Insufferable know-it-all, mostly law, science, politics and Canadian football.
Old English, the form of English spoken in England in the 6th century to the 11th century, was almost entirely based on forms of German spoken on the northwest coast of Germany during the same period. English borrows almost no words from the languages that must have been spoken in the region by the native population (which were closer to modern Welsh)
German and English started to diverge in the 6th century as different groups of people started also invading the territory, like the Danes and the Vikings, which brought other words into English.
But the big split was in the 11th century when the Normans conquered England and ruled over it for over 400 years. The Norman kings and aristocrats only spoke French but allowed the natives to keep speaking their own language. However, from that point forward German and English diverged greatly as instead of using compounding to form new words, English instead borrowed Norman words. Although in 1066 German and English shared a lot of vocabulary, by the 16th century they only shared very basic vocabulary and more complex vocabulary was Norman French borrowed words in English but compound German words in German.
Of the 5,000 most common words in English, about 95% of them have a German root, and many are still German cognates, like “Hound” and “Flesh” (“Hund” and “Fleisch” respectively).
