I'm from the UK and whilst working with a handful of dutch, I was blown away not only by their extremely good english but also their ability to understand and the subitle aspects of english - eg comedy/ sarcasium/ passive aggresstion etc..
No, that would have to be Scots. Especially compared to the region versions of English spoken in Northern England.
It should not be too surprising, given that Scots in large part derived from Northumbrian Old English, with various admixtures including from Scandinavia.
The versions of English spoken in Northern England also had a large input from Norse due to the Dane Law period, and that is part of what drove the change to modern English.
That said, in viewing un-dubbed (but subtitled) Dutch, Belgium, and Swedish TV programs, I have been surprised by the amount I get the gist of directly from the speech. Generally from the core Germanic portion of the languages. Belgium was also interesting due to the occasional mix of stock French phrases and words.
There were a non trivial quantity of 'English' words used, and usually for identical meaning, or a similar gloss.
Fair enough, but Dutch is a much more “major” language than Scots (which I believe even in Scotland only a small % of the population speak as their first/mother tongue rather than English).
So 1.5m out of 5.1m, which works out as 29%. I'd suggest these being folk who learnt it as their 'mother' tongue, since Scots is not taught as such in the school system.
I'm not sure how that and the 1.1% figure for use at home can be reconciled.
So if we take that 29% figure, despite being a minority, it is still in a better overall position than Gaelic.
One would expect that Scots could be fairly easily saved from extinction if it got official support, but there seems little political will within the Scottish establishment (Parliament and Government) to do so.
> Dutch is probably the closest language to English that isn’t a dialect of English.
I still remember hearing two Dutch guys speak in Dutch, I thought there were speaking in English but then I realised I dont understand what they are saying.
Part of that is probably because we have (grandfathered) access to BBC1 and BBC2 here, so ample opportunity to learn British mannerisms and expressions.
