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What languages are most closely related to English?

The languages most closely related to English are the other West Germanic languages. These include:

* Frisian: Considered the closest relative to English, spoken by a small population in the Netherlands and Germany.

* Dutch: Spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, with a close connection to English due to shared ancestry and historical interaction.

* Low German: A group of dialects spoken in northern Germany, also sharing a common ancestor with English.

* German: While more distantly related than the others, German still shares a significant amount of vocabulary and grammatical structure with English.

It's important to note that English is a unique language, having been influenced by various other languages throughout its history, including French, Latin, and Greek. This makes it a bit tricky to pinpoint its exact "closest relatives" since it's not simply a straightforward descendant of any one language.

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