German vs. Dutch

General discussion about learning languages
antnvchv
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:31 pm
Languages: Bulgarian (N)
Spanish (B2)
German (Beginner)
Turkish (Beginner)

German vs. Dutch

Postby antnvchv » Tue Aug 31, 2021 3:41 pm

So, I’m currently learning German and Dutch at the same time. Before doing so, I researched both just because to me they looked way too similar. In particular the vocabulary seemed to be 85-90% identical with some changes of courses due to the consonant shift in German. My question might be a little offensive but… why a lot of Dutch people continue trying to deny the obvious connection with German and instead pretend that English is closer??! Gesellschaft vs Geselschap / Essen vs Eten…. The resemblance with German is much stronger, even phonology wise
0 x

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1968
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
x 4050

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Aug 31, 2021 4:18 pm

antnvchv wrote:So, I’m currently learning German and Dutch at the same time. Before doing so, I researched both just because to me they looked way too similar. In particular the vocabulary seemed to be 85-90% identical with some changes of courses due to the consonant shift in German. My question might be a little offensive but… why a lot of Dutch people continue trying to deny the obvious connection with German and instead pretend that English is closer??! Gesellschaft vs Geselschap / Essen vs Eten…. The resemblance with German is much stronger, even phonology wise
Perhaps the similarities to English are more apparant to many Dutch people because English is so widely taught in the Dutch education system?

An article that might interest you is: Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in Europe
2 x

german2k01
Green Belt
Posts: 467
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:16 pm
Location: Germany
Languages: English, Urdu, and German
x 573

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby german2k01 » Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:15 pm

German and English also have similarities. It is the same thing ;)

5 + 3 = 3+ 5
2 x

User avatar
tungemål
Blue Belt
Posts: 947
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:56 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N)
English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17672
x 2181

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby tungemål » Thu Sep 02, 2021 1:57 pm

I agree with you - Dutch is really close to German both in word order grammar and vocabulary. Don't know if the Dutch would deny that?

However, you can argue for a closer connection with English if you look at the core germanic vocabulary. It's interesting to compare Norwegian, English, Dutch and German with regard to the sound shifts. In short, German, English and Dutch underwent a vowel shift, and only German underwent a consonant shift as well. For the words below the Dutch and the English words are almost exactly the same. Since Norwegian didn't go through the same shifts, we can for this comparison regard Norwegian as the "original".

vowel shift:

NOR....ENG....DUTCH....GERMAN
hus.....house.....huis.......haus
is.........ice.........ijs...........eis

consonant shift in German:

NOR....ENG....DUTCH....GERMAN
skip.....ship.....schip........schiff
ut........out........uit..........aus
ete......eat.......eten........essen
Last edited by tungemål on Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
7 x

User avatar
einzelne
Blue Belt
Posts: 804
Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 11:33 pm
Languages: Russan (N), English (Working knowledge), French (Reading), German (Reading), Italian (Reading on Kindle)
x 2882

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby einzelne » Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:11 pm

antnvchv wrote:why a lot of Dutch people continue trying to deny the obvious connection with German and instead pretend that English is closer??!


hum, "Geef me min fiets!" — you cannot ask it from the English:)
1 x

Cainntear
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3469
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:04 am
Location: Scotland
Languages: English(N)
Advanced: French,Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Intermediate: Italian, Catalan, Corsican
Basic: Welsh
Dabbling: Polish, Russian etc
x 8667
Contact:

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby Cainntear » Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:51 pm

antnvchv wrote:why a lot of Dutch people continue trying to deny the obvious connection with German and instead pretend that English is closer??!

Because their language is always being compared to German by others, which makes "not German" a defining part of their linguistic identity.

This happens all over the place -- Corsican is closer to Italian than many of the dialects of Italy, but it's so common for them to be told their language is "just a dialect of Italian" that they tend to exaggerate the differences.

The same thing goes for identities that aren't tied to language. Us Scots are constantly faced with being told that Scotland is part of England that "not English" becomes a major component of our identity. This is often mistaken for being anti-English, when it's just defence of self-identity.
4 x

User avatar
tungemål
Blue Belt
Posts: 947
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:56 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N)
English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17672
x 2181

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby tungemål » Thu Sep 02, 2021 4:52 pm

Cainntear wrote:Because their language is always being compared to German by others, which makes "not German" a defining part of their linguistic identity.

Good point and psychological insight. Undoubtedly true. Now we only need the view from a dutch member. Or from Le Baron when he's back from his trip to the cottage.
1 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3513
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9393

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby Le Baron » Fri Sep 03, 2021 7:21 pm

It depends where you are. Along the border the low-German that is obviously the basis of Dutch is more prominent in the way people speak there and no-one denies the similarity. However this is by far not the case in Friesland.

However the fact is that Dutch is not Hochdeutsch it is a Low Franconian language. In so many cases the cognates you think make them the same turn out to be false friends and many are just completely different words. This is why you can't just alter a few Dutch endings then put on a Berlin accent and claim to be speaking German. It doesn't work. German TV programmes are subtitled here.

Dutch really does have more of a relationship with older forms of English. There are many cognate words which are much closer in form and sometimes exact spelling (like e.g. water). But then you have things like bevor* in German where Dutch has voor. There's no exact match in either direction and no point in looking for one. Dutch isn't English, but it isn't German either.

* Okay I cheated.
4 x

User avatar
Tristano
Blue Belt
Posts: 640
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 7:11 am
Location: The Netherlands
Languages: Native: Italian
Speaks: English, Dutch, French, Spanish
Understands but not yet speaks: Romanian
Studies: German
Can't wait to put his hands on: Scandinavian languages, Slavic languages, Turkish, Arabic and other stuff
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5141
x 1015

Re: German vs. Dutch

Postby Tristano » Mon Sep 13, 2021 9:13 am

antnvchv wrote:why a lot of Dutch people continue trying to deny the obvious connection with German and instead pretend that English is closer??!


They don't. Still for the Dutch is learning English easier than learning German (1 article vs 3, 0 noun cases vs 4, they're more exposed to English than to German). Most Dutch can read German and understand to a similar extent that an Italian can understand written French. Most Dutch can't understand spoken German (unless they studied it at school and often also despite of it).
5 x


Return to “General Language Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests