Languages related to the Indo-European root
por HECTOR LOZANO
1. English and French
1.1. English, then, belongs to the group of Germanic languages. But does this group form part of any larger family of languages?
1.2. Enormous numbers of English words closely resemble French words of similar meaning, for example: to English people corresponds French peuple.
1.3. There are many such borrowed words in English, but they have not destroyed its essentially Germanic character and it retains typical Germanic structural features and a central core of Germanic words.
2. When we look for family relationships between languages, it is desirable to go back to the earliest known forms of the languages.
3. Our knowledge of their language derives mainly from translations produced probably in the second half of the fourth century.
4. What languages is English related to?
4.1. Similarities in English, German and Swedish:
4.1.1. They have regular correspondences, Such correspondences arise when related languages are produced by divergent development.
4.1.2. English German Swedish: stone Stein sten, bone Bein ben, oak Eiche ek, home Heim hem, rope Reif rep, goat Geiss get, one ein en.
5. The Germanic languages
5.1. Words appeared in Old English, Gothic, Old High German and Old Norse.
5.2. our written records of Old English consist mainly of texts composed in the eighth to eleventh centuries AD
5.3. The correspondences are not always obvious, and there are difficulties and complications.
5.3.1. They resemble one another closely in structure: they have the same or similar features of morphology and syntax.