Porthos
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Your favorite Germanic languagesFirst of all, my favorite by far, is English. It's the one languae which is the least related to another among the Germanic languages. For instance, Dutch is very similar to German, and the Nordic languages are all very similar to each other. Genetically, Frisian is closest to English, but in reality, today it is much closer to Dutch, which leaves English without a very close partner. Also, English has a very distinct orthography, a somewhat different phonology, and a load of Latin vocabulary which is unintelligable and hard to master for another Germanic speaker. That being said, English is still a great language, with possibly the richest vocabulary of all the languages in the world. It is also the lingua franca of the world, and the language of music, media, business, diplomacy, etc.
After English, I like Frisian (simply because of some of the similarities it shares uniquely with English) and German. I think the Nordic languages sound softer than Dutch or German, but German is less alien to me as a native English speaker than Nordic languages are. Dutch is out of picture because it has possibly one of the harshest sounds known to man. I think German sounds cool, although not Romantic.
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