I'm German but have been living in the US for 25 yrs and my verdict is that the German grammar is overly and unnecessarily complicated. The pronunciation, on the other hand, is sane, which cannot be said of English.
The Awful German Language (1880)
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Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Porcupine is the same thing, just using latinate roots rather than native English/Germanic ones.
A lot of stuff is like this. If you replace Geology with Rocklore then it sounds kind of weird but it's basically what it was in Greek.
Rocklore would be lithology or petrology.
Geology is the study of the earth.
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#43German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…
Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the language gets in the way in order to satisfy its constraints, often missing the point, being trapped in its structures, unable to formulate way out due to structural constraints inherent in the language; being overly rational and weakly emotional, suppressing a whole dimension of humaneness. Thanks, but no thanks!
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of the compound words are really quite funny, too... two of my favorites, randomly encountered recently: gloves/mittens are "Handschuhe" (hand shoes), and a porcupine is "Stachelschwein" (spike/quill pig). Very intuitive actually!
Porcupine is the same thing, just using latinate roots rather than native English/Germanic ones.
English does this a lot with borrowed words too, like orangutan coming from Malay orang (man) hutan (forest), so man of the forest.
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#45Heh, its honestly not that bad of a language, and has undergone two reforms (maybe 3? I forget) since this document was created. The "awful" parts of German are in some ways its saving grace. Example: surfing is Wellenreiten, literally wave-riding or riding waves. This whole thing is all over German with compound words. Its really no different conceptually from "the old blue car" in English, its just mashed together…
Then there are also slightly funny ones -plane / Flugzeug / flight stuff -lighter / Feuerzeug / fire stuff -light bulb / Glühbirne / Glow pear -eyeball / Augapfel / Eye apple
Yeah, English is funny language.
- plane - flat surface
- lighter - a lamp
- light bulb - empty bulb
- eyeball - a sport
(Non-native speaker).
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#46German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…
The absence of foreign loans in German is not due to being "resistant to frivolous changes". It's due to an explicit reform effort to root out ubiquitous Latinate loans. You can do the same in any language, limited only by how much control the government has over the way people talk.
If you want, you can try Anglish. :)
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#47Even if you don't know a word German, it's Mark Twain, and therefore well worth a read. If you don't know German, the essay makes you want to learn German so that you, too, can suffer along with the author.
Also this bit from Connecticut Yankee "She had exactly the German way; whatever was in her mind to be delivered, whether a mere remark, or a sermon, or a cyclopedia, or the history of a war, she would get it into a single sentence or die. Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth."
True. German sticks auxillary verbs in the middle of a sentence and main verbs at the end. Knew a guy from Lufthansa who joked that sometimes he would attend lectures with orators delivering long sentences and sometimes wouldn't know what was being referenced until the end of a sentence when the main verb showed up two minutes later.
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#48German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…
Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the langua…
I think this conflates typically verbose academic/philosophical writing with German itself. Many great old philosophers came out of Germany, in a time where writing obtusely to make a point was in vogue (in English, too, not just German), so this may add to the perception of German philosophy needing to be contorted.
I've read refreshingly concise modern works in both and English and German and can assure you that style is the writer's fault, not the language's.
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#49I’m not German but spend a lot of time with Germans who are more often than not fantastic fun. And quite “freigeistlich” I find. This is an excellent German stand-up comedian who plies his trade in London: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=48gV9W9UZHk A curious thing that I have noticed that when Germans speak and write English, they often don’t differentiate between 2 previously mentioned subjects or objects. For exampl…
Don't know about your example, but Germans tend to pack more information into a sentence, particularly in the written form (as Mark Twain rightfully noticed). Actually, I find English somewhat clumsy to write technical documentation in. Using short sentences, I frequently end up in restating things and having to find alternative words and idioms to avoid repetition. Moreover, using relative clause in English isn't quite as powerful as in German. But probably it's just me not being an English native speaker.
Re: The Awful German Language (1880)
#50German is an amazing, beautiful language. With not much of the vocabulary borrowed from other languages, words actually make sense. From that perspective, German can be seen as the modern equivalent of Latin, and if I were to choose only one language to remain on the entire planet, it would be German (sorry English, Chinese and Spanish). Its sounds are easier for non-native speakers to pronounce - especially compared…
Despite appearance, German is very illogical language full of idioms and exceptions one has to master. Also, even natives usually don't master the full extent of language and the overbearing nature of language with its need for precise use of words/formulations specific to a given situation often leads to strong reliance on syntax/appearance of complexity. You can see it in typical German philosophy, where the langua…
Yet, the greatest philosophers after the Greeks were all German-speaking (Hegel, Kant, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, Mach...). Also, physicists, mathematicians.