English is a Germanic language. It evolved over centuries in England, but is now natively spoken in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland, among other nations. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to English are Scots, Dutch, Afrikaans, Danish, and Flemish.
- Scots (84.3)
Scots is a West Germanic language spoken primarily in Scotland. It shares a common ancestry with English, having descended from Old English. Scots and English share many cognates and grammar due to their common heritage. Despite its differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Scots is often considered a close relative of English. - Dutch (78.2)
Dutch is the national language of the Netherlands, a country located just across the English Channel from England. As a result, Dutch and English share a significant amount of vocabulary and grammatical features. They have a high degree of mutual intelligibility, particularly in written form. - Afrikaans (77.5)
Afrikaans is derived from Dutch and is one of the official languages of South Africa. It developed from the Dutch spoken by settlers in the Cape region during the 17th century. Given its origins in South Africa, where Afrikaans and English are commonly spoken, it is not surprising that these languages have many similarities. - Danish (75.4)
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken in Denmark. In fact, the Angles who invaded Britain originally came from territory that is close to Denmark. Although Danish belongs to a different branch of the Germanic language family, it still shares some similarities with English, particularly in terms of vocabulary and syntax. - Flemish (72.7)
Flemish is a variety of Dutch spoken in the Flanders region of Belgium. It is closely related to standard Dutch, which is its parent language. Flemish and Dutch are very similar, with only slight differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. Consequently, Flemish shares a comparable level of similarity to English as Dutch.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)
