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I wouldn't group them like that, English/German/Dutch are Germanic languages, while French/Italian/Latin are Romance. Japanese also a bit removed from Mandarin/Cantonese. But, yes, I would argue that knowing unrelated languages broadens ones perspective far more than knowing similar ones.

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Interesting. I was looking at:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/IndoEurop...

There are subdivisions like Germanic and Romance in the language family which do seem sufficiently far apart. However, there are quite a few subdivisions that seem very closely related.

I wonder if there is a way to draw entirely new subdivisions based on benefits of knowing languages from each subdivision.

Also, intuitively, what you say about knowing unrelated languages makes sense. I am curious however, if you had some deeper insight or knowledge into why (if true) this might be?

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