That is, some of the words below may sound rather foreign and easily give their origin away. Some of the words haven’t been adapted to English very well yet. But in this article, we’d like to focus more on German loanwords which enriched English not so long ago. There are similarities in pronunciation too. And today it is the same – English words which are most commonly used happen to be of German origin, while there are about 80,000 words of French origin altogether.Īpart from vocabulary, sentence structure and word order of English and German are quite similar. In that old language, new French and Latin words co-existed with old Germanic ones.

That’s right, it gets its name from the Germanic tribes who settled in England in 500-800 A.D. Anyway, after the invasion of the Normans, the English language started to be called Anglo- Saxon. Those words are some of the most commonly used German words, and if you decide to try your hand at the language, you might learn them during your very first lesson. Their language included words like ich or Hand, meaning I and hand respectively. However, when the Normans arrived, England had already been populated by Germanic tribes, who spoke Old English, for centuries. It influenced English greatly and, according to different sources, 45% of all English words used today are originally French ( source). In 1066, the French-speaking Normans invaded England, bringing numerous French and Latin words with them. The fact that the languages are so close has a lot to do with history, and we’d like to briefly explain why. English and German are both Western Germanic languages, and so they share many common features.

What are the german words in english