English’s lexical siblings

You may have heard before that some languages are mutually intelligible, meaning that speakers of language A can fully or partially understand speakers of language B and vice versa. This occurs when languages share lexical similarities.

For instance, French has 89% lexical similarity with Italian, 80% with Sardinian, 78% with Romansh, and 75% with Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish (Kreisa, 2023). Hindi and Urdu are so similar that they could be regarded as a single language in their spoken forms (Miyatsu, n.d.). Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian historically were one single language, and even today a speaker of one can understand speakers of the other two (Toft, n.d.).

Dialects, too, can be compared by lexical similarity. You may think this goes without saying, but dialects within a single language aren’t always mutually intelligible: for example, Mandarin and Cantonese are both dialects of Chinese (by Western standards), but the two aren’t mutually intelligible. Within China, they’re usually considered separate languages that both belong to the Sinitic language family, which itself includes many sub-families, including seven different Chinese families (Bagley, 2023; What Is the Difference Between Mandarin and Cantonese?, n.d.).

Where, then, does English stand? Does it have any lexical siblings?

In terms of lexical similarity, there are four languages that come to mind: Scots, Fingallian, Yola and Frisian.

Scots

Scots probably wasn’t the first language to come to mind, was it? The Scots language is sometimes considered a dialect of English and sometimes its own language. Don’t believe me? Consider the following excerpt from the “Scots Leid” Wikipedia page:

Up til tha 15t yeirhunder Scottis (modern furm Scots) wis the name o the Gallic, the Celtic leid o the aunshint Scots. Thaim that bruikit Scots cried tha Gaelic Erse (meinin Irish). … Fur tha maist pairt, Scots originatit fae tha Northumbrian variety o Anglo-Saxon (Auld Inglis), tho wi a meikle influence fae the Auld Norse o the Vikings, the Dutch an law Saxon thro troke wi (an incummers fae) tha law kintras….

I imagine you probably understood most of the previous paragraph. There may have been a few words you didn’t understand, but you probably got the gist of it. That’s mutual intelligibility.

Scots and English have the same Anglo-Saxon roots; Northern English spoken in Scotland diverged from Northern English spoken in England, with Scots emerging sometime in the 13th century (Scots: An Outline History, n.d.). This is why they share so many similarities today.

Fingallian and Yola

Fingallian and Yola—both from Ireland and descended from Middle English—were mostly mutually intelligible, but alas, both became extinct in the 19th century, replaced by modern Irish English (Shiels, 2013). Here is an example of Yola:

The Wedding of Ballymore (circa 15th or 16th century)

A peepeare struck ap; wough dansth aul in a ring,
Earch myde was a queen, an earch bye was a king,
Zoo wough aul veil a-danceen; earch bye gae a poage,
To his sweethearth, an smack lick a dab of a brough.

Zoo wough kisth, au wough parthet; earch man took his laave,
An a boor lithel breedegroom waithed wonderfullee griefte,
Zoo wough aul returnth hyme, contented an gaay,
To our pleoughes an mulk-pyles till a neeshte weddeen die. (Scallaan, 2016)

Traces of Yola still exist today in the traditional Christmas songs of Wexford. You can listen to a recording of Yola on the page Ancient Christmas Carols (opens in new tab).

Frisian

There’s one more lexical sibling on our list: Frisian, especially West Frisian.

If English, German, and Dutch had a child, it would look very much like Frisian. According to Babbel, Frisian has 80% lexical similarity with English (Eriksson, 2019). Both languages descend from the West Germanic branch of the Germanic language family (Janssen, 2015). The two have a lot of vocabulary in common, even if they aren’t mutually intelligible, though Old English and Old Frisian probably were.

After some 500 years of separation in which Frisian was greatly influenced by Dutch, the two languages are very different now. While you would understand some of the everyday words like good morning (goeie moarn), thank you (tankje), or even basic sentences like “What is this?” (Wat is dit?) or the popular example “Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Frisian” (Bûter, brea en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk), more complicated sentences would be difficult to understand without knowledge of Dutch, German, or Frisian itself. For instance, can you understand the following paragraph?

It Ingelsk (Ingelsk: English) is in Westgermaanske taal, dy't him ûntjoech yn it Midsiuwske Ingelân, mar tsjintwurdich ta in wrâldwide lingua franca wurden is. It Ingelsk ûntstie út 'e taal fan 'e Angelsaksen, in befolkingsgroep dy't oarspronklik fan 'e Noardseekust op it Jeropeeske fêstelân ôfkomstich wie. (“Ingelsk,” n.d.)

Even though Frisian is not quite mutually intelligible with English, it’s still one of English’s closest lexical siblings. Together, they help make up the Anglo-Frisian languages group—of which Scots is also a member.

Do you speak a language that has close lexical siblings? Have you found it easy to understand speakers of those other closely related languages? Tell me about your experience!

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