Cognates: English, Dutch and German Words from A Common Root

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For entertainment purposes only; not systematic; not exhaustive.
My English and German are not perfect but good enough: you'll get the idea.

About 2300 years ago, the Germanic tribes started spreading out over ("conquering") much of Northwestern Europe; consequently, their speech started to grow apart. Change was not random but mostly followed a pattern, as for instance (English/Dutch/German) old/oud/alt, cold/koud/kalt and many similar words, or like the 'softening' of many German consonants (book/Buch, apple/Apfel.) Dutch is generally more like German than like English, but sometimes developed like English (moon/maan/Mond), and sometimes went its own way (weather/weer/Wetter.)
Stricly speaking, cognates are words that are not only similar in different languages but also come from a common root word in the 'mother' language that those languages developed from. For instance, English/Dutch/German dream/droom/Traum and head/hoofd/Haupt. But words like English/Dutch table/tafel and curtain/gordijn are not cognates because they originate in Latin words. A word like 'computer' is also not a cognate.
Recognizable Words in Dutch and English

English	Dutch	German	hear MP3	notes
Dutch	Duits	Deutsch	- 2	The Dutch and German words mean 'German.'
wife	wijf	Weib		Dutch and German: (insulting) 'woman' `(Do not use.)`
life	lijf	Leib		Dutch and German: '(human) body.'
thumb	duim	Daumen
thunder	donder	Donner
craft	kracht	Kraft		Dutch and German: power
soft	zacht	sanft
to wait	wachten	warten
to sigh	zuchten	seufzen
sweet	zoet	süß
mouth	mond	Mund		Western Dutch dialects also lost the N, as in 'IJmuiden.'
us	ons	uns
moon	maan	Mond
month	maand	Monat	- 2
tooth	tand	Zahn
toe	teen	Zehe
thin	dun	dünn
head	hoofd	Haupt
eye	oog	Auge
day	dag	Tag
world	wereld	Welt	- 2
Earth	Aarde	Erde
breast	borst	Brust
fresh	vers	frisch
thirst	dorst	Durst
fire	vuur	Feuer
water	water	Wasser
better	beter	besser
weather	weer	Wetter
clover	klaver	Klee
to believe	geloven	glauben
cheese	kaas	Käse
church	kerk	Kirche

English	Dutch	German
high	hoog	hoch	- 2
nut	noot	Nuss
book	boek	Buch
oak	eik	Eiche
flesh	vlees	Fleisch		The Dutch and German words also mean 'meat.'
to fold	vouwen	falten
fowl	vogel	Vogel		Dutch and German: general word for 'bird'
fox	vos	Fuchs
six	zes	Sechs
seven	zeven	Sieben
ten	tien	Zehn
eighty	tachtig	achtzig
green	groen	grün
white	wit	weiß
yellow	geel	gelb
brown	bruin	braun
dove	duif	Taube
deaf	doof	taub
sail	zeil	Segel
hail	hagel	Hagel
dream	droom	Traum
to rub	wrijven	reiben
to wring	wringen	ringen		English still writes the "w," Dutch still says it
to wreak	wreken	rächen		Dutch and German: to avenge
to gnaw	knagen	nagen
knight	knecht	Knecht		Dutch and German: male servant
needle	naald	Nadel
yesterday	gisteren	Gestern
shadow	schaduw	Schatten

English	Dutch	German
room	ruim	Raum		Dutch noun 'ruim' is a ship's hold
cage	kooi	Käfig
nose	neus	Nase
cold	koud	kalt
sour	zuur	sauer
pound	pond	Pfund
pole	paal	Pfahl
harvest	herfst	Herbst		Dutch and German: Autumn
heart	hart	Herz
stone	steen	Stein
salt	zout	Salz	- 2
kitchen	keuken	Küche
cellar	kelder	Keller	- 2
drop	druppel	Tropf
swarm	zwerm	Schwarm
slime	slijm	Schleim
snow	sneeuw	Schnee
soul	ziel	Seele
love	liefde	Liebe
free	vrij	frei

house	huis	Haus
houses	huizen	Häuser		note the plural shift to 'Z' in all three languages
louse	luis	Laus
lice	luizen	Läuse

father	vader	Vater
mother	moeder	Mutter
sister	zus, zuster	Schwester
brother	broer, broeder	Bruder
child	kind	Kind		Note that the plural is similar in the three languages;
children	kinderen	Kinder		irregular in English and Dutch, common in German
English	Dutch	German
one	één	eins
two	twee	zwei	- 2
three	drie	drei
four	vier	vier	- 2
five	vijf	fünf
six	zes	sechs
seven	zeven	sieben
eight	acht	acht
nine	negen	neun
ten	tien	zehn	- 2
eleven	elf	elf
twelve	twaalf	zwölf
no	nee	nein	- 2 - 3
man	man	Mann	- 2
men	mannen	Männer	- 2

English	Dutch	German	hear
I am	ik ben	ich bin
you are	jij bent	du bist
he is	hij is	er ist
we are	wij zijn	wir sind
you are (plural)	jullie zijn	ihr seid
they are	zij zijn	sie sind

I have been	ik ben geweest	ich bin gewesen		Dutch and German employ both their 'to have' and 'to be' in the perfect tenses
I have eaten	ik heb gegeten	ich habe gegessen	- 2
he comes	hij komt	er kommt
he came	hij kwam	er kam

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"G" in Northern and Southern Dutch, "CH" in German

Family Tree, Pond Ripples

Language development is often pictured as a family tree, groups growing apart and separating, but Schmidt's 'Wave Model' (1872) suggests that language changes spread from the dialects of groups that are politically or economically dominant, or culturally prestigious, like ripples from a rock thrown in a pond.

Frisian

Frisian is nowadays only spoken by about a quarter of a million people in Holland and a few pockets in Germany and Denmark.
It is said that speakers of Frisian have little difficulty reading Old English: Frisian is closely related to the language of the Angles and Saxons that crossed the North Sea to England ca 500 AD/CE; but then there were 1500 years of separate development, and English was greatly influenced by the French of the Norman invaders and also by the languages of the Vikings, and Frisian was even more massively influenced by Dutch.
Spoken Frisian

Gothic and Old English

The Streamlining of English

The Scandinavian languages are the Northern branch of the Germanic language family. When the vikings came to England ca 800 CE, their languages and the English of that time were still not that different, people could understand each other. It probably sounded like a distant dialect to the other party. The close contact of the related languages led to a great streamlining of English grammar, hammering out many irregularities - English has far fewer exceptions than Dutch and German.
Still, I had been wondering where the English 'extended' archaic possesive in for instance "the friends of my father's"

2 came from, until I realized it is like in German, just the regular possesive-S in the noun: die Freunde meines Vaters

- in Dutch the noun does not have the possessive-S: de vrienden van m'n vader

About a quarter of the cognates were found in B.C. Donaldson: Dutch (M. Nijhoff, Leiden 1983)

Thank you Fabian Wenzel and Frank Nitsch for pointing out several typos and mistakes in the German.

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