Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Using such a method, English was evaluated to have a lexical similarity of 60% with German and 27% with French. Lexical similarity can be used to evaluate the degree of genetic relationship between two languages. Percentages higher than 85% usually indicate that the two languages being compared are likely to be related dialects.
Frisian is the language most closely related to English and Scots, but after at least five hundred years of being subject to the influence of Dutch, modern Frisian in some aspects bears a greater similarity to Dutch than to English; one must also take into account the centuries-long drift of English away from Frisian.
Dutch and English are both part of the West Germanic language group and share several aspects, due to the fact that the birthplaces of both languages (Netherlands and the United Kingdom) are only separated by the North Sea. Similarities between Dutch and English are abundant, as an estimated 1% of the English words is of Dutch origin. [42]
In the Dutch Golden Age, spanning most of the 17th century, Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world, and many English words of Dutch origin concerning these areas are stemming from this period. English and Dutch rivalry at sea resulted in many Dutch naval terms in English.
Intelligibility between varieties can be asymmetric; that is, speakers of one variety may be able to better understand another than vice versa. An example of this is the case between Afrikaans and Dutch. It is generally easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch.
The Anglo-Saxon settlement in the Netherlands was a movement of continental Angles, Saxons, Franks and possibly English Anglo-Saxons into the lands formerly inhabited by the ancient Frisii, Cananefates and Batavians. [1] [2] [3] These migrations occurred after the population drop of the Frisii during the 5th century up until the 7th century.
Map of the Pre-Roman Iron Age culture(s) associated with Proto-Germanic, ca 500 BC–50 BC. The area south of Scandinavia is the Jastorf culture.. Within the Indo-European language tree, Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages, which means it shares a common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and Scandinavian languages.
English sheep, Scots sheep and West Frisian skiep, but Dutch schaap (pl. schapen), Low German Schaap, German Schaf (pl. Schafe) The grouping is usually implied as a separate branch in regards to the tree model. According to this reading, English and Frisian would have had a proximal ancestral form in common that no other attested group shares.