# English, a Germanic language??



## nmgadb

I know that english and german share the same roots, but since the main foreign language that I have to associate with english is spanish I sometimes forget that english is germanic.  To me there are so many words and phrases that correlate between english and spanish.  In fact I'm sure we could write for days about how all languages correlate to an extent, but I guess the point of this post is to see if anyone has a link to a site that perhaps has a list of cognates between german and english?  Thanks!
-Nathan
P.S.  Is there a german equivalent to my name?


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## gaer

nmgadb said:
			
		

> I know that english and german share the same roots, but since the main foreign language that I have to associate with english is spanish I sometimes forget that english is germanic. To me there are so many words and phrases that correlate between english and spanish. In fact I'm sure we could write for days about how all languages correlate to an extent, but I guess the point of this post is to see if anyone has a link to a site that perhaps has a list of cognates between german and english? Thanks!
> -Nathan
> P.S. Is there a german equivalent to my name?


Perhaps Nathaniel. It would be rare, I think. And the pronunciation would be different. I'm answering because there are no one German speakers around to give you a better answer. 

Gaer


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## Ralf

Hi Nathan,

Sorry I can't think of anything clever to add to the original point of your thread. So please let me give a few words on your BTW:





			
				nmgadb said:
			
		

> ... Is there a german equivalent to my name?


Nathan is the shortened form of Nathanael. It is of hebrew origin and means as much as 'God's Gift'. Although you will surely find some hundred males of the Name Nathan in German speaking countries I think the closest German equivalent is Jonathan (hebrew: given by God). Another typical German name is Johannes (hebrew: God's Mercy), which could have been derived from Jonathan considering 'mercy' to be one of God's Gifts. Short forms of Johannes are Johann, Hannes, Hans or Johanna (feminine) and can be found in English language either. Just think about the name 'John'.

The hebrew origin of all of the names mentioned above is obvious. However, there is a number of names translated to German, but not inevitably related literally to Nathan (God's Gift):
Gottfried = God's pease
Gotthard/Gotthart = God's boldness/hardihood
Gottwin = God's friend

But I'm afraid this could be an interesting topic for the cultural issues forum: equivalent names in different languages.

Ralf


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## Lora

Well I think German is the only language which uses capitalisation on all nouns - this was once a feature of English - it faded out in Early Modern English I think. I don't think that this was a feature of any other languages - though I could very easily be wrong on that.


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## Whodunit

Look at this.


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## nmgadb

The reason I asked about my name is because gaer responded to a post of mine in another thread, and addressed me as Nath.  I've been called Nathan, Nate, Nathaniel, Natron, and Nat.  And sometimes I sign my posts as N8 (nate), but never have I been called Nath.  So, it made me wonder if Nath was maybe the German equivalent of Nathan.  

Ralf, I had forgotten about the hebrew origin of my name.  And I'd never thought about my name and John being the same (from the same origin).  Anyway, I guess it seems that I'm out of luck, and that my name is pretty much an american-only name.
-Nathan


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## Artrella

Hi Nathan!! Here you have some information about   English Language 

Bye!


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## Outsider

nmgadb said:
			
		

> I know that english and german share the same roots, but since the main foreign language that I have to associate with english is spanish I sometimes forget that english is germanic.  To me there are so many words and phrases that correlate between english and spanish.


There are real similarities between Spanish and English, because both are Indo-European languages.
However, most of the similarities you have noticed between them are probably misleading. All European languages, regardless of their origin, have borrowed heavily from Latin and Greek in recent centuries for technical and erudite terms (and from each other, as well), and that can make them look deceptively alike. But those are just superficial similarities, due to very recent loans with common origins.



			
				nmgadb said:
			
		

> In fact I'm sure we could write for days about how all languages correlate to an extent, but I guess the point of this post is to see if anyone has a link to a site that perhaps has a list of cognates between german and english?  Thanks!


See the tables of cognates here and here, for the kind of similarities that have true linguistic significance.


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## alc112

Look atthis page:
http://german.about.com/library/verbs/blverb_index.htm
My Lehrerin was astonished in the verbs, she could realize the meanings in engolish (She doesn''t know english)


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## gaer

nmgadb said:
			
		

> The reason I asked about my name is because gaer responded to a post of mine in another thread, and addressed me as Nath. I've been called Nathan, Nate, Nathaniel, Natron, and Nat. And sometimes I sign my posts as N8 (nate), but never have I been called Nath. So, it made me wonder if Nath was maybe the German equivalent of Nathan.
> 
> Ralf, I had forgotten about the hebrew origin of my name. And I'd never thought about my name and John being the same (from the same origin). Anyway, I guess it seems that I'm out of luck, and that my name is pretty much an american-only name.
> -Nathan


"Nath" was a typo, Nathan. I don't ever shorten a name unless I ask first. My fingers have a mind of their own and often type total garbage.

If I had seen the mistake, I would have edited it. Sorry!

Gaer


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## gaer

Ralf said:
			
		

> Hi Nathan,
> 
> Sorry I can't think of anything clever to add to the original point of your thread. So please let me give a few words on your BTW:
> 
> What do you mean by "your BTW". I think you were speed-typing and thinking two things at the same time.
> […]
> Nathan is the shortened form of Nathanael.
> […]
> But I'm afraid this could be an interesting topic for the cultural issues forum: equivalent names in different languages.


Please don't suggest that we move one of the few topics we have here to another forum!  

I didn't know about the German spelling "Nathanael". Now I'm wondering about pronuncation.

Apparently this question started because of my stupid fingers, which left out the last two letters of Nathan's name. 

Gaer


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## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> There are real similarities between Spanish and English, because both are Indo-European languages.
> However, most of the similarities you have noticed between them are probably misleading. All European languages, regardless of their origin, have borrowed heavily from Latin and Greek in recent centuries for technical and erudite terms (and from each other, as well), and that can make them look deceptively alike. But those are just superficial similarities, due to very recent loans with common origins.
> 
> 
> See the tables of cognates here and here, for the kind of similarities that have true linguistic significance.


For me, the real connection, useful connect, between English and German is structure. Although German word order makes it hard to see, I find German much closer to English than either French or Spanish, for instance.

I also see huge similarities between Spanish and French. This is based on very superficial knowledge combined with personal experience, so I am making no claims of being right about this. 

Gaer


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## Outsider

gaer said:
			
		

> For me, the real connection, useful connect, between English and German is structure. Although German word order makes it hard to see, I find German much closer to English than either French or Spanish, for instance.


But what do you mean by structure, exactly? If it's not word order, what would you say it is?


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## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> But what do you mean by structure, exactly? If it's not word order, what would you say it is?


Things like modal verbs and auxiliary verbs, for instance. I'm very tired and would like to come back to this, but think of how future is formed in Spanish and French by adding and ending to verbs, while German uses "werden", which works like "will".

My explanation is TERRIBLE. I would have to give it a great deal of thought, but I was struck after struggling with Japanese for more than five years that suddenly German looked like slightly exotic English. I'm also very close to German, which gives me a bias. If you are interested, I'll try to come up with more examples, and you are free (of course) to point out if I'm wrong.

The difference in word order is deceiving. Because most of it takes place in dependent clauses and involved verbs moving to the end, German appears much more different from English than it actually is. Could we continue this later? I would enjoy it!

Gaer


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## Outsider

O.K. I'd like that.


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## Artrella

I found similarities between German and English as far as words and some pronunciations are concerned.

But its Grammar is to me, more similar to the Spanish one than to the English one.  I find a lot more Latin in German than in English.


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## gaer

Artrella said:
			
		

> I found similarities between German and English as far as words and some pronunciations are concerned.
> 
> But its Grammar is to me, more similar to the Spanish one than to the English one. I find a lot more Latin in German than in English.


 
Art, I can look for examples in the book I've been working with, Le Petit Prince. It is the only book I found on line in al four languages: Geramn, English, Spanish and French. But if I pick lines that seem to show German is closer to English than Spanish, it MAY be an error. First, I may pick examples, subconciously, that tend to "prove my point".

In addition, is it possible we see the strongest connections between the languages we know best? Your strongest language is Spanish. So if you are comparing German to English and Spanish, wouldn't it be natural to see more connections with your first language and German?

For the same reason, I suspect I would tend to think Spanish is closer to English than to French, and closer to German than French. (But this is not so! I am thinking out loud, and as I consider what I just said, that has not been my impression.) Well, let me see if I can find a couple examples in four languages. 

Gaer


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## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> O.K. I'd like that.


Outside, if you'll skim what I just wrote to Art, you have my best idea at the moment. I'll try to find things. I myself don't know what results there will be, or what conclusions we might draw. 

Gaer


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## Artrella

gaer said:
			
		

> Art, I can look for examples in the book I've been working with, Le Petit Prince. It is the only book I found on line in al four languages: Geramn, English, Spanish and French. But if I pick lines that seem to show German is closer to English than Spanish, it MAY be an error. First, I may pick examples, subconciously, that tend to "prove my point".
> 
> Gaer




Yes, it is possible that we tend to do that.
But take this facts into account:

1) Several cases (nominativ-akkusativ-genitiv-dativ) >>> in English this differences are not morphologically marked (i.e.there's no difference in the way you write words).  But they are in Spanish.

For instance, you have in German dich, dir.  In Spanish you have ti, te.  In English you only have "you"

*I * give *you* a book / this book is for *you*
*Te* doy un libro a *tí.*

Ich gebe *dir* ein Buch.

Diese Buch ist für* dich*


2) Gender and number in definite and non definite articles, possessive pronouns and adjectives.  They are differentiated in German and in Spanish.  Not in English.

eg,

*My * book/books/mother/father/siblings
*The * book/books/mother/father/siblings
*A * car/woman
*Some* cars/women

Mein Buch - mein*e* Bücher - meine Mutter- mein Vater - meine Geschwister 
*das* Buch - *die* Bücher- die Mutter - *der* Vater -*die * Geschwister
Ein Mann - ein*e* Frau - ein Auto 
einige Autos -einige Frauen

Mi libro-Mi*s* libros- Mi madre- mi padre- mis hermanos
*el * libro- *los* libros-*la * madre-el padre-los hermanos
*un * hombre-*una* mujer-un auto-
Algun*o*s autos- Algun*a*s mujeres

3) Many tenses that don't appear in English and that appear in Spanish

*>>>* Präsens  
Indikativ Konjunktiv  
ich  dusche / ich  dusche  

*>>>* Präteritum  
Indikativ Konjunktiv II 
ich  duschte / ich  duschte  

*>>> *  Perfekt 
Indikativ Konjunktiv I 
ich habe  geduscht  /ich  habe  geduscht  

*>>> * Plusquamperfekt 
Indikativ Konjunktiv II 
ich  hatte  geduscht  ich  hätte  geduscht  

*>>> *  Imperativ

*>>>*  Futur I 
Indikativ Konjunktiv I Konjunktiv II 
ich  werde  duschen/  ich  werde  duschen / ich  würde   duschen  

*>>> *  Futur II 
Indikativ Konjunktiv I Konjunktiv II 
ich  werde  geduscht haben / ich  werde  geduscht haben / ich  würde   geduscht haben  

In Spanish    conjugations 


So far, and since I have just started learning German, these are the facts that make me think that German has more similarities with Spanish than with English, at least in Grammar.


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## alc112

Artrella said:
			
		

> *I *give *you* a book / this book is for *you*
> *Te* doy un libro a *tí.*
> 
> Ich gebe *dir* ein Buch.
> 
> Diese Buch ist für* dich*


 
Me confunde un poco la oración en alemán
Hasta lo que sé, Sein es el unico verbo que usa nominativo, los demás no lo usan (o creo que haben por ahi se lo usa)
¿Por qué usas acusativo si está Sein?
Acaso las preposiciones les ganan a los verbos?

the german sentence confuses me a bit.
As far as i know, Sein is the only one verb that use nomminativ, the rest don't (or i think haben use it too)
why do you use akusativ if Sein is the sentence?
Do the prepositions win against verbs?

Gracias
Feel free to correct my translation


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## Artrella

> *alc112*
> Me confunde un poco la oración en alemán
> Hasta lo que sé, Sein es el unico verbo que usa nominativo, los demás no lo usan (o creo que haben por ahi se lo usa)
> ¿Por qué usas acusativo si está Sein?
> Acaso las preposiciones les ganan a los verbos?


*SIIIII*  No en todos los casos pero en el caso de * für-durch-gegen-ohne* IMMER AKKUSATIV
These prepositions *always* take DATIV >> *mit-zu-bei-seit-nach-aus-von*


> the German sentence confuses me a bit.
> As far as i know, Sein is the only one verb that useS nomminativ, the rest don't (or i think haben useS it too)
> why do you use akKusativ if YOU ARE USING Sein in the sentence?
> Do the prepositions win against   verbs?


  I'm not sure if it is *win against * or *over* >>  Maybe *Gaer* can help us

 

Gracias
Feel free to correct my translation[/QUOTE]


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## alc112

Gracias Art. !!!!
Algunos ejemplos?


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## gaer

Art, for simplicity, your comments in blue, with italics:

_But take these facts into account:_

_1) Several cases (nominativ-akkusativ-genitiv-dativ) >>> in English this differences are not morphologically marked (i.e.there's no difference in the way you write words). But there are in Spanish. (Or they are marked......... in Spanish.)_

_For instance, you have in German dich, dir. In Spanish you have ti, te. In English you only have "you"._

This is a good point, and this is a way German, French and Spanish are all alike, I think.

But we HAD "thou". Thou hast. The informal form has been lost or is now archaic. 

_I give you a book / this book is for you
Te doy un libro a tí._

Why this: Te doy un libro a tí.

_Ich gebe dir ein Buch._
_Dieses Buch ist für dich_

If your point is that "dir" often must be translated with "to you", I agree.

_2) Gender and number in definite and non definite articles, possessive pronouns and adjectives. They are differentiated in German and in Spanish. Not in English._

_eg,_

_My book/books/mother/father/siblings
The book/books/mother/father/siblings
A car/woman
Some cars/women_

_Mein Buch - meine Bücher - meine Mutter- mein Vater - meine Geschwister 
das Buch - die Bücher- die Mutter - der Vater -die Geschwister
Ein Mann - eine Frau - ein Auto 
einige Autos -einige Frauen_

_Mi libro-Mis libros- Mi madre- mi padre- mis hermanos
el libro- los libros-la madre-el padre-los hermanos
un hombre-una mujer-un auto-
Algunos autos- Algunas mujeres_

Okay. Here I totally agree with you. In fact, in this area, German was very useful to help me understand Spanish and French. English is all but useless here. So I agree.

_3) Many tenses that don't appear in English and that appear in Spanish._

Here I want to point out that everything you mention has to do with subjuntive. Most subjunctive forms do not exist in English. The exist in Spanish, French and German. Again, I agree with you.

_ich hatte geduscht ich hätte geduscht_ 

HERE we have something you may not know about. In the dependent clause, we can do ths same thing in English, but not in the next part…

Hätte ich das getan, dann hätte ich…
Had I done that, then I would have…

_So far, and since I have just started learning German, these are the facts that make me think that German has more similarities with Spanish than with English, at least in Grammar._

I agree with you. The subjunctive forms are less complicated than they appear though, in German. As you learn more, I'll explain why. Most of the subjuntive forms that are used are very similar to English. The exception—and this is HUGE—is what might be called the "present tense subjunctive", which is so often used in reporting.

Art, you have raised SO many points here. A BOOK could be written about what you just mentioned. I totally agree with you, but I have another view. It does not contradict anything you said, it just highlights different parts of German. I'll try very hard to illustrate, if I can!

Gaer


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## alc112

Te doy un libro a tí
"A tí" can be taken out. she put the whole sentence. You wouldn't listen to a spanish speaker saying "te doy el libro a tí" if he/she is talking with you only. He/ she would say A tí when there are more than 1 person with her/his.


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## alc112

Tell us about the question
"do prepositions win against verbs?"
Is the questioon correct? (just hte question, Art. has already answered it)
Thanks


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## gaer

alc112 said:
			
		

> Te doy un libro a tí
> "A tí" can be taken out. she put the whole sentence. You wouldn't listen to a spanish speaker saying "te doy el libro a tí" if he/she is talking with you only. He/ she would say A tí when there are more than 1 person with her/his.


 
Well, I'm confused. I understand VERY little Spanish!

Gaer


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## gaer

alc112 said:
			
		

> Tell us about the question
> "do prepositions win against verbs?"
> Is the questioon correct? (just hte question, Art. has already answered it)
> Thanks


Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking if prepositions are more like English?

Gaer


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## alc112

gaer said:
			
		

> Hmm. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you asking if prepositions are more like English?
> 
> Gaer


Hi!
No.
don't worry i have asked in GV forum

I meant:
Prepositions Vs verbs   Who wins?
What do you think I should have put, against, over or versus in my question?


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## gaer

alc112 said:
			
		

> Hi!
> No.
> don't worry i have asked in GV forum
> 
> I meant:
> Prepositions Vs verbs Who wins?
> What do you think I should have put, against, over or versus in my question?


 
Prepositions vs. verbs. WHICH ones win?

This is ONE solution. 

Gaer


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## alc112

gaer said:
			
		

> Prepositions vs. verbs. WHICH ones win?
> 
> This is ONE solution.
> 
> Gaer


 
Thanks gaer, i didn't realize

you're misunderstanding me I meant
Do prepositions win __________ verbs?
What preposition would you use in the question above?


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## gaer

alc112 said:
			
		

> Thanks gaer, i didn't realize
> 
> you're misunderstanding me I meant
> Do prepositions win __________ verbs?
> What preposition would you use in the question above?


 
Okay. There I think you could say:

Do prepositions win over verbs? But there there is a potential problem:

"Win over" is an idiom, and it means "convince".

TO EVERYONE:

After looking at some setences in four languages, I am totally mixed up. It still appears to me that French and Spanish are very similar. English seems very different from both. And German I absolutely can NOT judge, because it is so natural to me, it just seems right. 

For tonight I give up. Maybe tomorrow…

Gaer


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## nmgadb

Wow, this thread has traveled far.  That'll teach me to spend all day making an intake manifold, now I have to stay up late to read all of the responses.  For me, the main purpose in starting this thread was to find some of the connections between german and english.  I think we could talk forever about how each language relates to another, or a group of languages.  Next I'll need help learning how to pronounce the words I'm learning...I'll probably just listen to music to help with that.  Well, I think I'm rambling now so good night.
-Nath


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## Outsider

gaer said:
			
		

> I give you a book / this book is for you
> Te doy un libro a tí.
> 
> Why this: Te doy un libro a tí.


The sentence _Te doy un libro *a tí*_ emphasises the receiver of the book, _tú_, by repeating the personal pronoun.

As alc112 says, the second pronoun phrase, _a tí_, can be omitted.

This can be done in French, too, by the way: "Je te donne le livre *à toi*". But not in English, as far as I m aware.


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## Outsider

Artrella said:
			
		

> But take this facts into account:
> 
> 1) Several cases (nominativ-akkusativ-genitiv-dativ) >>> in English this differences are not morphologically marked (i.e.there's no difference in the way you write words).  But they are in Spanish.


  Traditional grammars do not describe Spanish as a language with cases, either. 
But let's look at your examples...



			
				Artrella said:
			
		

> For instance, you have in German dich, dir.  In Spanish you have ti, te.  In English you only have "you"
> 
> *I * give *you* a book / this book is for *you*
> *Te* doy un libro a *tí.*
> 
> Ich gebe *dir* ein Buch.
> 
> Diese Buch ist für* dich*


That's correct, as far as it goes, but now consider "he" instead of "you". You also say "I give *him* a book" in English, not "I give he a book".

So, you see, personal pronouns can change in English, too. 



			
				Artrella said:
			
		

> 2) Gender and number in definite and non definite articles, possessive pronouns and adjectives.  They are differentiated in German and in Spanish.  Not in English.
> eg,
> 
> *My * book/books/mother/father/siblings
> *The * book/books/mother/father/siblings
> *A * car/woman
> *Some* cars/women
> 
> Mein Buch - mein*e* Bücher - meine Mutter- mein Vater - meine Geschwister
> *das* Buch - *die* Bücher- die Mutter - *der* Vater -*die * Geschwister
> Ein Mann - ein*e* Frau - ein Auto
> einige Autos -einige Frauen
> 
> Mi libro-Mi*s* libros- Mi madre- mi padre- mis hermanos
> *el * libro- *los* libros-*la * madre-el padre-los hermanos
> *un * hombre-*una* mujer-un auto-
> Algun*o*s autos- Algun*a*s mujeres


This much is true. However, ancient English had these kinds of declensions as well. They have been simplified and lost.



			
				Artrella said:
			
		

> 3) Many tenses that don't appear in English and that appear in Spanish
> 
> *>>>* Präsens
> Indikativ Konjunktiv
> ich  dusche / ich  dusche


Technically, English has a present subjunctive as well, although it tends not to be used in informal speech, and (again, because of simplifications occurred throughout the history of English) it does not vary much with respect to the indicative present tense:

he showers / (that) he *shower* 



			
				Artrella said:
			
		

> *>>>* Präteritum
> Indikativ Konjunktiv II
> ich  duschte / ich  duschte


I was / (if) I were 

Simplifications have made it indistinguishable from the indicative in other English verbs, but you can still tell the difference in the irregular verb "to be". 



			
				Artrella said:
			
		

> *>>>*  Futur I
> Indikativ Konjunktiv I Konjunktiv II
> ich  werde  duschen/  ich  werde  duschen / ich  würde   duschen
> 
> *>>> *  Futur II
> Indikativ Konjunktiv I Konjunktiv II
> ich  werde  geduscht haben / ich  werde  geduscht haben / ich  würde   geduscht haben


Notice, however, that the future is a simple tense in Spanish, but a compound (auxiliary verb + main verb) in both English and German.  



			
				Artrella said:
			
		

> So far, and since I have just started learning German, these are the facts that make me think that German has more similarities with Spanish than with English, at least in Grammar.


The complexity of German verb conjugation resembles that of Spanish more than the extremely simple verb conjugation of English, that's true. On the other hand, you will find precious few (if any) Indo-European languages with a verb conjugation as simple as English.


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## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> The sentence _Te doy un libro *a tí*_ emphasises the receiver of the book, _tú_, by repeating the personal pronoun.
> 
> As alc112 says, the second pronoun phrase, _a tí_, can be omitted.
> 
> This can be done in French, too, by the way: "Je te donne le livre *à toi*". But not in English, as far as I m aware.


Okay. Each language has a kind of "useful redundancy". Although most of the time, repeating something is not necessary, it adds emphasis or color to what we say.

I also can't think of an example where the kind of thing you just mentioned is done in German.

Thanks for the explanation!

Gaer


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## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> Traditional grammars do not describe Spanish as a language with cases, either.
> But let's look at your examples...
> 
> 
> That's correct, as far as it goes, but now consider "he" instead of "you". You also say "I give *him* a book" in English, not "I give he a book".
> 
> So, you see, personal pronouns can change in English, too.
> 
> 
> This much is true. However, ancient English had these kinds of declensions as well. They have been simplified and lost.
> 
> 
> Technically, English has a present subjunctive as well, although it tends not to be used in informal speech, and (again, because of simplifications occurred throughout the history of English) it does not vary much with respect to the indicative present tense:
> 
> he showers / (that) he *shower*
> 
> 
> I was / (if) I were
> 
> Simplifications have made it indistinguishable from the indicative in other English verbs, but you can still tell the difference in the irregular verb "to be".
> 
> 
> Notice, however, that the future is a simple tense in Spanish, but a compound (auxiliary verb + main verb) in both English and German.
> 
> 
> The complexity of German verb conjugation resembles that of Spanish more than the extremely simple verb conjugation of English, that's true. On the other hand, you will find precious few (if any) Indo-European languages with a verb conjugation as simple as English.


Outside, I am aware of the things you mentioned, but they get so complicated!

On a simpler and more useful note, I have found German to be much more useful than English in helping me understand how French and Spanish work.

And yet German still feels more like English to me than these other languages, and right now I'm trying to figure out why. Perhaps, among other things, it's because there are so many idioms that English and German share, and I'm not sure that is true of English and French, or English and Spanish.

It's SO confusing!

Gaer


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## Outsider

Maybe it comes down to the fact that English is a somewhat exceptional language among Indo-European languages, in that its inflection and its conjugation have been drastically reduced. However, that did not change the core vocabulary or other aspects of grammar.

Think of Latin and Romance languages. People have told me that Latin is like German, because both have declensions, while most Romance languages have not. Yet, it's quite clear that Latin is closer to any Romance language than German.


----------



## beigatti

Es ist fast einen Monat her seit dem ich irgendetwas geschrieben habe.  

English and German are very similar in many ways.  If I were to dust off my old linguistic books and my mittlehochdeutsch textbooks from 1,000 years ago, I could tell you what happened during the first Lautverschiebung and the second.  I can remember a few things:

Just looking at consonants:

From German to English, "T" became "D"
Be*tt* ---> Be*d*
*T*ür ---> *D*oor
Lau*t* ---> lou*d*

"Pf" or "f" became "P"

*Pf*e*ff*er ---> *p*e*pp*er
Lau*f* --->  lo*p*e
*Pf*ei*f*e ---> *p*i*p*e

"cht" became "ght"

acht ---> eight
fracht ---> freight
macht ---> might

I find it fascinating.

Jo-Ann


----------



## gaer

Outsider said:
			
		

> Maybe it comes down to the fact that English is a somewhat exceptional language among Indo-European languages, in that its inflection and its conjugation have been drastically reduced. However, that did not change the core vocabulary or other aspects of grammar.
> 
> Think of Latin and Romance languages. People have told me that Latin is like German, because both have declensions, while most Romance languages have not. Yet, it's quite clear that Latin is closer to any Romance language than German.


Man, I don't even know what "declension" means. In addition, Latin was not taught in school here. I've mentioned elsewhere that that teaching of languages that HAVE been taught in this area of the US has been pathetic.. But I'll tell you one thing that fascinates me, and that is that languages work just fine without things that other languages consider essential. Consider Japanese, which has no plurals, no articles has no conjugations in the manner of European languages.

Where I see a striking relationship between German and English is certain verbs froms, such as trink-, trank, getrunken. Sitzen/setzen follow the same pattern as sit/sit, and liegen/legen likewise. Unfortunately, I used to know much more about these things, because I NEEDED to know them to figure out what I was reading in German. Once I began reading fluently, I forgot all the rules that I once needed and started going on autopilot. 

Gaer


----------



## gaer

beigatti said:
			
		

> Es ist fast einen Monat her seit dem ich irgendetwas geschrieben habe.
> 
> English and German are very similar in many ways. If I were to dust off my old linguistic books and my mittlehochdeutsch textbooks from 1,000 years ago, I could tell you what happened during the first Lautverschiebung and the second. I can remember a few things:
> 
> Just looking at consonants:
> 
> From German to English, "T" became "D"
> Be*tt* ---> Be*d*
> *T*ür ---> *D*oor
> Lau*t* ---> lou*d*
> 
> "Pf" or "f" became "P"
> 
> *Pf*e*ff*er ---> *p*e*pp*er
> Lau*f* ---> lo*p*e
> *Pf*ei*f*e ---> *p*i*p*e
> 
> "cht" became "ght"
> 
> acht ---> eight
> fracht ---> freight
> macht ---> might
> 
> I find it fascinating.
> 
> Jo-Ann


Jo-Ann,

You just made it clear what I sense, subconsciously. More please, if you have the info!

Gaer


----------



## Whodunit

beigatti said:
			
		

> "cht" became "ght"
> 
> acht ---> eight
> fracht ---> freight
> macht ---> might
> 
> I find it fascinating.
> 
> Jo-Ann



Hallo erst einmal Jo-Ann,

es ist schön, mal wieder etwas von dir zu hören.

But what about
Yacht ---> yacht ???


----------



## beigatti

Yacht ist ein relativ neues Wort.  


Die erste Lautverschiebung entstand 1000 v.Chr bis ungefaer 300 v.Chr.

Die zweite Lautverschiebung war spaeter...um 500 n Chr.


Jo-Ann


----------



## Whodunit

beigatti said:
			
		

> Yacht ist ein relativ neues Wort.
> 
> 
> Die erste Lautverschiebung entstand 1000 v.Chr bis ungefaer 300 v.Chr.
> 
> Die zweite Lautverschiebung war spaeter...um 500 n Chr.
> 
> 
> Jo-Ann



Okay, da muss ich zugeben, zu diesen Zeiten gab es noch keine "Jacht".


----------



## Outsider

gaer said:
			
		

> Jo-Ann,
> 
> You just made it clear what I sense, subconsciously. More please, if you have the info!
> 
> [...]
> 
> Where I see a striking relationship between German and English is certain verbs froms, such as trink-, trank, getrunken. Sitzen/setzen follow the same pattern as sit/sit, and liegen/legen likewise.


That's the famous consonant shift of High German.
 German-English cognate sound shifts.
 English and German



			
				gaer said:
			
		

> Man, I don't even know what "declension" means. In addition, Latin was not taught in school here. I've mentioned elsewhere that that teaching of languages that HAVE been taught in this area of the US has been pathetic..


Declension (or inflection) is when a word changes according to its syntactic function in a sentence. For instance, in English, the pronoun "he" is used as a subject, but it changes to "him" when it's an object, "his" when it's a possessive, and "himself" when it's a reflexive pronoun (both subject and object). This is analogous to verb conjugation, whereby a verb changes according to its subject.

But in contemporary English this is limited to a small number of pronouns, so you don't need to think in terms of the general concept of declension to learn them. In Latin, all nouns and adjectives change according to their syntactic function; declension is an essential feature of the language. Most Romance languages have about as little declension as English, but German still has some declensions, from what I understand.



			
				gaer said:
			
		

> But I'll tell you one thing that fascinates me, and that is that languages work just fine without things that other languages consider essential. Consider Japanese, which has no plurals, no articles has no conjugations in the manner of European languages.


On the other hand, Japanese has a large number of honorific forms of addressing, without any match in European languages... 
 Japanese honorifics.


----------



## Artrella

[URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages]  [URL=http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/oe/oe-ie.html]  indo european languages 3 sites    [/URL] [/URL]


----------



## Outsider

A little about Old English. Notice how it had genders and cases (declensions)!


----------



## Artrella

Outsider said:
			
		

> A little about Old English. Notice how it had genders and cases (declensions)!




Yes!! It had declensions!! I didn't know that... Good link Outsider!  
Now we have to find the "mother language"... it seems that all languages come from the same language...this is the linguists' job...


----------



## JLanguage

English is not a very inflexional language. As I continue to learn Hebrew I find more and more evidence of inflexion's central importance in Hebrew grammar. This is especially true of Latin, everything changes based on it's position in the language. To me inflexion/lack of inflexion, is a double-edged sword while inflexion can aid comprehension, it can also lead to overly complex grammatical rules that hinder assimilation and comprehension of a language.


----------



## gaer

I now know what "declension" means, because I looked it up when I got home. And it's a great deal of what makes German so terribly difficult to write. 

I can only imagine that Latin must be a problem to write. 

By the way, the honorifics in Japanese are truly a nightmare. It's like taking the formal/informal address in European languages and making it all about 1000 times more complicated.

The only point I was trying to make is that we think we need the things that are in our own languages.

Look at these sentences:

I look for new posts each day.
I look for my book before work, but I could not find it. (It must be "looked".)
I have look everywhere for an answer to my questions. (It must be "looked".)

This looks and is illiterate, right?

But:
I set the table each day. (present)
I set the table yesterday. (past)
I have set the table every day this week. (present perfect)

Suddenly this is perfectly correct English, and we hear nothing wrong with this. ALL verbs could be like this, logically, in English. In the same way, you could remove all articles and use other clues to make the sense clear. It's simply an interesting thing to think about. What part of language do we NEED, and what part do we simply use because it is "the way it's always been". 

Gaer


----------



## lightarch

Geography may help rather than history. English is a North Sea language,  largely a language of mariners and deep sea fisher folk and trade. Romance languages are of a different sea the Mediterranean, Mare Nostum, based on the speech of soldiers rather than lawyers or churchmen, cultivated by farmers, . And of course Shakespeare.


----------



## DaleC

nmgadb said:
			
		

> I know that english and german share the same roots, but since the main foreign language that I have to associate with english is spanish I sometimes forget that english is germanic. To me there are so many words and phrases that correlate between english and spanish. In fact I'm sure we could write for days about how all languages correlate to an extent, but I guess the point of this post is to see if anyone has a link to a site that perhaps has a list of cognates between german and english? Thanks!
> -Nathan
> P.S.  Is there a german equivalent to my name?



There has to be an equivalent to the name 'Nathan' in all European languages because that name is biblical and every European language is spoken by people who are historically Christian. (The ancestors of the Bosnian Muslims and Albanian Muslims were Christians, and many of those  ancestors stayed Christian and have Christian descendants.) 

While it would be useful to have a prepared list of cognates, this is not necessary and maybe not too practical, because the list would number tens of thousands. All you need to do is read about the history of the English language in an encyclopedia or on the Web. Or get a German year one textbook and look at the vocabulary lists.


----------



## Naddel

English is derived from Westgermanic tongues which the Angels, Jutes and Saxons spoke. Westgermanic itself has its roots in the Indo-European native language. Farmers from West-Russia spoke this language and brought it to Europe about 5,000 years ago. The above-mentioned folks, who spoke Old High German and Anglo-Frisian, moved in 450 A.D. to the British Isle and drove the Celts, who spoke a Westgermanic dialect as well, to the North and East. When in 1066 William the Conqueror ascended the throne of England he brought in French as the official language. So many English words are French loan-words. 
American English in influenced by Spanish and Indian languages. But not in the syntax as far as I know but in the vocabulary.

So maybe that is a satisfying answer to the main question.

Nathan is a Hebrew name and in Germany we say Nathan as well. Maybe you know G.E. Lessings "Nathan der Weise"? 

Be blessed

P.S. a good German website dealing with the world's language is www.weikopf.de


----------



## AR Luria

Ich bin etwas spät dran für diesen Thread, aber mir ist noch etwas dazu eingefallen.

Auch wenn die englische und deutsche Sprache eng miteinander verwandt ist, bin ich immer wieder verblüfft, dass gerade im medizinischen bzw. anatomischen Bereich viele Wörter zwischen dem Englischen und Spanischen eine größere Ähnlichkeit aufweißen (und dem Lateinischen/Griechischen entstammen), als dass dies der Fall zwischen dem Englischen und Deutschen ist. 

Ich bin mir aber nicht ganz sicher, ob z.B. molar und muela eher auf die medizinische Fachsprache beschränkt ist oder auch sonst im Umgangssprachlichen verwendet wird. 
Im Deutschen sagt man jedenfalls Molar, Abdominaltrauma etc. hauptsächlich bzw. nur in der Fachsprache.

Einige Beispiele:
englisch (spanisch) - deutsch
molar (muela) – Backenzahn
abdominal trauma (trauma abdominal) – Bauchverletzung
ham (jamon) – Kniekehle / oder meint das doch eher Schinken 
inflammation (inflamación) – Entzündung
gums (gomas) von lateinisch gingiva?? - Zahnfleisch
palate (paladar) - Gaumen
auditory canal (canal auditivo) – Gehörgang
recovery (recuperación) – Genesung
ulcer (úlcera) Geschwür
irradiation (irradiación) - Bestrahlung

Ich glaube die Liste ließe sich noch ellenlang fortsetzen. Warum das so ist, weiß ich leider nicht.


----------



## badgrammar

Ich bien auch etwas spät fur diesem thread...  But I wanted to say why I think English and German are so similar.

For an English speaker with a good ear (and maybe some other languages under his/her belt) it is extremely easy to learn to speak VERY BAD German.  I began speaking it by necessity, and found that it was very simple, with the help of a dictionary, to express what I need or want in German.

I want to go home = Ich wille zu hause gehen.
I need to eat - Ich muss essen.
I need a new car = Ich brauch ein neue auto.
What are you doing?= Was machst du?
Wo sind sie? = Where are you?
Go left, then go right = Gehe linkts dann recht.
What will we do tonight? = Was machen wir heute abends?
What did he say? = Was hatte er gesagt?

These are just a few examples (probably full of errors) of how, armed with a little vocabulary (which is very often similar to English words), an English speaker can easily hijack the German language and be understood.

However, to speak proper German is another affair, one I probably will not tackle in this lifetime.

I see absolutely no similarities between French and German, except that having knowledge of French allows my mind to do more mental linguistical gymnastics... which is to say, knowledge of second and third languages allows you to imagine how the mechanics of other languages work.


----------



## übermönch

knowing german makes speaking shakespear's english much easier.


----------



## MrMagoo

beigatti said:
			
		

> Es ist fast einen Monat her seit dem ich irgendetwas geschrieben habe.
> 
> English and German are very similar in many ways. If I were to dust off my old linguistic books and my mittlehochdeutsch textbooks from 1,000 years ago, I could tell you what happened during the first Lautverschiebung and the second. I can remember a few things:
> 
> Just looking at consonants:
> 
> From German to English, "T" became "D"
> Be*tt* ---> Be*d*
> *T*ür ---> *D*oor
> Lau*t* ---> lou*d*
> 
> "Pf" or "f" became "P"
> 
> *Pf*e*ff*er ---> *p*e*pp*er
> Lau*f* ---> lo*p*e
> *Pf*ei*f*e ---> *p*i*p*e
> 
> "cht" became "ght"
> 
> acht ---> eight
> fracht ---> freight
> macht ---> might
> 
> I find it fascinating.
> 
> Jo-Ann


 

What a dusty thread, but as übermönch dug it out, I just want to add some information on what Jo-Ann wrote:

The 2nd Lautverschiebung, to which your examples "bed/Bett; door/Tür, loud/laut" and "pepper/Pfeffer, lope/Lauf, pipe/Pfeife" belong to did take place in about the 6th century ad - BUT:
It "happened" the other way around:
The English sounds are the older ones, they reflect the Germanic system of consonants while in High-German, the consonants appear shifted.

---> *p, t, k* became *ff, pf; ss, (t)z; ch, (kch)*
Ex: pepper ---> Pfeffer, pipe ---> Pfeife; water ---> Wasser, plant ---> Pflanze; make ---> machen, etc.

---> *d* became *t* (this shift however is not as regular as the above one)
Ex: door ---> Tür, garden ---> Garten, day ---> Tag, etc.



The alternation of "ght" and "cht" though has nothing to do with the 2nd consonant shift. 
Here, the old fricative sound ([x] and [c]) have been preserved in German while disappeared in English. However, "ght" was a convention of writing in English of the Middle-Ages to represent this fricative sound. So here, the writing preserved the old habit of spelling the fricative "ght" even though it disappeared in spoken language.

"eight" therefore had a fricative [x] sound actually which disappeared on its development towards modern English; the Germanic [x] sound is preserved in German "acht".
The same is true for "knight" which was pronounced [knict] in Old-English times, the fricative disappeared, but is still kept in German "Knecht" which etymologically corresponds to "knight".

All the best
-MrMagoo


----------



## Vespasian

AR Luria said:
			
		

> Ich glaube die Liste ließe sich noch ellenlang fortsetzen. Warum das so ist, weiß ich leider nicht.


Die Liste funktioniert auch mit Italienisch oder anderen romanischen Sprachen. Würde mich aber auch interessieren, wieso sich die Lateinischen/Griechischen Fachbegriffe im Deutschen viel weniger durchgesetzt haben.



> Einige Beispiele:
> englisch (spanisch) *italienisch* - deutsch
> molar (muela) *molare* – Backenzahn
> inflammation (inflamación) *infiammazione* – Entzündung
> gums (gomas) *gengiva* - Zahnfleisch
> palate (paladar) *palato* - Gaumen
> auditory canal (canal auditivo) *meato uditivo* – Gehörgang
> ulcer (úlcera) *ulcera* - Geschwür


----------



## MrMagoo

Vespasian said:
			
		

> Die Liste funktioniert auch mit Italienisch oder anderen romanischen Sprachen. Würde mich aber auch interessieren, wieso sich die Lateinischen/Griechischen Fachbegriffe im Deutschen viel weniger durchgesetzt haben.


 

All die angeführten Beispiele gibt es so oder ähnlich auch als "Fremdwörter" im Deutschen, zumindest in div. Fachsprachen.

Ein Grund warum sich die lateinischen Wörter im Deutschen nicht immer durchsetzen konnten ist die Arbeit der sog. "Sprachgesellschaften" im 17./18. Jahrhundert: Sie haben dafür gesorgt, daß dem Schwall an Fremdwörtern, der so heftig in die deutsche Sprache drang, Einhalt geboten wurde indem sie für eben diese Fremdwörter entweder passende, deutsche Wörter suchten oder eben neue deutsche Wörter durch Ableitungen etc. bildeten.

Natürlich haben sich nicht alle diese Wörter durchsetzen können, und manchmal stehen zwei Wortformen mehr oder weniger gleichbedeutend nebeneinander, z.B.:
Moment - Augenblick
Grammatik - Sprachlehre
Theater - Schau(spiel)bühne
Testament - Letzter Wille
Bibliothek - Bücherei
Nachwort - Epilog
usf.

In einigen Fällen aber ist tatsächlich nur noch oder zumindest hauptsächlich die eingedeutschte Form üblich, z.B. bei:
Jahrhundert (statt: Säculum)
Tagebuch (statt: Diarium)
und einige mehr

In anderen Fällen konnte sich aber auch die Eindeutschung nicht durchsetzen. Heute kann man mit den damaligen Verdeutschungsversuchen kaum noch etwas anfangen; einige Wörter sind recht witzig:
Fenster hätte z.B. "Tageleuchter" heißen sollen,
für Nonnenkloster erfand man "Jungfernzwinger"
und für die Nase dachte man sich "Gesichtserker" aus (wobei ich im letzten Fall nicht verstehe, was so undeutsch an "Nase" sein soll...).


Übrigens bewahrt das Englische mit seinem Wort für "Fenster" einen alten germanischen Ausdruck - _window_ bedeutet nämlich wörtlich "Windauge" (wind-ow < vind-auga). 
Dieser Ausdruck bezieht sich auf das Loch in der Wand, während "Fenster", das es als Lehnwort auch im Englischen gab, sich eher auf das Glas als Material bezieht.

Gruß
-MrMagoo


----------



## Vespasian

Danke MrMagoo. Ein hochinteressanter Beitrag!


----------



## flame

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Yacht ---> yacht ???


 
Yacht bedeutet nichts anderes als deutsch: JAGD und würde somit in das ch->g Schema passen.

Mit Yacht wurden schnelle kleine Boote bezeichnet (vornehmlich von Holländern gebaut) die vor allem zum Aufbringen von Handelsseglern eingesetzt wurden

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht


----------



## Brioche

MrMagoo said:
			
		

> Dieser Ausdruck bezieht sich auf das Loch in der Wand, während "Fenster", das es als Lehnwort auch im Englischen gab, sich eher auf das Glas als Material bezieht.
> 
> Gruß
> -MrMagoo


 
Are you sure about that? 
_Fenster_ comes from the Latin _fenestra_, which in Latin was originally a _wall opening [Loch in der Wand]_

In anatomy, fenestra retains the meaning of "opening" or "hole".


----------



## selters

Lora said:
			
		

> Well I think German is the only language which uses capitalisation on all nouns - this was once a feature of English - it faded out in Early Modern English I think. I don't think that this was a feature of any other languages - though I could very easily be wrong on that.


 
Well, that rule doesn't really have anything to do with language typology. It's just a convention invented by some academic(s) who felt it should be that way. Finnish could capitalize its nouns, but it wouldn't be any closer to English or German for that reason.


----------



## MrMagoo

Brioche said:
			
		

> Are you sure about that?
> _Fenster_ comes from the Latin _fenestra_, which in Latin was originally a _wall opening [Loch in der Wand]_
> 
> In anatomy, fenestra retains the meaning of "opening" or "hole".


 
Hmm... have I messed something up here then... I thought I read it somewhere, but maybe "fenestra" was associated with the material glass in other languages than Latin rather than "hole in the wall" and replaced "window" for that reason, as in "vind-aug", the connection to hole was obvious.


----------



## MrMagoo

selters said:
			
		

> Well, that rule doesn't really have anything to do with language typology. It's just a convention invented by some academic(s) who felt it should be that way. Finnish could capitalize its nouns, but it wouldn't be any closer to English or German for that reason.


 
Right; Jacob Grimm demanded the lower-case spelling for nouns already in the 19th century. The Capitalization was kept though - as far as I know, German is the only (at least Germanic language) by now that still capitalizes nouns; Danish, I guess, was the last language (except for German) that abolished the usage of capitals for nouns - must have been some time in the 60s.


----------



## sound shift

I haven't looked at the many links in this thread but it strikes me that there has been little discussion of stress and intonation in English. I believe these are a strong indicator of its Germanic origins.

Like German (and unlike the Romance languages) English has a heavy stress accent.

Like German and Dutch (and unlike the Romance languages, with the possible exception of European Portuguese) English is a stress-timed language.

English contains many words derived from Latin or French, but a lot of them are stressed in a Germanic way: on an earlier syllable than is the case in the Romance languages.

Changing the subject a bit, phrasal verbs are found in English, Dutch and German, but not in the Romance languages.

All the academic works I have seen call English a Germanic language.


----------



## elpoderoso

The similarities of English to Romance languages is largely due to the Norman conquest which brought Norman French words which are obviously related to the other Romance languages. Later additions to the language such as scientific terms come from Latin and Greek so they will have similarities with Romance languages, either from the original root of the word or because that language also took this scientific word at the same time. 
The basic vocabulary of both languages are very similar and I find I can understand German words and phrases far more naturally than I could with Spanish. English however is the Germanic language with the largest influence from the Romance languages, so it is not as ''Germanic'' as German or Dutch etc.


----------



## sound shift

elpoderoso said:


> The similarities of English to Romance languages is largely due to the Norman conquest which brought Norman French words which are obviously related to the other Romance languages. Later additions to the language such as scientific terms come from Latin and Greek so they will have similarities with Romance languages, either from the original root of the word or because that language also took this scientific word at the same time.
> The basic vocabulary of both languages are very similar and I find I can understand German words and phrases far more naturally than I could with Spanish. English however is the Germanic language with the largest influence from the Romance languages, so it is not as ''Germanic'' as German or Dutch etc.


Agreed, but vocabulary is only one aspect of the question. Someone, I forget who, once said that if a language is a body, vocabulary is the skin - in other words, we have to probe a lot deeper. In any case, Latin and French have made massive contributions to the vocabulary of German and Dutch.


----------



## salome1944

nmgadb said:


> I know that English and German share the same roots, but since the main foreign language that I have to associate with English is Spanish I sometimes forget that English is Germanic. To me there are so many words and phrases that correlate between English and Spanish. In fact I'm sure we could write for days about how all languages correlate to an extent, but I guess the point of this post is to see if anyone has a link to a site that perhaps has a list of cognates between German and English? Thanks!
> -Nathan


 

*[off topic remarks snipped*
*Frank, moderator EHL]*

Secondly, English and Spanish seem similar because their grammars are comparatively easy. Now Spanish is derived from Latin and you can see that there are galaxies between these two in terms of morphological complexity and stylistic means. Likewise, there are galaxies between German and English in terms of morphological complexity. English is in a way supergermanic, because more than one Germanic language influenced its development. The situation is not that unsimilar with the one in which Spanish was formed, but there is a crucial difference: Latin was acquired by populations that already spoke other languages and that simplified Latin to a point where it became Spanish, and, the Arabic occupation with its small influence aside, no other langauges subsequently influenced it. 
English by contrast was heavily Germanic into the middle ages, with Scandinavian conquerors and French conquerors adding to it and the lexical similarity you perceive comes largely from the borrowing of French words into English in that time period. 

But then, there are many languages around the world that are likewise similar as English and Spanish, so there is nothing special about this perceived similarity. and while nowadays many languages borrow from English, remember that in the middle ages English borrowed massively, heavily from French.


----------



## berndf

beigatti said:


> "cht" became "ght"
> 
> acht ---> eight
> fracht ---> freight
> macht ---> might
> 
> I find it fascinating.
> 
> Jo-Ann


This is not a sound shift. Middle English just had a different spelling than German. English _gh_ and German _ch_ are the same phoneme. In Modern English it either became mute or changed to [f] as in _laugh_. Scots has retained the sound and also spells it like German. English _bright_ is spelled in Scots _bricht_ and pronounced [brixt] or [briçt].


----------



## clevermizo

I think it is pretty well established throughout the thread that English is a Germanic language, but I thought I'd add that I really like the following test:

Can you construct a sentence in English in which every single word is of Germanic origin? If not, perhaps its relationship in the tree is more tenuous...

Fortunately, however, we can :

_I got on a ship and went across the sea._



Can you construct a sentence in English that is entirely of Romance/Latinate origin? No.


----------



## Athaulf

clevermizo said:


> Can you construct a sentence in English in which every single word is of Germanic origin? If not, perhaps its relationship in the tree is more tenuous...
> 
> Fortunately, however, we can :
> 
> _I got on a ship and went across the sea._



I must disappoint you -- "across" is a word of Norman French origin, which acquired its present abstract prepositional meaning only in the Early Modern English period. But in any case, composing purely Germanic English sentences is both easy and irrelevant for the question from the thread title. Even if English had so much borrowed vocabulary that it made such a task impossible, it would still be a Germanic language. What matters is that English has a common ancestor with other Germanic languages, not how much original Proto-Germanic vocabulary has survived in it to the present day.


----------



## berndf

Athaulf said:


> I must disappoint you -- "across" is a word of Norman French origin...


You could argue that it be not an Anglo-French word because the underlying word "cross" existed in English before 1066. But this also doesn't make a difference. Latin/Romance influence didn't start in that year. OE had already borrowed from Latin much earlier.


----------



## ericmonteux

Is *essentially* a Germanic language. 
There are a shade and you don't answer at this shade.
English is Germanic by is origin but not a Germanic language like Dutch or German. It's a mixt language. English is born by the fusion of Old English and Old French during the middle age.
English have the capacity to look like Dutch or French. Any Germanics languages have this ability. 
After that I'm agree English belong to the Germanic branch 

Say English is Germanic by origin is the reality.
Say English is essentielly Germanic is a Nationalist idea.


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## mplsray

ericmonteux said:


> .
> After that I'm agree English belong to the germanic branch
> 
> Say English is germanic by origin is the reality
> Say English is essentielly germanic is a Nationalist idea



What can your last comment possibly mean? This "Nationalist" - to what nation do you intend it to refer? Surely not Germany, since both English and German derive from Proto-Germanic--English does not derive from German. Then to what nation are you referring? The only thing I can think of is Britain or England, but that makes no more sense out of your comments than did Germany, as far as I can see.


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## Frank06

Hi,


ericmonteux said:


> Is *essentially* a Germanic language.
> There are a shade and you don't answer at this shade.
> English is Germanic by is origin but not a Germanic language like Dutch or German. It's a mixt language. English is born by the fusion of Old English and Old French during the middle age.
> English have the capacity to look like Dutch or French. Any Germanics languages have this ability.
> After that I'm agree English belong to the Germanic branch
> 
> Say English is Germanic by origin is the reality.
> Say English is essentielly Germanic is a Nationalist idea.


"Germanic" is a term which is used in *historical comparative linguistics* and it has a very specific meaning. Basically it boils down to "coming from Proto-Germanic" (*). It's a means to classify a language. Nothing more, nothing less. 
"English is a Germanic language" tells us nothing (nada, rien, noppes) about the contemporary state of English or even the specific historical developments of English.

Let's consider another example: 
"Persian is an Indo-Iranian language". 
- Does this phrase say anything about the tremendous amount of words and grammatical structures from other languages that entered Persian in the course its history? No, "IIR" refers to the ancestor language, an ancestor language which Persian shares with other languages (say Sanskrit, Hindi, Kurdish, and many, many more).
- Is it a matter of nationalism to label this languages as such? No.
- Is there a reason to call Persian a Semitic language due to the enormous amount of Arabic words? No, that's not the point of the term IIR.

So, please, don't give the terms "Germanic" and "IIR" more weight and meaning than they technically have. Please don't make an anachronism out of the the term "Germanic". Please don't overestimate the implications of calling language X Germanic and language Y Indo-Iranian. Please read a bit about historical linguistics and the problems with classification and classification terms.

Frank

(*) which in itself comes from Indo-European. Hence we call (Proto-)Germanic an Indo-European language, even tough every single linguist who had a look at Proto-Germanic _knows_ that there is a huge amount of words which cannot be derived from PIE.


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## ericmonteux

*This "Nationalist" - to what nation do you intend it to refer*.
Up to the Second World War English nationalism was built essentially on his Germanic origin (Angle, Saxon and Viking). If England dominate the world it's because English people belong to a superior race. Celt and Franco-Normand origin are generaly reduced or denied. 
Today it's actually very ridiculous to pretend to belong to a superior race eek. It 's certainly an other manner to defend a piece of this idea when someone pretend that English is a complet Germanic language like German. I find frequently this theory on internet. 

French language is compound by more 10 % of word with a Germanic language which entered in the V century in French when more 2 millions of Germanic people settled definitively in the Roman Gaule.
Nobody in France do the distinction between the words which have a Latin or a Germanic origin . If someone have had the idea to replace the word which have a Germanic origin by a word with a Latin origin, this man will be consider like a crasy man , a fool or a delirious fascist.

I do the constat it's not the same thing in England where some writers have fun to favour word with Germanic origin . I think that is very racist.

The history of language is a good means to defend some very conservatives ideas with a mask.

It's why I repeat :

Say English is Germanic by origin is the reality 
Say English is essentielly Germanic is a Nationalist idea 

Indeed when someone say English is essentially Germanic language, it's a mean to reduce Celt and Old French influence. Do you see the difference ???


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## Frank06

Hi,




ericmonteux said:


> *This "Nationalist" - to what nation do you intend it to refer*.
> Up to the Second World War English nationalism was built essentially on his Germanic origin (Angle, Saxon and Viking). If England dominate the world it's because English people belong to a superior race. Celt and Franco-Normand origin are generaly reduced or denied. Today it's actually very ridiculous to pretend to belong to a superior race eek.


Are you still talking about linguistics here?



> It 's certainly an other manner to defend a piece of this idea when someone pretend that English is a complet Germanic language like German. I find frequently this theory on internet.


I frequently find on the internet that the world is flat, that this universe was created in 6 days, and that atoms are space ships. Does this mean that these "theories" are true? Because you can find them on the internet???

Furthermore, a _five minute_ search in Google Books (keywords 'English' and 'Old French') give me following references: 
- Booth: An analytical dictionary of the English language, *1835*.
Contains innumerous references to Old French.
- Samuel Johnson: A dictionary of the English language, *1797 *(quite difficult to label this as a minor work). Idem dito.
- George William Lemon: English etymology, *1783*. Contains loads of references to Old French.
- Nathan Bailey: An universal etymological English dictionary,*1749*.

You can search any of these titles (and many more) for "Old French". I know, the keywords are too narrow, five minutes isn't very long, four titles not that much. But I hope this might serve as an _indication_ that prior to Whatever World War, English linguists were very well aware of the (Old) French influence on their language.



> French language is compound by more 10 % of word with a Germanic language which entered in the V century in French when more 2 millions of Germanic people settled definitively in the Roman Gaule.
> Nobody in France do the distinction between the words which have a Latin or a Germanic origin . If someone have had the idea to replace the word which have a Germanic origin by a word with a Latin origin, this man will be consider like a crasy man , a fool or a delirious fascist.
> I do the constat it's not the same thing in England where some writers have fun to favour word with Germanic origin . I think that is very racist.


Which writers? Examples, please.
Anyway, I am glad that we seem to agree upon the value of the efforts of the Academie Française to "protect" French against foreign loans, English or not.....



> The history of language is a good means to defend some very conservatives ideas with a mask.
> It's why I repeat :
> Say English is Germanic by origin is the reality
> Say English is essentielly Germanic is a Nationalist idea


Repetition noted. 



> Indeed when someone say English is essentially Germanic language, it's a mean to reduce Celt and Old French influence. Do you see the difference ???


Yes, I do spot a difference: We're talking linguistics here (on EHL) and you are talking something else.

Frank


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## mcc7x

Vespasian said:


> Die Liste funktioniert auch mit Italienisch oder anderen romanischen Sprachen. Würde mich aber auch interessieren, wieso sich die Lateinischen/Griechischen Fachbegriffe im Deutschen viel weniger durchgesetzt haben.



I don't speak German, but there were a couple basic similarities the compiler of this table overlooked (alongside one glaring mistake in Spanish):

Einige Beispiele:
englisch (spanisch) *italienisch* - deutsch
molar (muela) *molare* – Backenzahn   >>> or, "back tooth"
inflammation (inflamación) *infiammazione* – Entzündung
gums (encías) *gengiva* - Zahnfleisch >>> etymologically, same root as Gaumen
palate (paladar) *palato* - Gaumen
auditory canal (canal auditivo) *meato uditivo* – Gehörgang
ulcer (úlcera) *ulcera* - Geschwür                      

Best,
mcc7x


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