Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet
Oh? Interesting. Being clueless about both the Dutch and the German languages, I've always wondered how much Germanic English could be. You seem to be talking about grammar in particular, but truth is English is also really full of ancient Latin and Old French influences, that is absolutely striking in the English vocabulary. It's nonetheless also true that generally speaking, the Germans, the Dutch and the Scandinavians seem far more comfortable with English than people whose mother tongues are so called romance languages, which of course includes the French.
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The Latin influence on Dutch and German grammar was actually greater than in English, while the share of Latin-derived words (which are mostly neo-Latinisms, btw, not words inherited from ancient Latin) is roughly equal in English and German and probably somewhat lower in Dutch. The difference lies in the large number of French-derived words in English.