engdutchdeutsch?

[Yagia]

Lately I was pondering about in which ways one could arrange German, English and Dutch as to establish cross-linguistic similarities in the lexicon.
It occurred to me that you can pair any two out of three in some ways. See the examples below (sorry I found no way to paste a proper table into this post). Is any language more closely related to either of the other languages? Who knows similar cases in other language families? Whaddoyouthink?

arm arm arm
hand hand hand
land land land
in in in
man man mann
open open offen
haven haven hafen
drink drink trinke
make maak mache
fine fijn fein
ice ijs eis
glass glas glas
work werk werk
work arbeid arbeit
right recht recht
weak week weich
bird vogel vogel
bad slecht slecht
sea zee meer
lake meer see
young jong jung
have heb habe
find vind finde
father vader vater
bread brood brot
great groot gross
house huis haus
brown bruin braun
town tuin zaun

[linguoboy]

Is any language more closely related to either of the other languages?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Do you mean strictly in terms of the lexicon? I think the answer is clearly Dutch, but not on the basis of the sort of vocabulary you've listed out there. Dutch and German both tend to prefer inherited Germanic vocabulary where English often uses a borrowing from Romance (or, less frequently, North Germanic). For that reason, there's more mutual intelligibility between Dutch and German than between either of them and English.

Who knows similar cases in other language families? Whaddoyouthink?

Similar in what way?

[Terra]

Btw, in German, it's 'schlecht', not 'slecht'.

Btw, does anybody know whenabouts the [s->S] before [l,m,n] change happened? It must've happened before [s->z], whenever that was.

[vokzhen]

Btw, in German, it's 'schlecht', not 'slecht'.

Btw, does anybody know whenabouts the [s->S] before [l,m,n] change happened? It must've happened before [s->z], whenever that was.

Purely conjecture on my part, but my understanding is that the older Germanic languages - like Latin, and modern Basque - had a retracted alveolar for /s/, which likely merged with /S/ in certain positions (some types of Swiss German, for example, merge it in all coda clusters iirc). In other positions it stayed the same, later undergoing initial/medial voicing and then merging in position with the "flat" /s/ from the consonant shift.

[linguoboy]

Btw, does anybody know whenabouts the [s->S] before [l,m,n] change happened? It must've happened before [s->z], whenever that was.

IIRC, it starts around 1000 CE. The hypothesis is that OHG had a contrast between a apical/dental /ß/ originating from the affrication of PGmc *t and a laminal/alveolar /s/ which continued PGmc *s. In contact with other consonants, /s/ frequently palatalised, yielding /ʃ/. (The actual distribution varies considerably by dialect, so the Standard German outcomes are a bit unpredictable on account of its koïné nature.) Afterwards, you have /s/ > /z/ initially and intervocalically (although only in Northern varieties) followed by a merger of /s/ and /ß/ in a few positions (medial and final clusters, mainly).

(some types of Swiss German, for example, merge it in all coda clusters iirc)

This merger is actually found as far north as the Mosel (e.g. Lëtzebuergesch bescht "best").

[Salmoneus]

May be worth noting that the same s>S shift before (in this case all) consonants happens in most rhaeto-romance dialects: romansh, most ladin, and carnic friulian. Could be coincidence, but RR has historically been in a lot of contact with Germanic dialects.

[Yagia]

Is any language more closely related to either of the other languages?

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

As a native Dutch speaker, of course I am aware that Dutch and German are closely related and mutual intelligible (to the extent that some Germans apparently think Dutch is in fact a German dialect ) On the other hand, to me Dutch seems closer to English with regard to the Germanic consonant shift. Hence, I would say, the similarities in the lexicon such as I collected in my first post.
Question: could one say that the differences and similarities in modern English, Dutch and German are the result of different historical processes, in which Dutch was affected in more than one?

@terra: oh blooper German = schlecht, of course. Always had bad marks for German at school...

[Grunnen]

...
arm arm arm
...
town tuin zaun

What type of matches are you trying to find btw? I see you have included some cognate pairs with different meanings (eg town, tuin, Zaun) but also translations of non-cognate words (eg lake, meer, See).

Is any language more closely related to either of the other languages?

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Do you mean strictly in terms of the lexicon? I think the answer is clearly Dutch, but not on the basis of the sort of vocabulary you've listed out there. Dutch and German both tend to prefer inherited Germanic vocabulary where English often uses a borrowing from Romance (or, less frequently, North Germanic). For that reason, there's more mutual intelligibility between Dutch and German than between either of them and English.

Indeed

[linguoboy]

[As a native Dutch speaker, of course I am aware that Dutch and German are closely related and mutual intelligible (to the extent that some Germans apparently think Dutch is in fact a German dialect ) On the other hand, to me Dutch seems closer to English with regard to the Germanic consonant shift.

It's not for no reason that it's called the "High German consonant shift".

Hence, I would say, the similarities in the lexicon such as I collected in my first post.

So what exactly determined your collection process? As Grunnen says, in some cases the motivation seems etymological, in others not. All of these are common words, but they're by no means the most common words in each language. If you wanted to view a sampling, a Swadesh list would be far more representative.

Question: could one say that the differences and similarities in modern English, Dutch and German are the result of different historical processes, in which Dutch was affected in more than one?

One could. Of course, one could say that about the similarities and differences in any given pairing.

You might be interested in reading about the wave model of language change if you're not familiar with it already.

[Yagia]

You might be interested in reading about the wave model of language change if you're not familiar with it already.

Thank you, this has been helpful.

[Bristel]

No comparisons to Frisian?

[Yagia]

No comparisons to Frisian?

My knowledge of Frisian is next to zero As far as I know Frisian stands closer to English, within 'North Sea Germanic'. To make things worse, some count West Flemish in here too, thus forming a dialect continuum between Denmark and Dunkirk).
Linguoboy enlightened me on the wave model of language change, and I think indeed this fits very well for the processes I was trying to figure out initially.

@ Grunnen, @linguoboy: I must admit that I 've perhaps been too careless in arranging words without proper scientific motivation but as I said before, I was puzzled by the way Dutch 'changes sides', so to speak, between English and German. Could this serve as an explanation for Dutch politics: sometimes we side with Cameron, sometimes with Merkel...

[linguoboy]

To me one of the most intriguing changes is the diphthongisation of high vowels (e.g. PGmc *wīną > Eng. wine, Dut. wijn, Ger. Wein). Intriguing because intermediate varieties lack it (e.g. Frisian wyn, Low Saxon/Ripuarisch Wien). Although there are some examples of discontinuous wave propagation in European phonology (e.g. the spread of uvular /r/), it may also be a case of parallel change in similar vowel systems undergoing similar pressures.

[Yagia]

To me one of the most intriguing changes is the diphthongisation of high vowels (e.g. PGmc *wīną > Eng. wine, Dut. wijn, Ger. Wein). Intriguing because intermediate varieties lack it (e.g. Frisian wyn, Low Saxon/Ripuarisch Wien). Although there are some examples of discontinuous wave propagation in European phonology (e.g. the spread of uvular /r/), it may also be a case of parallel change in similar vowel systems undergoing similar pressures.

Interesting. I can add that many Dutch dialects lack this diphtongisation too, cf. Zeeuws (Zeelandic): wijn > wien; mijn (mine) > mien; fijn > fien; but then again: vijf (five) > vuuve; pijp (pipe) > puupe [py:pe]

[linguoboy]

Interesting. I can add that many Dutch dialects lack this diphtongisation too

As do some High German dialects, e.g. Alemannic (Breisgau) Wii.

In German, the change begins in southern Austria and spreads first north then west, which is why it is found in Swabian but not Swiss German. I'm not sure what the pattern of diffusion is for the Low Countries.

[Grunnen]

Interesting. I can add that many Dutch dialects lack this diphtongisation too

As do some High German dialects, e.g. Alemannic (Breisgau) Wii.

In German, the change begins in southern Austria and spreads first north then west, which is why it is found in Swabian but not Swiss German. I'm not sure what the pattern of diffusion is for the Low Countries.

Diphthongisation took place in the central region (Brabant [Noord-Brabant, Vlaams Brabant, Antwerp], Holland and Utrecht), spreading from the south to the north if I'm not mistaken. To the west of this region, in Zeeland, West-Vlaanderen and I think Oost-Vlaanderen, no diphthongisation occurred. To the east, in Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, most of Gelderland and Limburg (certainly Dutch Limburg but I think the same holds for Belgian Limburg), there's no diphthongisation either in the traditional dialects. Because of the strong position of the standarld language, at least in the Netherlands the diphthongs can now be heard throughout the country. In Belgium, the diphthongs have become monophthongs again, and I don't know how the original sounds, the diphthongised sounds and secondery monophthongs coexist, although I've heard all three from Flemish people.

[Shrdlu]

In some Northern Swedish varieties or rather what is left of the original languages the change /s/ - /S/ before m,l,r,s is also standard and in some words there that otherwise are identical in meaning and pronunciation to English( bham, brainfeeze) this is the sole difference.

[Melteor]

North Frisian is interesting in lacking diphthongisation, and being very, very heavily influenced by Danish, Low Saxon and High German.