Originally posted by DanielMcCollum
Old English is a member of the Low Germanic family and is very closely related to Dutch, Flemish, and Old Norse as well as Old Low German. English would later be greatly transformed by the Norman invasion and would become a Germano-Romance hybrid. However even Old English was distinct from the other Low German languages(it was further from Old Norse and Swedish and Norwegian are from one another; the two languages, for instance, had highly differant inflections.) although it would be easily learned and understandable to other members of the same family.
If you don't believe me that its differant just read Beowulf and some old Sagas 
b
I know this. That is why I wrote that the changes that took part in the English language were neutralising the differences.
The inflectional system was different, so what happened? The English dropped or adapted their inflectional system.
Words having different meanings (false friends) adapted their meanings to Scandinavian, like _dream_ which meant "wish" in Anglo-saxon. _Draumr_ in Scandinavian meant "dream" so what happened? As _dream_ and _draumr_ were felt to be the same word, _dream_ changed meaning.
_Systir_ and _Sweostor_ were felt to be the same word giving us _sister_.
Very rarely does a language borrow words such as _they_ and _them_ or _take_ and _give_, or _egg_ and _are_. It is extremely rare that the borrowing of such basic words occur between separate languages. It is common though that dialects borrow such forms (that is why they remain dialects).
I'd say that in those days there were three major languages in western Europe: Germanic, Slavic and Romance. Within these three languages there were major dialects that were evolving into separate languages.
Let's say that a contemporary Picardois would go to southern Spain or southern Italy.
A Norwegian from northern Norway would at the same time go to Switzerland or to Wessex.
A Wend would go to from present-day Hamburg to Novgorod or Northern Greece.
When arriving to these destinations, the three people might have had difficulties understanding the local dialects, but during the voyage they would never have met a language barrier. They would have noticed that the way people spoke had changed a little when passing a forest or a river, but the language would have changed slowly and he would have learnt the differences as he went.
