German and English both belong to the Germanic language family and have a shared history. This means that there are many “cognates” (words that are historically related and therefore similar). These are often easy to guess for English speakers, particularly once you are familiar with some of the patterns.
However, my experience of teaching German at British universities has shown me that German is much more accessible to English speakers than some might think.
The Frisian languages are the closest living language group to the Anglic languages; the two groups make up the Anglo-Frisian languages group and together with the Low German dialects these form the North Sea Germanic languages.
Has anyone really learned Frisian because it was the closest to english?
Not exactly what you’re asking for, but actor/comedian Eddie Izzard, who had studied Old English, decided to find out whether Old English and Frisian were as close as linguists said they were. He went to an area where Frisian was spoken and tried to negotiate the purchase of a brown cow, speaking Old English to a farmer who spoke only Frisian. Here’s the video; it’s pretty entertaining if you’re into languages.
as someone who only speaks German and English, this is fucking hilarious.
Frisian and Low Saxon should be practically the same to English speakers, Frisian being more closely related to English is more of a technical thing than a practical one: In practice English uses a gigantic amount of Romance words and is not mutually intelligible with either, while Low Saxon and Frisian do have a decent amount of mutual intelligibility… you can always cherrypick something mutually intelligible, of course, but knowing Low Saxon Frisian is easy to wrap your head around once you decode the accent. Difference like RP vs. Scots I’d say.
Here’s the video; it’s pretty entertaining if you’re into languages.
Bujen? I don’t speak West Frisian but dictionaries spit out keapje. Kuupe for North Frisian (mainland), in Low Saxon it’s köpen or kopen. Half of the difference there is spelling the other half the exact vowels/dipthongs. The Low Saxon ones are actually diphthongs they just get analysed as long vowels.
English does seem to drift the semantics of its Germanic roots like a motherfucker. People snicker about place names like “Quickborn” but if you weren’t English-brained it’d just mean “lively spring” to you. Speaking of fuck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages
I bet West Frisian’s easier!
EDIT:
https://old.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/6k4a5k/has_anyone_really_learned_frisian_because_it_was/djj8q0o/
Frisian and Low Saxon should be practically the same to English speakers, Frisian being more closely related to English is more of a technical thing than a practical one: In practice English uses a gigantic amount of Romance words and is not mutually intelligible with either, while Low Saxon and Frisian do have a decent amount of mutual intelligibility… you can always cherrypick something mutually intelligible, of course, but knowing Low Saxon Frisian is easy to wrap your head around once you decode the accent. Difference like RP vs. Scots I’d say.
Bujen? I don’t speak West Frisian but dictionaries spit out keapje. Kuupe for North Frisian (mainland), in Low Saxon it’s köpen or kopen. Half of the difference there is spelling the other half the exact vowels/dipthongs. The Low Saxon ones are actually diphthongs they just get analysed as long vowels.
The “buy” root seems to be extinct in all other Germanic languages, everyone uses the root for cheap, instead.
English does seem to drift the semantics of its Germanic roots like a motherfucker. People snicker about place names like “Quickborn” but if you weren’t English-brained it’d just mean “lively spring” to you. Speaking of fuck.
Thanks for that video. It was fun!