English and romance languages extremely similar?

Does anyone else find the romance languages to be very similar to english - not just lexically but structurally?

The lexical similarity (which is sometimes as much as 50% of the words in a given text) is widely acknowledged, but I see deeper similarities in how the languagues 'flow'.

Everytime I read something (in port/spanish/french) I'm always amazed at the similarities in the wording and frases, and think to myself "how did that happen?".

They are all Indo-European languages, ie they are related.

Well, Old French has had a large impact on the English language and caused its structure to alter drastically, although it is believed English would have lost most of its cases anyway should it have been left to its own devices. Old English observes rules much closer to Modern German than Modern English.

Check out the Wikipedia page on Middle English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English

English and The romance languages similar??

The Romance languages have probably one the most complicated verb systems: highly inflected, lots of tenses and moods.

English is a simple and extremely analytical language: it does not even retain the noun gender.

As a native speaker of a romance language my answer is clearly no, not at all.

in an english average text maybe at best 15-20% of the words can be recognisable, more often around 5-10%. All the others are germanic and so completly alien to us.

The structrure, well to me I find it very different to my language, word order almost always inverse; not at all the same tenses, very different congugasion (does not even exist in English) modes, etc...

And lastely, spelling and pronouciation is very germanic to me, at least very alien.

Well, the answer is clearly no.

If you compare English, French, and Chinese, and picked the two closest languages from the three, clearly it'd be French and English, especially the written languages.

If you compare English, POlish (Albanian, Greek) and chinese, and picked the two closest languages from the three, clearly it'd be Polish( Albanian, Greek) and English

Maxwell your statestement is stupid, I'm sorry

"statestement"

statement, sorry :-)

>> in an english average text maybe at best 15-20% of the words can be recognisable, more often around 5-10%. All the others are germanic and so completly alien to us. <<

Are you sure? Is it that difficult? What about technical or scientific documents? As a native English speaker I can easily read a technical or scientific document (and even some newspapers) in either French or Spanish, and understand >60% after only having taken French a year in high school a long time ago.

<<The Romance languages have probably one the most complicated verb systems: highly inflected, lots of tenses and moods.
>>

This is funny because despite Spanish has conjugations and English doesn't , tenses are the same and are used identically in both.

This is funny because despite Spanish has conjugations and English doesn't , tenses are the same and are used identically in both.


Not at all Spanish has got the subjective mood (the most difficult one) with four tenses. English hasn't

Similar... sort of; very similar, no- not at all.

English speakers with no language study probably recognize more words when they examine a French text vs German, that said they don't usually understand much of either. They recognize some adjectives and a few verbs but don't understand the sentence structure or tense. English has a largely borrowed vocabulary, a strange orthography/phonology, and a highly evolved grammar system that is very analytic.

"En 1806, la Louisiane devenue l'un des États-Unis en 1803 voit arriver plus de 10.000 créoles, des riches planteurs de sucre d'Haïti, selon Carl A. Brasseaux, historien et directeur du centre d'études louisiannaises de Lafayette. Une partie d'entre eux sont d'abord passés par Cuba, où les quinze années qui ont suivi 1792, date de l'introduction du commerce libre, ont fourni plus d'esclaves que les deux siècles et demi précédents.
Vers 1810, on estime que mille personnes vivent à proximité de Bâton-Rouge, dans l'Est, en grande majorité des francophones.
1812 : La Louisiane est admise au sein de l’Union, le 30 avril 1812, devenant ainsi le 18e État américain. À cette époque, la Louisiane était le premier et le seul État de l’Union dans lequel un groupe non anglophone, les descendants d’Acadiens — les Cadiens — et de Français et d'Espagnols -les Créoles-, constituait une majorité linguistique. Grâce au juriste Louis Moreau-Lislet, un Code civil plus complet (que le précédent basé sur la Coutume de Paris) reposant sur le Code Napoléon fut adopté par le législateur du nouvel État. Ce code avait été rédigé en français, puis traduit en anglais. Le texte français prime encore aujourd'hui en cas de problèmes d'interprétation de la version anglaise."

I'm not the best example for this, but I guess an average anglophone will recongnize maybe 30-40% of words but only have the vaguest idea what this says, especially out of context.

by contrast here is a Frisian (the closest ancestor to Old English I believe)writing (not a translation) about the same topic.

"Nei de Spanjerts ferskine de Frânsken ûnder Robert Cavelier de La Salle yn 1681 dy't oan it gebiet de namme joech fan de Frânske kening Loadewyk XIV.

Yn dy tiid wie Louisiana folle grutter as tsjintwurdich. De rivier de Mississippy foarmde it hert fan in territoarium, dat oant en mei de hjoeddeiske noardgrins mei Kanada rikte. Om 1760 hinne ferlearen de Frânsken it meastepart oan Spanje. Yn 1800 krige Frankryk, dat doe regeard waard troch Napoleon Bonaparte, it territoarium werom, om it yn 1803 oan de Feriene Steaten te ferkeapjen, in transaksje dy't bekend wurden is as de Louisiana Purchase. Op 30 april 1812 waard Louisiana de 18e steat fan de Feriene Steaten."


I recognize at best about 15% of words but still the basic structure of the sentences look a bit more similar- "The Mississippi River formed the heart of the territory, that ..... north.. canada."

Well, I don't know how romance speakers see English, but I can tell you that as an English-speaker, most Germanic languages are utter Greek to me, and I recognize far more cognates in French and Spanish. Granted, I took a year of French and three years of Spanish in high school, but I spoke fluent German up until the age of five, and I recognize almost nothing in German now. In the French and Frisian examples above, I could puzzle out far more of the French and only a handful of the Frisian words. What's most interesting is which types of words I recognize out of each; in the French, I get most of the nouns and some of the verbs (although I can't conjugate any of them), whereas in the Frisian, it's mainly the small linking words that look familiar. The nouns and verbs are a mystery, except for a couple like "foarmde", which might be "formed" and "transaksje", which might be "transaction". It took a couple of passes through to realize that "Feriene Steaten" must mean "United States".

<<As a ⚑native⚑ speaker of a ⚑romance⚑ ⚑language⚑ my answer is ⚑clearly⚑ no, not at all.

in an english ⚑average⚑ ⚑text⚑ maybe at best 15-20% of the words can be ⚑recognisable⚑, more often around 5-10%. ***All the others are ⚑germanic⚑*** and so ⚑completly⚑ alien to us.

The ⚑structrure⚑, well to me I find it very ⚑different⚑ to my ⚑language⚑, word ⚑order⚑ almost always ⚑inverse⚑; not at all the same ⚑tenses⚑, very ⚑different⚑ ⚑[congugation]⚑ (does not even ⚑exist⚑ in English) ⚑modes⚑, etc...

And lastely, spelling and ⚑pronouciation⚑ is very ⚑germanic⚑ to me, at least very ⚑alien⚑.

Well, the answer is clearly no. >>


Your ⚑text⚑ ⚑exceeds⚑ by far the ⚑limit⚑ of 20% of ⚑Romance⚑ and ⚑Latin⚑ words. Do you ⚑consider⚑ this an ⚑anomaly⚑?

<<
This is funny because despite Spanish has conjugations and English doesn't , tenses are the same and are used identically in both. >>

Spanish has subjunctive and also distinction between the imperfective and perfective tenses.