[Retric]

I agree. I may not have been clear enough when I said “at the beginning” but I was referring to shared vocabulary being more obvious vs German.

Perhaps a better way to say it is the overlap between Modern English and Old English is nearly useless when looking at an old text without prior training because of everything experienced linguistic drift.

Meanwhile more recent exchanges in either direction just pop out. The pop up here has buttons labeled “Accepter et continuer” which looks like accept and continue, and “S’abonner” which looks enough like Abandon to suggest what clicking on them does even if that’s the first exposure an English speaker has to French. https://www.lemonde.fr/

So IMO when looking at how closely related things are it’s worth remembering not just where something comes from but how much of that shared history is still around.