Re: OT: German reputation

----- Original Message -----
From: "Yann Kiraly" <yann_kiraly@...>



> Hi! I've been wondering lately what the reputation of the german language
> is where you guys live. (Except Germany of course ;)) Judging from what
> you find on some internet boards, it can't be to good (don't ask me where
> I saw this. Multiple places I stumbled on accidentaly.). I live in
> Germany, and as far as I can see, the Germans are quite neutral when it
> comes to judging languages.
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.
Sir Richard Mulcaster, back in the sixteenth century, wrote an essay in
which he chided the English for thinking that their "owne tunge hath not
matter," i.e., their own language was of no account, as compared to the
French and to the GERMANS.  Now that English has become more confident in
itself, and more widely spread, many English speakers including and
(especially Americans, though the Brits aren't entirely free of this
attitude) presume, quite arrogantly, that they needn't learn any foreign
languages.  Among Americans, German is considered too harsh and difficult
for acquisition, and too inexpedient. The foreign language of preference
over here is Spanish.  That's reasonable, as Spanish is nearly a second
language in this nation, and in comparison to French and German it is
extremely easy.  I picked it because at thirteen I never thought I was going
to leave California.  I took nine years of Spanish.  Then I took French,
then I took German, then I took Welsh.  And I'm in the process of teaching
myself Italian.  Of these languages, German is the hardest for me (although
it cannot beat modern Irish Gaelic for difficulty of spelling and
structure).  I've never produced so many reversals in any language than I
have in my attempts at German, my tongue getting totally tied in knots
(although I must admit that nothing compares to the embarrassing spoonerism
made to a Swiss policeman in Geneva--merci geau pou!--uttered in total
nervousness). But because I've studied German, I've come to respect the
constructions that seem so strange to an English speaker: such as the
parantheses within parantheses where infinitives stack up at the end.  It
has a complexity of syntax that approaches Latin! whereas other western
languages have separated out their subordinate clauses.  I was clearly
influenced by German in a lot of Teonaht construction.  When I look back at
some of T's structures and words, I see German-ness poking out everywhere.
I copied the reversal of syntax in the relative and subordinate clauses.  I
copied and modified the verbs with prepositions.  Even my word garne, "to
like," obviously comes obliquely, I realize, from German "gern."  But it's
also a monster of a language!  Struggling through a phrase with a separable
verb can be a nightmare.  Here is a sentence that I received in a
correspondence about filling out the right forms to get permission to cite:
"...lag unserer Postsendung vom 13 Juli 2004 ein Verpflichtungsschein bei,
der leider nicht zurückgeschickt wurde."  Now of course I was indignant,
because the required form had never been sent along with the Postsendung vom
Juli, but what the heck was "lag"?  The answer comes in "bei," after the
Verflichtungsschein.  What authority!  What ability for a bureaucrat to
humble a quivering professor!  Probably one of the best (and the funniest)
testimonies to an American's indignation over the difficulties of German can
be found in Mark Twain's famous essay: "The Awful German Language."  Here is
a link to it:

http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html#x1

I laughed my head off!

Nummer Eins writes:
>Why do you think a language has a reputation? You mean something like those
>who say it is hard to learn? Or those who make generalisations?
All languages have reputations among speakers of other languages.  In
Geneva, where I lived for a while, British English was considered "sexy and
sophisticated."  But not American English.  Italian was cool, too, but not
German.  And not parts of German-speaking Switzerland.

> When you say Germans are neutral to judge, do you say it because of the
> great experiment Germany had before the two World Wars in the studies of
> languages?
No, Yann meant that in his observations of his fellow Germans, that he
detected no real prejudices for or against other languages. Hence they were
"neutral." He might not be correct.  I'd be interested to know whether the
Germans think Italian beautiful, and English not, or French artistic and
Russian not, or whatever.  I seem to recall some sense of fun poked at
Bavarian and Swiss dialects.  I know for a fact from my German friends that
they consider certain types of discourse within Germany to be proper,
improper, correct, or déclassé.  What their opinion is of English I'd also
be interested to know.

Number One also asked:

 don't understand what you mean by frensh or english sounding german.


Yann was talking about "accents," surely.  When an Englishman or an American
speak German, they might pronounce it using an accent that favors phonemes
they are familiar with, such as pronouncing "welche" as /'vElS@/, not
noticing that "ch" is pulled to the alveolar palatal area of the mouth.  You
can often detect a person's linguistic origins by the way they pronounce
your language.  This is a fact that has been made great fun of for years in
burlesques, novels, cinema, and everyday jokes.  Haven't you ever imitated
an American speaking French?

Tschüß!



Postscript: about spoonerisms: the merci go pooh was laughed at by my
American friends, who noted that it was not only a metathesis of /b/ and
/k/, but a metathesis of voiced and voiceless consonants.  So that it came
out as an inadvertant insult which fortunately the kind policeman either
ignored or didn't understand.  Ah, the pitfalls of foreign languages and
nations!  and those who struggle in them!  :) :)

Sally