Whats your favorite Germanic language?

In response to Flavio, you stated that English is 60% Germanic. It's most likely the other way around. English is approximately 60% Latin, and about 40% Germanic.

Ed - it's true that words like rekenaar are the only CORRECT ones, but most definitely not the most commonly used words. I'm sure it's not like this outside urban areas, but here in Joburg, most people seem to speak a mixture of Afrikaans and English without even realising it.
In business and scientific fields, while Afrikaans has an established set of terms for field-specific words, those words seem to be readily discarded for the English ones when speaking Afrikaans.

I know English-Afrikaans language mixing is common and I've often heard people speaking English and switch to Afrikaans mid-sentence or vice versa, or speak a sentence in one language but with a word or two of the other mixed in. However, I wouldn't consider this makes the English words Afrikaans or the Afrikaans words part of South African English.

For example, where my mother used to work in a clothing factory most of the women were Afrikaans-speaking. When speaking English they'd always use the word "afsny" rather than "unpick", but I'd never consider "afsny" to be a South African English word.

I understand what you're saying, but the lines are somewhat blurred. South African English speakers use a fair number of Afrikaans words in everyday speech, most of which have now been recognised by the Oxford Dictionary of South African English, but it's very rare that we drift in and out of Afrikaans despite 12 years of studying the language at school. Afrikaans speakers are much more likely to suddenly change language completely without even noticing and much more likely to use a shorter or more precise English word than an English speaker is to use a similar Afrikaans word. My opinion is that over the past few decades English has had a massive influence on the language. Blame the late advent of television, if you will, or the much more common use of English in business since the early 90s. I'd agree, though, that English may not have been instrumental in the formation of the language.

"Ma langue germanique préférée est l'allemand. "

You like German more than English????

LAA,

I also prefer German more than English. Regardless of which one is more useful.

Why, may I ask? German is very harsh and gutteral. Try saying the number 8 in German. It sounds like someone is trying to hack some mucus up from their throat.

It of course depends on the regional accent, if a man or a woman is speaking it, etc. But I'm surprised as a Romance speaker, that you wouldn't prefer English, being that it is so much closer to Romance languages than German is.

I think English is the best, because it has the largest vocabulary with which to express yourself. It is not as harsh as other Germanic languages, and it is very versatile for transitioning between Germanic and Latin languages for any new language learner, because about half of English vocabulary is Latin in origin, in addition to its Germanic foundation.

I like German and Dutch in their own way. Scandanvian languages are harder for me to comprehend, with the exception of a few words here and there in Danish, which share a similiar origin with English, via the Danish rule of England in the early Middle Ages.

" Why, may I ask? German is very harsh and gutteral. "

Some people like gutural and harsh language and not like soft languages; It is a question of taste.

Well, in Sergio's case, being that he is a Romance speaker, I assumed that he would prefer soft languages.

LAA,

You mean, that you assumed that before I stated that I prefer German than English, right?

I like the accuracy of this language, and concerning the sounds I have to say that there are horrible dialects but there are very beautiful dialects as well. But speaking of the standard Hochdeutsch, as taught in the schools, German has not such a rough phonetic as it is normally claimed. I think that most of us, who were born after the WWII, have this prejudices of the German language because of the movies about this war, the way of speaking of the German military (it would sound rough in every language of the world!!!) and the recordings of Hitler speaking (actually barking) in his speechs to the people.

Favourite Germanic language.....hard to pick one:
- Dutch - so lovely guttural, so homely
- German - so lovely neutral, the Latin of the North
- English - so lovely juicy, so sensual
- Frisian - so lovely strange
- Danish - so lovely mellifluous, so sweet
- Swedish - so lovely musical, so archaïc
- Faroese - so lovely cute
- Icelandic - so lovely mysterious, yet so Italianately melodious
- Norwegian - so lovely heterogeneous, from the witty barking of the North, via the cool classicism of the West and the infantile naïvety of the East to the raw elegance of the South...

So Swedish sounds archaic to you? I thought that if there was one language that ought to sound arhaic to you it had to be Icelandic ... hmm German the Latin of the north ... well everyone is entitled to his own opinion ;-)

Btw honoured that my language once again gets the Noble prize for homely-ness ;-)

LAA : « You like German more than English???? »
Oui, ma préférence va à l'allemand en raison de son élégance, de son dynamisme et de son exotisme (toutes choses relatives, bien sûr). J'aime bien la prononciation outrageusement sinueuse de l'anglais classique mais la monotonie de l'anglais états-unien me plonge très vite dans l'ennui (et, bizarrement, son côté nasillard ne m'attire pas davantage).



LAA : « Try saying the number 8 in German. It sounds like someone is trying to hack some mucus up from their throat. »
Je t'assure que la prononciation de <acht> peut être la chose la plus raffinée qui soit — et réellement délicieuse à l'écoute. Il serait sans doute temps que tu te mettes à l'allemand...



LAA : « But I'm surprised as a Romance speaker, that you wouldn't prefer English, being that it is so much closer to Romance languages than German is. »
L'original est souvent préféré à la copie.



LAA : « I think English is the best, because it has the largest vocabulary with which to express yourself. »
Je ne pense pas, pour les verbes par exemple, que l'anglais possède un vocabulaire plus large que l'allemand dont le potentiel de composition n'est certes pas illimité mais vraiment immense.
Quant aux substantifs, eh bien disons que l'essentiel provient du français et du latin, donc rien de bien sensationnel.



LAA : « It [l'anglais] is not as harsh as other Germanic languages (...) »
Je te garantis que l'anglais reste malgré tout fortement marqué par son accentuation qui est aux antipodes d'une langue comme le français. Je ne connais pas le ressenti des francophones à ce sujet, mais en ce qui me concerne l'allemand reste le n° 1 car sa soi-disant "âpreté" est largement compensée par l'élégance du phrasé et de l'élocution.

Désolé, le « Guest » au-dessus, c'est moi.