Jap/Ger merger? (was Basic vocab)

On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, The Gray Wizard wrote:

> > From: yl112@cornell.edu [mailto:yl112@cornell.edu]
> >
> > > > From: Yoon Ha Lee
> > > >
> > > > I someday have to figure out how to merge German and
> > > > Japanese.  It'd be a
> > > > fun exercise, but I don't know nearly enough about either language!
> > > >
> > > On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, The Gray Wizard wrote:
> > >
> > > These are two of my favorites as well.  I once experimented with mixing
> > > German lexis with Japanese syntax and then the reverse.  Never
> > > got really
> > > far with either, but it might be fun to revive the effort.
> >
> > I will work on it as my knowledge of both increases, but it may take a
> > while!  Do you think German lexis with Japanese syntax or v.v. would be
> > more fun and/or feasible?  I'm thinking German lexis with Japanese
> > syntax--have fun confusing the German readers.  ;-)
>
> I think both are feasible, but it was my experience that both produce rather
> strange results, at least to anyone familiar with either language and
> perhaps even more so to one familiar with both.
I can imagine--since I do know Korean and the grammatical structure at
least looks bloody similar, doing German lexis with Korean syntax would
look very strange indeed.  I wouldn't know how to do away with cases and
replace with particles/postpositions, or insert case into Japanese words.

I wouldn't mind strange results--the thing that first got me thinking
about this was a sf story that I started, realized I needed to know more
about the languages involved, and shelved for the time being.

A friend trained in folklore told me that the Germans and Japanese have
done a lot of shared-language studies, whatever that means, but when I
asked for details he never replied.  :-/

YHL