Take the 2-minute tour ×  English is a Germanic language.
Another significant Germanic language is of course German.
Which native English speakers are the closest to German basing
on the following criteria?    • accent-wise (South Africa?)   •
German words and phrases (US? e.g. "to schlep" for "to carry")
• grammar-wise (US again? e.g. slang "If I would" for "If I
was") share|improve this question "to schlep" is Yiddish that we
happen to use, I wouldn't use it as an indicator of our use of
german words. –  Claudiu Oct 22 '10 at 20:58 Dutch and Swedish
are pretty big germanic languages too. And remember, just
because it is called germanic doesn't mean that German is any
more germanic and any of the other languages in the family. – 
Kosmonaut Oct 22 '10 at 22:08 @Claudiu: Yiddish is a High German
language. Schlep has deep Germanic roots, while carry comes from
Latin. –  RegDwigнt Oct 23 '10 at 16:34 Oy veh! Any schlemiel
knows that Yiddish has high German roots, but only a real
schmuck would call it German,