what makes English Germanic?

Hm, I have read this forum over and over again...but there is no real answer what makes English Germanic...some of the lectures given by my professors at the university tried to answer that question...one of the answers was that the vocabulary may be 25% Germanic but the frequency of its usage is much bigger than that other 75%...and that major words, vital, essential for survival of human beings (like eat) are of Germanic origin...

You can say it like this:
English is Germanic because English speakers will recognize the German word for bread "Brot" before they rezognize the French word "pain".
Similarly they will recognize the Frisian word for green "grien" before French "vert".

(Of course we here look away from the actual English speakers knowledge of French (and German and Frisian) as foreign languages)

Can anyone give me examples of pure Germanic features in English language? Vocabulary-wise, grammar-wise etc.....something that proves that English is still Germanic...something that strongly connects Old English and Modern English...

Adjective declinations:

English: green - greener - greenest
Norwegian: grønn - grønnere - grønnest

English: good - better - best
Norwegian: god - bedre - best

I would appreciate some help on this topic, it's the topic of my thesis...all you language-buffs can write to me directly to: tglasnovic@yahoo.com I would need some help with books on this topic as well...thanks!

The numbers:
Modern English: - Old English:
one - an
two - twegan / twa
three - thrie / threo
four - feower
five - fif
six - siex
seven - seofon
eight - eahta
nine - nigon
ten - tien

I suggest you go to a library and pick up some books!

Mr Fredrik, it's not declination what you wrote, it's comparison. English doesn't even have declination.

There is no English library in my hometown...

Guest:
Sorry, you are right!
(Not so easy, those Romance words...lol)

Tanja:
There has to be some English books in your university library? Which country do you live in?

Vukovar, Croatia, I am writing my thesis for the Univeristy of Zagreb, Faculty of Arts, by mail, I can go to Zagreb once in a few months, then I will buy the books I need, but before that I need to know which ones. Thank you for the numbers. I need more...:-)

Perhaps you can order them from Amazon.com by mail?

I think you have to have a credit card for that, I don't have one. Still, I wouldn't know which books are the best on this topic. There are short summaries on amazon.com or none at all.

I just found the numbers on the Internet. Although this method is not academically approved as the basis of a thesis, you can find a lot on the Internet for your own, personal research. And then you can use books as officially cited sources.

Wikipedia is a well-known web encyclopaedia.

Germanic langauges to compare with:

The West Germanic ones:
Frisian (English's closest Continental relative), Dutch, Low German, High German

The North Germanic ones:
Old Norse, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

Searchable catalogue of the British Library:
http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/82K5V5MLYTRXNCDYCV31FC6UBS6R6YEFSSK6L5JVG5R481626T-02842?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=BLAC