Which branch of Germanic languages includes English?

English belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic language family.

The Germanic family is part of the wider Indo-European family and is traditionally divided into West Germanic, North Germanic, and East Germanic. English is classified in West Germanic alongside languages such as German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian, and Low German. More specifically, English developed from North Sea Germanic, an ancestral grouping associated with Anglo-Frisian and related varieties.

English’s classification reflects its ancestry, not its modern vocabulary. After Germanic-speaking settlers reached Britain from the fifth century onward, English changed through contact with Celtic languages, Latin, Old Norse, and Norman French. Those influences gave English an unusually large and mixed vocabulary, but its core grammatical and historical lineage remains Germanic. North Germanic includes Scandinavian languages such as Swedish and Danish; East Germanic, which included Gothic, is extinct.