What language is the closest to English?
There are three choices — Scots, Frisian and Dutch. (I’d opt for Frisian) It just depends on how you define “different language”, and if you think if matters how many speakers the language has. First,in case anyone tells you “American” that’s nonsense — American & British English are clearly dialects of one common language. Others will say GERMAN — a clear relative, but not the closest. The language we know as German is actually “High German”, so-called because it is spoken in the inland, elevated areas (originally spoken in “Prussia”, the eastern part of modern Germany, this was the language of Luther), whereas English is more closely related to the “Low German” languages of the lowlands closer to the sea. So. . . 1) The first reasonable candidate is SCOTS, that is “Lowland Scots” or “Ulster Scots” (to distinguish it from the Gaelic language known as Highland Scots). Many, however, simply treat this is a dialect of English.
