Re: [Somewhat OT] RE: German reputation

I hope none of the remarks below causes offense - I have tried to word
things with care.

On Sunday, December 12, 2004, at 04:58 , Shaul Vardi wrote:

> Well, I live in Jerusalem, and as you can imagine German is a language
> that arouses mixed emotions here.
I most certainly can. Tho the emotions are probably so so deep, it will
still arouse mixed feelings among my generation over here in the Old World.
  I could never react as Sally does:
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On Sunday, December 12, 2004, at 07:35 , Sally Caves wrote:
[snip]
> What an interesting question!  Personally, I find German magnificent.
> What
> a language!  it is so rich in expressions, and it is so difficult to
> master.
Certainly difficult to read, as I discovered when was researching my for M.
Litt. thesis. Reading source material in French, Italian or Spanish was no
problem, but in German......

But I do not find and probably cannot find it magnificent. I regret that
still to many of my fellow countrymen it is far more likely to be
associated wit Hitler than with Schiller or Goethe (if indeed s/he has
even heard of the latter two). To me is the language of all three and more,
  as well as being the language of a whole lot of ordinary folk - a few of
whom I hve met - over in central Europe. It was even the language of one
of my great grandparents: August Klemz, my mother's mother's father (got
it!). My own feelings and attitude are basically neutral: I neither like
nor dislike the language.

[snip]
> (especially Americans, though the Brits aren't entirely free of this
> attitude) presume, quite arrogantly, that they needn't learn any foreign
> languages.
The monoglot Brits are most certainly not free from this. "If you speak
English loudly and slowly, everyone can understand..."

Unfortunately this is not helped in that so often if one tries to speak
the native language of whatever country, the reply is returned in *English*
, because the person wants to practice his/her English - the curse of
speaking the de_facto IAL!

[snip]
> parantheses within parantheses where infinitives stack up at the end.  It
> [German]
> has a complexity of syntax that approaches Latin!
Yes, certain styles of German are very reminiscent of Cicero with those
long, long periods   :=(

Ray
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Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
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as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]