On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch • Hacker News Board

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#281

Post by ido » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:09 PM UTC

m_fayer wrote: post #120

jillesvangurp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that is specific to Berlin is that increasingly bars and cafes are staffed by foreigners. This is a quirk of the German employment system, a scarcity of staff, and the wide availability of expats in need of gigs. Instead of hiring permanent staff and paying them a salary, it's less risky to have temporary workers. However, you can't do that endlessly with the same people in the German system. You would have…

When I moved to Berlin 15 years ago, this was not the case. Many bars and cafes were staffed by German-speaking people in their 30s - underpaid artistic or intellectual types or professional partiers making an extra buck. This had a particular charm - they were often cranky and unconcerned, but they kept the same job for a long time and you could get to know them and feel like a "regular." This kept me returning to t…

My theory is that this is completely due to the raising cost of housing - it's no longer easy (possible?) do make due in Berlin on that kind of job long-term.

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#282

Post by giraffe_lady » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:10 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #268

derriz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is perhaps nitpicking but I wish non-native English speakers would not use the term “Anglo-Saxon” to describe anglophone or (better) English speaking countries. The term refers to the original north Germanic invaders of England and so has tribal (racial) connotations and is typically used in English to distinguish people on that basis. Many/most Americans (e.g. black or Native American) so not consider themselve…

This is from the English Wikipedia. [1] Nowhere in the article is there any hint that the term is perceived as problematic by native English speakers or that it has racial overtonens. If indeed there is a critical mass of people who feel offended by it, you know what you need to do :-) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_model

The article about the actual people the anglo saxons does reinforce their point though.

> The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity. It developed from divergent groups in association with the people's adoption of Christianity and was integral to the founding of various kingdoms.

> Catherine Hills summarised the views of many modern scholars in her observation that attitudes towards Anglo-Saxons, and hence the interpretation of their culture and history, have been "more contingent on contemporary political and religious theology as on any kind of evidence."

> During the Victorian era, writers such as Robert Knox, James Anthony Froude, Charles Kingsley and Edward A. Freeman used the term Anglo-Saxon to justify colonialistic imperialism, claiming that Anglo-Saxon heritage was superior to those held by colonised peoples, which justified efforts to "civilise" them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#283

Post by dfawcus » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:14 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #69

> The other day my friend S., an American Berliner, said that he had noticed his English-language social circle starting to use the word « spontaneously » wrong. When Germans say they’ll organise a social event spontan, they mean they’ll work out the details at short notice. To socialise spontaneously, in English, means something rather different. But S. and I and our Neukölln friends have started using it in the sen…

"on the spur of the moment"

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#284

Post by nunuvit » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:20 PM UTC

derriz wrote: post #145

nologic01 wrote: post #92

Global English is both a blessing and a curse. Never before could so many people communicate across linguistic divides (even if imperfectly). But the price is that never before was the rich collective cultural heritage under such threat. The two facets are deeply related. Like any lingua franca before, global English was invented to facilitate trade (economic exchange). The fact that it is English and not Basque or S…

This is perhaps nitpicking but I wish non-native English speakers would not use the term “Anglo-Saxon” to describe anglophone or (better) English speaking countries. The term refers to the original north Germanic invaders of England and so has tribal (racial) connotations and is typically used in English to distinguish people on that basis. Many/most Americans (e.g. black or Native American) so not consider themselve…

As an American (with no Anglo-Saxon ancestry), I strongly disagree.

We call them Germans, the Italians call them Teutons, the Spanish call them Alemanni. Those were all distinct peoples who came together along with others to call themselves Dutch. But we use Dutch to refer to different people, and Germanic to refer to an even wider group of people then all the aforementioned put together. I've never heard a non-joking complaint from any of them about that. Granted, they're saying Anglo-Saxon while speaking English, but it's their dialect of English.

I also can't see why Englishspeaking is better than anglophone. Engl- comes from Angl-. -phone means -speaking. They're both English language words with identical meanings.

You haven't mentioned Anglo by itself, but that's even more common. It means English, but disambiguates England and English people from their global influence. If English is fine, Anglo should be fine too. And if Anglo is fine, then Saxon and Jute and Frisian should probably be fine too. But it's not fine when you put them together?

It's ridiculous to say that the actual self-given name of the predecessors of a language and culture has racial connotations.

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#285

Post by sgjohnson » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:27 PM UTC

Xixi wrote: post #278

treis wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its both: Leave Country A for Country B = expat Move to Country B from Country A = immigrant The words mean exactly the same. It's just which perspective you want to highlight. Whether you left a place or moved to a place.

I might have been traumatized by US visa process, but in my mind "immigrant" has a very specific meaning: moving to a country with the intent of settling there permanently. And the US is very strict on that meaning: when I went to the US my work visa was explicitly non-immigrant, and calling myself an immigrant at the US embassy when applying for the visa, or while crossing the US border would have resulted in the de…

> when I went to the US my work visa was explicitly non-immigrant, and calling myself an immigrant at the US embassy when applying for the visa, or while crossing the US border would have resulted in the denial of my visa, or the denial of my entry in the US. At least that's what the attorney drilled into my head...

H1B is dual-intent. You are allowed to have an immigrant intent when applying for H1B, so no, nobody would refuse it on that ground.

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#286

Post by dfawcus » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:32 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #204

ben_w wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British by birth, I chose Berlin after Brexit because: 1. Friends here 2. Alternative countries were Luxembourg/Switzerland (more expensive); Canada (worse weather); Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time); USA (weird culture, guns); Australia/New Zealand (too far from the old country to visit regular…

> Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time Just to be clear, this basically would never happen with most people. Now, the North of Ireland (the part still in the UK) might be a little different, but most Irish (i.e. republic) people couldn't give two sh*ts about where you're from as long as you're good crai…

"as long as you're good craic."

Now that is an interesting usage.

I take it as using "crack" in an expansive sense of "company" rather than simply "news" or "gossip"?

(Possibly something which may confuse non native speakers of English.)

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#287

Post by bigdollopenergy » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:43 PM UTC

sgjohnson wrote: post #285

Xixi wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might have been traumatized by US visa process, but in my mind "immigrant" has a very specific meaning: moving to a country with the intent of settling there permanently. And the US is very strict on that meaning: when I went to the US my work visa was explicitly non-immigrant, and calling myself an immigrant at the US embassy when applying for the visa, or while crossing the US border would have resulted in the de…

> when I went to the US my work visa was explicitly non-immigrant, and calling myself an immigrant at the US embassy when applying for the visa, or while crossing the US border would have resulted in the denial of my visa, or the denial of my entry in the US. At least that's what the attorney drilled into my head... H1B is dual-intent. You are allowed to have an immigrant intent when applying for H1B, so no, nobody w…

They never specified H1B.

They were probably on a treaty visa, Like E2 (which i have, it's not just for business owners/investors, employees can get this too) or T2 (The NAFTA equivalent). These visas allow you to live and work in the US for a very long time (extendable indefinitely for 2 years a pop in my case), but they have no dual-intent attached to them. They are a dead-end and if you want to stay in the US you need to start from square one with an H1B/Marriage or convince your employer to start a standalone green card sponsorship, which costs like $50k and 2+ years of processing, where the only benefit to the employer is that you can now get a different job.

It's actually kind of a problem, there's a lot of people on these visas who've lived and worked here for 20+ years with no viable route to permanent residency.

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#288

Post by b800h » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

bhangrrathwy wrote: post #228

b800h wrote: post #13

We have a number of Indian-language radio stations in the UK, which are good to listen to because the music is often great. Part of the fun is spotting the odd anglicism creep in: "that's not cricket!"

Is the music Hindi or Punjabi? (Or both, there is a spectrum of sorts between Hindi/urdu with Punjabi influence to "pure" Punjabi)

Depends on the station. I've heard a bunch of different stuff, but Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and Gujarati stuff all crops up at least as far as I can tell. I'm also not terribly good at distinguishing them but can tell when I'm hearing Hindi or Urdu.

Interesting that you mention the spectrum of Punjabi - I think I must have been taught some Punjabi-inflected Hindi which was very much like Hindi, and then had other people tell me they're completely different. Makes more sense now.

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#289

Post by wendyshu » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #24

G3rn0ti wrote: post #9

As a native Urberliner I am both flattered and confused by the fact so many young Americans choose to live in my home town. I always wondered what makes it so attractive to you. I mean, winters are miserable, the city is ugly compared to many others in Germany, the people are rather not friendly to each other, the German language is difficult to learn, our history is troublesome, German immigration laws still difficu…

I'm British by birth, I chose Berlin after Brexit because: 1. Friends here 2. Alternative countries were Luxembourg/Switzerland (more expensive); Canada (worse weather); Ireland (fear I might get blamed personally for the stupid done by British politicians, and the UK Gov was being loudly stupid about Ireland at the time); USA (weird culture, guns); Australia/New Zealand (too far from the old country to visit regular…

Why are you afraid of police with guns?

Re: On the unexpected joys of Denglisch, Berlinglish and global Englisch

#290

Post by DoughnutHole » Thu, Apr 27, 2023, 3:10 PM UTC

MayeulC wrote: post #247

derriz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my ear, to do something “spontaneously” means to do something without having planned it. So to make plans with someone to do something “spontaneously” sounds oxymoronish.

IDK, it sounds OK to me: you make plans for meeting, you'll decide what to do on the spot, "improvising". Meeting is definitly not done spontaneously. Neither is choosing the activity. The choice, however, may be spontaneous.

Spontaneity implies impulse, without forethought. You just wouldn't say something was something spontaneous if it was at all planned. Having a plan to do X, but working out the exact details later is not spontaneous unless there's a radical departure from the plan.

Situation 1: On your way home from work you run into an old friend and decide to go to the nearest bar. In retrospect you would call that outing spontaneous - it was the result of unplanned, unexpected circumstances.

Situation 2: You plan to meet a friend for a drink but haven't decided a location. The two of you meet up and decide to go to a particular bar, and then walk to that bar. There's nothing about this that is spontaneous, because each step involved some amount of forethought, even if there was an amount of "winging it" in meeting up before deciding where to get a drink.

Situation 3: You plan to meet a friend for a drink, meet up and decide to go to a particular bar. On the way to the bar you spot a comedy club, and in the spur of the moment decide to go see a show instead of just grabbing a drink. This could be considered spontaneous because you had no pre-existing intention of going to see a comedy show, it just happened because of circumstance.

In short, spontaneity sort of involves departure from the expected. If your plan is to work out the details later, then it's not spontaneous. It's only spontaneous if the event disrupts what you would have expected to happen.