English	Avestan	Greek	Latin	Persian	Armenian	Hindi	German	Irish	Polish
You	Yuzh	Esi	Tu	To	Du	Tu	Du	Tu	Ty
He	Hi	Avtos	Is	Ou	Na	Vaha	Er	Se	On
We	Vae	Emeis	Nos	Ma	Menk	Ham	Wir	Muid	My

 

Which one do you think to be more similar to English?

Sorry Cyrus, but this is very rediculous. Please try to keep AE standards as high as possible, otherwise you can change this into a fairy tales forum

 

 

 

 

Persian	English	Dutch
Ghaz	Goose	Gans
Ghorolond	Grumble	Grommelen
Gheriv	Clamor	Geroep
Ghezh	Whiz	Gesuis
Ghel	Roll	Gerol
Ghak	Fool/Queer	Gek
Ghelghelak	Happy (rolling and laughing)	Gelukkig
Ghelak	Laugh	Gelach

 

HochDeutsch )Modern German) is pretty much a made up language as Germany is a made up state.

 

The Northern Half of Germany spoke (and really still speaks) a Niederdeustch (Low German) that is a Low saxon dialect that includes- NiederRheinsch (there is conflict wether it is low franconian or low saxon it is a mix of both), PlatteDeustch, Westphalen (my GG Grandparents dads mom side) area 6 on the map) and so on. Dutch is also a low saxon, My great grandparents spoke NiederRheinsch (area 15)  it is closer to old dutch, old english and the gelder dialect than Hochdeustch.

 

There is also low franconian, frankdeutsch and the Palantite-- etc, etc

 

Basically when the Prussians took over they wanted a unified language (The Prussian court spoke French by the way) Hochdeustch was made the official language under the kulturekampf (This was also done to appease Bavaria and make a Prussian Bavarain union more likley)

 

Dialects of Low German are widely spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Low_Saxon - Dutch Low Saxon ) and are written there with Dutch orthography.

Variants of Low German were widely (and are still to a far lesser extent) spoken in most parts of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Germany - Northern Germany , for instance in the states of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Saxony - Lower Saxony , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Rhine-Westphalia - North Rhine-Westphalia , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg - Hamburg , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremen - Bremen , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleswig-Holstein - Schleswig-Holstein , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxony-Anhalt - Saxony-Anhalt and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg - Brandenburg . Small portions of northern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesse - Hesse and northern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuringia - Thuringia are traditionally Low Saxon speaking too. Historically, Low German was also spoken in formerly German parts of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland - Poland as well as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Prussia - East Prussia and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_States - Baltic States of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia - Estonia and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvia - Latvia . The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city state of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin - Berlin but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city the language vanished

 

For example Chatti (hessians ) were not Franks but were in  the Frank confederation. The Cherusi were in both at differnt times. While in thoery the Franks and Saxons were the lead tribes they were both a conglomerate of various tribes.

 

I wonder if that is were Geek comes from- it kind of means a fool in english slang.

 

It seems the English word has the same origin, of course the Persian word doesn't actually means "fool", as you read the online translation of this word in the Persian Dictioanry website: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fa&u=http://www.loghatnaameh.com/dehkhodaworddetail-15bd0c23b1cf4047a1489854373d0411-fa.html&ei=PAgKTMjgHISkOKn45SM&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25D8%25BA%25DA%25A9%26hl%3Den - Click Here -> "someone is short and to the height and the high fat and mutilate is ridiculous too", the better translation is "Ghak is someone who is short, and with this height is also fat, inefficient and ridiculous."

 

I should say that Ghak is too old and isn't actually used in the Modern Persian, we mostly use Dalghak (dull geek?) which means "clown, buffoon".

 

You made that error  before in this thead. Standard Dutch  is classified as  Low Franconian, not Low Saxon.  More specifically :

 

 

Ref 1

Dutch is a descendant of several http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_language - Frankish dialects spoken in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Middle_Ages - High Middle Ages and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_Times - Early Modern Times , and to a lesser extent of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages - Frisian , that was spoken by the original inhabitants of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland - Holland . It did not undergo the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift - High German consonant shift (apart from the transition from /θ/ to /d/), and is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Franconian_languages - Low Franconian language . There was at one time a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum - dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German - Low Saxon . In some small areas, there are still dialect continua, but they are gradually becoming extinct.

 

Dutch Low Saxon (Dutch Low Saxon: Nedersaksisch) is a group of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German - Low Saxon (i.e., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_German - Low German ) dialects spoken in the northeastern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands - Netherlands (in comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Franconian_dialect - Low Franconian dialects ). The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous. From a http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/diachronic - diachronic point of view, the Dutch Low Saxon dialects are merely the Low Saxon dialects which are native to areas in the Netherlands (as opposed to areas in northern Germany or Denmark). From a strictly http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/synchronic - synchronic point of view, however, some linguists classify Dutch Low Saxon as a variety of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language - Dutch . ^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Low_Saxon#cite_note-0 - [1]} Some Dutch Low Saxon dialects show features of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_language - Westphalian , a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Low_German - West Low German dialect spoken in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany - Germany .

 

 

Dutch, like English, has lost the word doe "thou" and replaced it by jij, " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You - you ", originally the second person plural. In many Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands, the very same happened. The doe - ie/ieje/ij isogloss runs surprisingly close to the Dutch border, except in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_%28province%29 - Groningen , where it enters the Dutch territory with a vengeance (in the entire province this word is known). In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twente - Twente , it is present in the easternmost villages of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denekamp - Denekamp and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldenzaal - Oldenzaal , in de http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achterhoek - Achterhoek ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelderland - Gelderland ), dou is present in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterswijk - Winterswijk and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groenlo - Groenlo .

 

Note that MG  finally realizes ( at least here ) that Dutch is Low Franconian and not Low Saxon as he  claimed before.  

 

Old Dutch was not simply influenced by Frankish :  it was Frankish ( "Old Dutch "  is Old West Low Franconian evolving out of Old Frankish ) and evolved in Middle Dutch and Modern Dutch . Old-, Middle- and modern Dutch are all Low  Franconian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

Wow. We still use 'Gelak' for 'Laugh' in modern colloquial Malay. Now only I know where the term came from.

 

 

Dont post anymore here. I will make a  special thread for this issue . Some of this debate will be moved to that one and continue soon.

 

 

 

 

I am not 100% sure abour Armenian, but both Albanian and Greek do not belong to any branch like the Italic, Germanic, Slavic and Celtic languages do. They are just two languages on their own.