The Frisian languages are a closely related group of Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. The Frisian languages are the closest living language group to English languages, and are together grouped into the Anglo-Frisian languages. However, modern English and Frisian are unintelligible to each other. Rather, the three Frisian languages have been heavily influenced by and bear similarities to Dutch, Danish, and/or Low German, depending upon their respective locations. Additional shared linguistic characteristics between the Great Yarmouth area, Friesland, and Denmark are likely to have resulted from the close trading relationship these areas maintained during the centuries-long Hanseatic League of the Late Middle Ages.