It later spread across northern and western Europe and evolved into languages such as Old West Norse, Old East Norse, Old German, Old Dutch, Old Frisian, and of course, Old English, which set grounds for the modern versions of these languages. The old versions looks nothing like the modern versions, but they are the origin of it all.
The Anglo-Saxons who created the country of England and set grounds for the English language came from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany. Like other Germanic languages, there has been lots of Latin/Romance influence on the English language through the years.
I'm just wondering why you say 'Germanic' in particular when it is a mish mash of many languages? Do you know the percentage of English words that are based on 'Germanic' words compared to the percentage of English words based on 'Latin', 'French', 'Scandinavian' or any of the other influences? Of course there may be 'Germanic' words mixed in with for example the Portugese or Greek languages too, I really don't know, but am interested to find out.
I'm just wondering why you say 'Germanic' in particular when it is a mish mash of many languages? Do you know the percentage of English words that are based on 'Germanic' words compared to the percentage of English words based on 'Latin', 'French', 'Scandinavian' or any of the other influences? Of course there may be 'Germanic' words mixed in with for example the Portugese or Greek languages too, I really don't know, but am interested to find out.
Grammar and core vocabulary are Germanic, that's why it's classified as a Germanic language.
A computerized analysis of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary showed the following:
Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
Germanic languages – inherited from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, or a more recent borrowing from a Germanic language such as Old Norse; does not include Germanic words borrowed from a Romance language, i.e., coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages: 25%
I'm just wondering why you say 'Germanic' in particular when it is a mish mash of many languages? Do you know the percentage of English words that are based on 'Germanic' words compared to the percentage of English words based on 'Latin', 'French', 'Scandinavian' or any of the other influences? Of course there may be 'Germanic' words mixed in with for example the Portugese or Greek languages too, I really don't know, but am interested to find out.
It's not I who "mish mash" many languages. I am just stating basic, official facts here. There is a branch of Indo-European called Germanic, and this branch includes English, Dutch, Frisian, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese:
The most widely spoken Germanic languages are English and German, with approximately 300–400 million native English speakers[1][2] and over 100 million native German speakers.[3] They belong to the West Germanic family. The West Germanic group also includes other major languages, such as Dutch with 23 million[4] and Afrikaans with over 6 million native speakers.[5] The North Germanic languages include Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers.[6] The SIL Ethnologue lists 53 different Germanic languages.
There is 3 major branches of Indo-European languages in Europe, those are:
Germanic:
English
Dutch
Afrikaans
Frisian
German
Swedish
Danish
Norwegian
Icelandic
Faroese
Romance:
Italian
Spanish
French
Portuguese
Romanian
Catalan
Galician
Slavic:
Russian
Ukrainian
Belarusian
Polish
Sorbian
Czech
Slovakian
Serbo-Croatian (now known as Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin)
Bulgarian
Macedonian
Slovenian
Then there is also smaller branches of Indo-European like Celtic, Baltic, Hellenic (Greek) and Albanian. And also some that are not Indo-European at all, like Basque, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian.
The English language is just as Germanic as any other Germanic languages, and belongs to the West Germanic branch. English is also the largest and most widely spoken Germanic language in the world.
To deny that English is Germanic would simply be idiotic, just as ignorant as denying that German, Dutch or Swedish are Germanic, we are all part of the same branch called Germanic. English is NOT a Latin language and it is NOT a language isolate, you will find in any serious fact book that English belongs to the Germanic branch. It is not I who have made up this, it just is that way. English is Germanic just like Russian is Slavic, and like Italian is Romance.
Map of Germanic Europe:
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 11-28-2013 at 11:07 AM..
[quote=viribusunitis;32411140]To be fair, there are not many specialities in Austrian German when it comes to articles. And most of them even sound odd to me. I mean, "der Butter"? What the hell?[/quote]
To be fair, there are not many specialities in Austrian German when it comes to articles. And most of them even sound odd to me. I mean, "der Butter"? What the hell?
It is "die Butter" unless you fall into local idioms.
It is "die Butter" unless you fall into local idioms.
die Butter but das Fett lol!
Yeah what we are saying is that you can have a word like Butter or butter rather since I'm using English might as well be a small L and that word can have a different article in places like Detroit cough cough Austria
It is "die Butter" unless you fall into local idioms.
Of course it's local idiom. But it's (probably... can't find my "Österreichisches Wörterbuch") official in Southern Germany, Switzerland, Southern Tyrol and Austria. Which means that there is the possibility that about 15Mio people use "der Butter" instead of "die Butter". Well, it'd probably be more like "Geh, gib ma moi 'n Butter" at the breakfast table. Der/den would hardly ever fully be used.
That said, I'd never use "der Butter" myself. But "das Teller" is definitely a viable option for "der Teller".
Last edited by viribusunitis; 11-30-2013 at 11:35 AM..
Despite being German, I hardly understand any other Germanic languages (except for some Dutch and English of course, but who knows how much English I would understand if I had not learned English and Latin at school...) and even some other German dialects, maybe because I am never exposed to them. From other (non-Germanic) languages I know that it takes a little while to get used to a different pronunciation etc. so it gets easier after some time. Maybe if I were exposed to Swedish for a week or two, I would understand some of it.
Grammar and core vocabulary are Germanic, that's why it's classified as a Germanic language.
A computerized analysis of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary showed the following:
Langue d'oïl, including French and Old Norman: 28.3%
Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
Germanic languages – inherited from Old English, from Proto-Germanic, or a more recent borrowing from a Germanic language such as Old Norse; does not include Germanic words borrowed from a Romance language, i.e., coming from the Germanic element in French, Latin or other Romance languages: 25%
Greek: 5.32%
No etymology given: 4.03%
Derived from proper names: 3.28%
All other languages: less than 1%
Just what was needed! Interesting stats I think, it goes to show what a 'mix' English is - I imagine it would yield similar findings for many other European languages?
I know English and Swedish, and the basics how German works, so I've noticed that I can read some Dutch especially when having been exposed to that language.
Quote:
Originally Posted by easthome
Just what was needed! Interesting stats I think, it goes to show what a 'mix' English is - I imagine it would yield similar findings for many other European languages?
I don't think so. The Norman conquest of England influenced English a lot and it "wandered" away from the Old Norse languages. English is probably quite unique in Europe in this sense.
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