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The Awful German Language (1880)

cs.utah.edu

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Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#101

Post by err4nt »

KeyboardFire wrote: post #64
bitL wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The idea that language limits or constrains the way people think (the stronger side of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is now largely discredited by the majority of linguists.

Yet we have a wide variety of programming languages, and switch between them as the need arises for a better fit to the problem domain we're working in. With the wide variety of things like number systems in different languages, wouldn't it make sense that using some languages might be better for mathematical communication, and others maybe not offer the precision required to communicate everything necessary? It would make sense to me if some languages were better for talking about navigation, or weather than others. Or some were better with numbers, or parts of anatomy, etc.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#102

Post by ummonk »

verelo wrote: post #23
yorwba wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separating parts of compounds by spaces prevents ambiguous decompositions, but allows ambiguous groupings. (Like "Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.", which would be less confusing if "fruit flies" were written "fruitflies" or at least "fruit-flies".) I'm not sure which is worse.

The hyphen seems like a very reasonable compromise, at the very least it tells you the space was intentionally omitted and it should be read together as a compound.

Yeah, hyphen seems best. Still wouldn’t solve cases where you need to embed one compound inside another, but otherwise it is good. Maybe languages should just have parantheses though to explicitly indicate the parse tree.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#103

Post by escherplex »

geowwy wrote: post #86
rolleiflex wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English still has he / she, so it’s not fully gender neutral, it still has gendered constructs in its ‘runtime’. There are a few fully gender neutral languages, Turkish is one.

Chinese is interesting because the spoken form has no gender but the written form does (he/she/it are written 他/她/它 but all pronounced “tā”)

Chinese of course has numerous dialects outside Mandarin. Do any dialects change tones when using that “tā” phoneme for a "he" or a "she" or an "it"?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#104

Post by verelo »

ummonk wrote: post #102
verelo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hyphen seems like a very reasonable compromise, at the very least it tells you the space was intentionally omitted and it should be read together as a compound.

Yeah, hyphen seems best. Still wouldn’t solve cases where you need to embed one compound inside another, but otherwise it is good. Maybe languages should just have parantheses though to explicitly indicate the parse tree.

The good news is we are designing languages for humans, not computers, so we can make a big mess of it and still get the message most of the time. If we were designing for computers, we would certainly prefer more data to interpret the intent.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#106

Post by amelius »

escherplex wrote: post #99
amelius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I like about English is that it naturally supports gender neutrality. For example: "the user should upload their photo, and then they should press enter", instead of "the user should upload his/her photo and then he/she should press enter".

Gender references generally disappear in the English plurals. So the above should read "Users should upload their photos". Then you can just restrict gender pronouns for reference to specifics.

That does not work when the plural is not appropriate. For example, you would have trouble saying: "the above commenter wrote about their experience", i.e. when talking about a specific person with unknown gender. I'm glad that English still allows this.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#108

Post by wolfgke »

this_user wrote: post #96
krylon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, allow me to respectfully disagree. I think English is far easier to learn. I often find it easier to express my thoughts in English than in German. I do agree that German is a beautiful language, though, and highly recommend reading Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarathustra to anyone who does or does not agree with me on this one.

One thing that I have noticed about English is that it seems to be more concise. There are things that can be expressed much more elegantly and with fewer word in English, while saying the same thing in German may require a mid-sized sentence.

> One thing that I have noticed about English is that it seems to be more concise. There are things that can be expressed much more elegantly and with fewer word in English, while saying the same thing in German may require a mid-sized sentence.

As a native German speaker, I disagree. German allows a really concise nominal style that is hard to express in English.

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#109

Post by andrewem »

bitL wrote: post #75
KeyboardFire wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that language limits or constrains the way people think (the stronger side of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) is now largely discredited by the majority of linguists.

I speak 8 languages from many separate groups (Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Sino-Tibetan, Japanese), and my impression is that languages truly put constraints on one's ability to formulate thoughts. Of course, mentalese, the unspoken one, is different, independent, but it's rare people retain it to their older age and by then prevailing cultural/linguistic currents shape their thoughts. Sapir-Whorf might be discredited…

Would you please give some examples where you've found "that languages truly put constraints on one's ability to formulate thoughts"?

Re: The Awful German Language (1880)

#110

Post by wolfgke »

kaybe wrote: post #91
louisswiss wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those aren't the awful parts though, really. I would do away with the 'formal' form of addressing people (Germans have two ways of saying 'you') which serves no real purpose. I'd also get rid of gendered articles and finally simplify word endings (adjective endings can go for a start)!

Many people feel that having a formal way to address people is useful. It allows you to express very quickly how close you want to have them to you. A stranger you don't like? Formal. A stranger who seems to be your own age and from similar circumstances? Try using non-formal and see how they react. The most beautiful form of this is 'Sie Arschloch', I think. At the same time kind of polite and a rude insult.

> Many people feel that the having a formal way to address people is useful. It allows you to express very quickly how close you want to have them to you. A stranger you don't like? Formal. A stranger who seems to be your own age and from similar circumstances? Try using non-formal and see how they react.

Or when a couple came apart (in conflict). He started to formulate the letters/emails in a overly formal addressing - she was really furious about that, because this sent a clear message to her.

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