Languages of Europe and Vocabulary Similarities

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This chart shows the degree of overall vocabulary divergence among the major languages of Europe.  The size of each circle represents the number of speakers of that language. Circles of the same color are in same language group.

English is a member of the Germanic group, but about 75% of the modern English vocabulary comes from French and Latin rather than Germanic sources due the French presence (William of Normandy) in England in 1066. As a result, English (a Germanic Language) is closer to French (in vocabulary, not grammar) than any other Germanic language.

Thank you to Teresa Elms at Etymologikon for putting this fascinating information together, which is based on original research data from K. Tyshchenko (1999), Metatheory of Linguistics.

One response to “Languages of Europe and Vocabulary Similarities

  1. And Greek is the language that conects all other European Languages

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