What is the closest language to English?

The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.


What language is most similar to English?

Closest Major Language: Dutch

Like Frisian and English, Dutch is another West Germanic language that developed from Proto-Germanic. Because of this, Dutch possesses many words and phrases similar to English and has a similar grammatical structure.

What language sounds closest to English?

The Closest Languages to English: Dutch
  • There are 23 million Dutch speakers in the world.
  • Dutch is spoken mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname as well as parts of France and some parts of the Caribbean.
  • Dutch is mutually intelligible with Afrikaans, but Afrikaans is considered a separate language.


Is English closer to French or Spanish?

Is English closer to French or Spanish? In comparison, Spanish and English have a lexical similarity of only 30-50%, and French and English of only 40-50%. That's because not only are the Spanish and French languages neighbors, but from the same family of romance languages.

Is English closer to French or German?

Informal English is definitely closer to German than French, but the more formal you get, the more French-like it is going to become because of the increased per cent of French vocabulary used in formal English.


Which Language Is Closest To English?



What's the easiest language to learn?

15 of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers - ranked
  • Frisian. Frisian is thought to be one of the languages most closely related to English, and therefore also the easiest for English-speakers to pick up. ...
  • Dutch. ...
  • Norwegian. ...
  • Spanish. ...
  • Portuguese. ...
  • Italian. ...
  • French. ...
  • Swedish.


Which two languages are most similar?

The most mutually intelligible pair is Spanish and Portuguese. In some cases, TV stations don't even translate between the two languages, instead assuming that Spanish-speaking audiences would understand Portuguese and Portuguese-speaking audiences would understand Spanish.

What is the hardest language to learn?

Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.


Did English come first or Spanish?

In fact, Spanish actually antedates English in the areas that now make up the composite United States — a fact that surprises many Americans. In terms of continuity and longevity in the United States, the Spanish language is second only to Native American languages that were spoken for centuries prior to colonization.

Who speaks faster Spanish or French?

One 2011 study from the Université de Lyon looked at 7 languages, which reported the order as Japanese (7.84 syllables per second), Spanish (7.82), French (7.18), Italian (6.99), English (6.19), German (5.97) and Mandarin (5.18).

What is the clearest English accent?

Some people believe that RP (Received Pronunciation) is the most standard or general accent in British English. Many EFL (English as a Foreign Language) schools teach it because it is supposed to be the most “polished” pronunciation. It is typically referred to as “Queen's English” or “BBC English”.


What language did Jesus speak?

Most religious scholars and historians agree with Pope Francis that the historical Jesus principally spoke a Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Through trade, invasions and conquest, the Aramaic language had spread far afield by the 7th century B.C., and would become the lingua franca in much of the Middle East.

What is the strongest English accent?

Geordie. People from Newcastle speak a dialect called Geordie, which is one of the strongest and most distinctive accents in England.

How close is Spanish to English?

However, Spanish and English are more closely related to one another than they are to any of the Russian, Mandarin, or Polish languages. In the comparison of English and Spanish, most people would argue that they differ completely regarding grammar rules and pronunciation.


Is English the number 1 language?

1. English (1,132 million speakers) According to Ethnologue, English is the largest language in the world for both native and non-native speaker. Like Latin or Greek at the time, English is the universal language of today.

Does English have a sister language?

The Modern Scots language is considered to be a sister language of English, as they are both descended from the common ancestor Old English (via Early Middle English).

What language did Adam & Eve speak?

The Adamic language, according to Jewish tradition (as recorded in the midrashim) and some Christians, is the language spoken by Adam (and possibly Eve) in the Garden of Eden.


What race spoke English first?

The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th centuries.

What did us speak before English?

Answer and Explanation: Before English, people in the Americas spoke Spanish and various Native American languages. The Native American tribes throughout America each had their own, unique language. The first European language spoked in America was Spanish, which the Spanish conquistadors brought with them.

What is the 2 hardest language to speak?

The Hardest Languages To Learn For English Speakers
  1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. ...
  2. Arabic. ...
  3. Polish. ...
  4. Russian. ...
  5. Turkish. ...
  6. Danish.


What is the oldest language still spoken?

Tamil is the oldest language still in use today. By order of appearance, the Tamil language (part of the family of Dravidian languages) would be considered the world's oldest living language as it is over 5,000 years old, with its first grammar book having made its first appearance in 3,000 BC.

What is the 3 hardest language in the world?

8 Hardest Languages to Learn In The World For English Speakers
  1. Mandarin. Number of native speakers: 1.2 billion. ...
  2. Icelandic. Number of native speakers: 330,000. ...
  3. 3. Japanese. Number of native speakers: 122 million. ...
  4. Hungarian. Number of native speakers: 13 million. ...
  5. Korean. ...
  6. Arabic. ...
  7. Finnish. ...
  8. Polish.


What is the most useful 2nd language?

To help you out, we've chosen the six most valuable second languages for English speakers to learn.
  • Spanish (405 million native speakers) ...
  • Mandarin Chinese (955 million native speakers) ...
  • German (95 million native speakers) ...
  • French (75 million native speakers) ...
  • Arabic (295 million native speakers)


What is the most useful second language?

The 7 Best Languages To Learn
  1. Spanish. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language after Mandarin, and not a surprise at the top of languages to learn. ...
  2. German. ...
  3. Arabic. ...
  4. Mandarin. ...
  5. Portuguese. ...
  6. Russian. ...
  7. French.


What is the most popular 2nd language?

English takes the crown as the most common second language around the world with 55 countries speaking it as a second language. France and Russia are second and third with 14 and 13 respectively.