A recent study conducted by University College London in which academics studied a segment of the Y chromosome that appears in almost all Danish and northern German males found out that half of British males also have the segment. Now geneticists claim that it is possible that half of the British population has German blood, a consequence of Anglo-Saxon migration in the fifth and sixth century after the fall of the Roman Empire.
The Anglo-Saxon settlers brought their language with them and their closely related dialects evolved into Old English. British and German people have common ancestors and their languages share the same origin. The two languages have the same roots and similar characteristics, but this is where the comparison ends. Though sharing the same ancestors genetically and linguistically, the language barrier between the two nations is quite impenetrable.
While the results of the genetic study may have an impact on the endless football rivalry between Britons and Germans, it will certainly not help overcome the language gap between them.
And while in Germany the tendency is that German students start to learn English as early as their first year at school with almost everyone under the age of 25 having at least basic proficiency in the English language, the situation in the UK is quite different. Recent linguistic surveys reveal that the majority of UK schoolchildren leave secondary school with little to no knowledge of any foreign language at all.
One result of this trend is that there is an increasing demand for German-English translations, even more so than for English-German translations.
For more information on German-English and English-German translations please visit our website.
