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What does it mean when someone calls English a “Germanic” language since German and English don sound alike to most people?

April 26, 2017English German germanic Language mean people sound

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What does it mean when someone calls English a “Germanic” language since German and English don sound alike to most people?

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Historical linguistics studies the evolution of languages. Historical linguists have shown that the Romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian are derived from Latin. Likewise they have shown that English, German, and Dutch are daughter languages of a protolanguage that linguists call proto-Germanic. Because all of these languages are derived from the same parental language, linguists say they belong to the Germanic family of language.