|
|
English, German, & Dutch
Ok can anyone elaborate how close or what are the lexical similarities between this languages...? English & German: %60 That I know I've read it before, But for the 2 groups, what is the % that makes then close or similar to one another...?
English & Dutch: Dutch & German: Thanks... :-D
Anyone?
The mutual intelligibility of the three would have to be directed though (for example in case of a situation like Italian and Romanian, where Italians understand far less Romanian than the reverse).
I think that Dutch is like an intermediate between English at one extreme, and German at the other. In certain ways, like in grammar, lexicon, flow, and just a plain old basic familiarity Dutch is nearer to English: it sounds sort of like English when spoken and is partially intelligible to a certain degree. Even more so when written. Dutch also has a sentence flow similar to English. German uses compounds and genitive more where English and Dutch prefer phrases formed from "of"/"van".
Dutch and German also share features, like lexicon and sounds. Like I said, Dutch is somewhere in between. Here are some examples of all three: you decide. ENGLISH: Stop the world, I want to get off! DUTCH: Stop de wereld, ik wil eraf! GERMAN: Haltet die Welt an, ich möchte aussteigen! ENGLISH: Earn your degree from home, work, or while traveling. DUTCH: Spaar uw graad thuis, op uw werk of onderweg. GERMAN: Verdienen Sie Ihren Grad vom Haus, Arbeit, oder indem Sie reisen. ENGLISH: I think that Dutch is like an intermediate between English at one extreme, and German at the other. DUTCH: Ik denk dat het Nederlands is als een intermediair tussen het Engels aan het ene uiterste, en het Duits op de andere. GERMAN: Ich denke, dass Niederländisch einem Zwischenglied zwischen Englisch an einem Extrem, und Deutsch am anderen ähnlich ist.
>>Leasnam<<
WOW!!! IT seems that Dutch & English share just about hte same grammar structure. Now what about English & Swedish...?
Leasnam, your examples aren't proper German.
Dutch and German share more features than Dutch and English do.
<<Leasnam, your examples aren't proper German.
Dutch and German share more features than Dutch and English do. >> Then please correct. Yes, Dutch has an overlay (veneer) of German likeness due to linguistic influence, but on a basic level, the underbuilding of Dutch is more like the underbuilding of English, where German is very distant; foreign. German is almost like a member of a different language family when comparing to English, unlike Dutch where a close kinship with English is immediately apparent. The reason why my German is not perfect (and I grew up in Germany of all places!) is for the fact that German is not like English--zu an Engländer, Deutsch ist strange, cumbersome and unwieldy. Het Nederlands, echter, komt zo natuurlijk (Dutch, rather, comes so natually)--ik ben waarom benieuwd (I wonder why)... :\ :)
Dutch word order is much more similar to German than English. Like German it is a verb second language and also sends the finite verb to the end of the sentence in subordinate clauses. Like English it has simplified (although obviously not as much), but from what I know of it, which admittedly isn't a great deal, it seems more like a simpler version of German rather than a more complicated version of English.
I would have to say my self that Dutch is far, far closer to German than to English. Dutch shares very few of the many innovations in the Anglic dialects since the settlement of Britain by Germanic-speakers. On the other hand, the main differences between Dutch and German are simply a matter their having somewhat different phonological development, Dutch's having lost more inflection than at least Standard German, Dutch's having taken many loans from French while German has taken many loans from Latin, and their both having undergone a good deal of semantic drift over the years. Aside from having significant vocabulary differences from Standard German due to semantic drift and differing sources of loans, Standard Dutch is probably closer to Standard German than Standard German is to, say, High Alemannic dialects. Conversely, any similarities between Dutch and English are probably just a matter of Dutch falling within the Low German section of West Germanic (which while being strictly speaking paraphyletic, does in reality have a lot of shared innovations), which has some shared root-level similarities with the Anglo-Frisian branch of West Germanic.
<<Then please correct.>>
The second sentence should say: "Machen Sie Ihren Abschluss von zu Hause aus, von der Arbeit aus, oder unterwegs." Or even better: "Machen Sie Ihren Abschluss von zu Hause oder von der Arbeit aus - oder unterwegs." The other two are perfectly fine. I can't say much about the similarities of the three languages as I don't know Dutch but what I know is that there are many words in Dutch that look rather like their equivalent in German which makes it quite easy for Germans to read Dutch. Ik wil - Ich will - I want onderweg - unterwegs - on the road de andere - das andere - the other natuurlijk - natürlich - naturally Ik ben - Ich bin - I am waarom - warum - why So, in terms of orthography, I'd say Dutch is more like German.
<<the underbuilding of Dutch is more like the underbuilding of English, where German is very distant; foreign. German is almost like a member of a different language family when comparing to English, unlike Dutch where a close kinship with English is immediately apparent.<<
Where do you get your facts? Concerning grammar and lexicon, Dutch and German resemble each other a thousand times more than Dutch and English do. Just look at the following Dutch words. You can find German cognates which are almost the same. recht, beledigen, gevaar, verwant, kaal, verbergen, ergernis, geduld, angst, brief, schuld, geld, jagen, kind, nacht, morgen, arbeid, aanvangen, begeleiden, burgemeester, handel, bericht, niemand, liefde, bescheiden, gerucht, bewegen, krijgsgevangen, verdrag, geheim, verraad, dienst ...
<<Where do you get your facts? >>
I speak all three. Yes, there are many more lexical similarities between Dutch and German, but Dutch is still more like English. It is easier to translate something from English to Dutch word for word--the flow is much more the same. How many of you: Guest, Travis, Feati, speak Dutch? You sound like you are qutoing out of a book, what someone else said they thought Dutch was like lol. <<Dutch word order is much more similar to German than English. Like German it is a verb second language and also sends the finite verb to the end of the sentence in subordinate clauses. >> English is also a verb second language. Dutch verb final in subordinate clauses is optional, and shows German influence on maintaining the old way of speaking. It can also follow the English pattern and is moving more in that direction.
<<So, in terms of orthography, I'd say Dutch is more like German. >>
A written page of Dutch is more easily mistaken for English at first glance than for German in my opinion
>>English is also a verb second language<<
It isn't, it's mainly a SVO language. English: 'Yesterday I went into town' and not 'Yesterday went I into town'. German: 'Gestern bin ich in die Stadt gegangen' and not 'Gestern ich bin in die Stadt gegangen'. Granted there are some instances where English inverts word order so that the verb comes before the subject, probably because it did used to be a verb second language i.e. 'Never have I heard such a thing' 'Only then did I realise' However these are special cases, and it's not the rule that the verb must go second as in German.
<<It isn't, it's mainly a SVO language. >>
There are a few instances where English doesn't fit the mold of a SVO language, like the one you cite above, but English is still classified as a SVO language. The constructions, like the one with the adverb "yesterday" are recent innovations in early Modern English, and earlier constructions like "Yesterday went I into town" still work although they sound extremely old fashioned. |