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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Aug 25, 2014 20:10:34 GMT -7
German Language Compared to other Languages
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Post by Jaga on Aug 25, 2014 22:04:43 GMT -7
John,
they have a couple of videos of the same type. I was showing it to my students about a year ago. Everybody loved it!
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Post by karl on Aug 26, 2014 7:00:34 GMT -7
J.J.
How so comical and yet, an after taste with the Bavarian fellow as being loud and not very representative.
It is as it is, most different areas in Germany as with other countries have their different accents that is only to them selves.
Karl
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Post by Eric on Aug 26, 2014 8:05:44 GMT -7
I couldn't stop laughing!
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Post by kaima on Aug 26, 2014 13:14:53 GMT -7
I couldn't stop laughing! I quit watching after the second word was spit out. I just wasn't in the mood for crude humor, and don't expect to take a second look. |
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Post by Eric on Aug 26, 2014 14:57:25 GMT -7
I don't think it's crud humor; just a funny example of how different languages sound, especially the more harsh (exaggerated) sounds of German compared to softer languages.
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Post by karl on Aug 26, 2014 21:11:40 GMT -7
My first language was North Frisian {Mainland}and Dansk, for as to grow up in Denmark {Esbjerg}, to learn some German to then learn British English, for the Germans were our occupiers in as well as later the British. Perhaps my self have missed the humour with the Bavarian fellows manner of speaking or perhaps have caught the mocking manner as presented. I am not of course angry or disappointed just simply unable to understand the humour of mocking a language some one else speaks. I am not of a wealthy back ground, we were poor in the war years, but rich in our family life. The following is a bit of back ground of my origins and the village of my youth {Now a city}. www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/220483/Frisian-IslandsKarl |
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Post by Eric on Aug 26, 2014 21:27:53 GMT -7
Believe it or not, Frisian is the closest living language to English, but because English has taken a very different path than the other Germanic languages, they're not mutually intelligible. English has a strong Germanic base and heavy Romance borrowings, but it's so different from the other languages that, in intelligibility, it's practically a language isolate.
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Post by karl on Aug 26, 2014 21:42:03 GMT -7
Eric
Yes, it is true as I have heard, for my self am not so very linguistic in languages, just simply by force of necessary by circumstance. Language is a growing language that most will change in time and use. English in this manner being that of American English, has in self, some built in difficulties. This being various borrowed words and expressions and slang terms. This especially with the locals of Western to that of East and then southern.
It is though, these differences that present inself the challenges that keep us alert.
Karl
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Post by Eric on Aug 26, 2014 22:31:24 GMT -7
English spelling, as you know by now, is completely nonsensical. I honestly don't see how it's possible to reform the spelling (like German did) without creating a serious break between past and future. In order to make English spelling phonetic it would require rewriting pretty much all the rules and forcing everyone to basically learn how to write again.
So, it will never happen.
That said, it's a miracle when someone actually manages to get it write most of the thyme!
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Post by Eric on Aug 26, 2014 22:32:09 GMT -7
ghoti = fish
gh... enouGH (f)
o... wOmen (i)
ti... naTIon (sh)
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Post by kaima on Aug 26, 2014 22:46:23 GMT -7
English spelling, as you know by now, is completely nonsensical. I honestly don't see how it's possible to reform the spelling (like German did) without creating a serious break between past and future. In order to make English spelling phonetic it would require rewriting pretty much all the rules and forcing everyone to basically learn how to write again. So, it will never happen. That said, it's a miracle when someone actually manages to get it write most of the thyme! Oh, I have to fully and enthusiastically agree with you on how nonsensical the American (and British) spellings are. I wish we would reform spelling in the language, and have raised the great ire of American teachers by saying that two great ways to improve American education would be to reform spelling and go metric, releasing tremendous time in the classroom to study more important topics, and not senseless memorization. A third might be to divorce sports from school, as they are in Europe, and have school as a learning experience and not jock development. That latter is even more impossible, as people will not accept such a radical change in culture (or lack of culture). I do admire the Germans for reforming their spelling and language, and the Slovaks for adapting a phonetic spelling (though as you might suspect ANY system will not be foolproof). As far as Frisian, English and German go, I found north German dialects (Hannover, Hamberg, Bremen) to be 'almost half English', to be loose with my expression. I had to translate for Hessian speakers when we got up north. I don't know what a Bavarian would do other than bring an interpreter along. It is hard to imagine they refer to 'German' as one language, the differences are so great. |
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Post by pieter on Aug 27, 2014 7:48:17 GMT -7
I couldn't stop laughing! I quit watching after the second word was spit out. I just wasn't in the mood for crude humor, and don't expect to take a second look. Kai (Ron), It is a typical silly and smallminded European thing to ridicule or mock the language of another nation and with that the culture and people of that country who are linked to that language. Because literature (Proze and poetry), autobiographies and biographies, theatre and music are written in that specific language. The mocking and disliking of the German language have 19th century and 20th century roots. The Franco-Prussian War from 19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871, the First World War and the Second World War. Due to allied propaganda in England (GB) and the USA an anti-German sentiment was generated in the years 1914-1915. The Germans were seen by the British and Americans as the Huns, Barbarians, warmongers, aggressive conquerers and brutal. So in the cliché generated of the German, they were portrayed as agressive, dangerous, shouting, Prussian militaristic idiots. The Second Wolrd War ad a new layer to that stereotype. In the Netherlands, Great-Britain, Poland, Denmark, the USA and other places shout hard and in a harsdh manner if they imitate German. It is silly but it is part of the Prussian militaristic stereotype which exists abroad of the Germans. Here Dutch comedians who exploit the German cliché. A comedy about two Wehrmacht soldiers who stayed in the Netherlands as German immigrants after the war and who have a difficult time to assimilate or integrate. In A Dutch talkshow they complain about the discrimination of Dutch youth, because they are German aliens and that they can't get German products in a Dutch supermarket. As a gesture of Good will they make a Wiedergutmachungsschnitzel (A German peace and reconcilliation burger). Bavarian Southern-German humor in a Dutch comedy version. Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by kaima on Aug 27, 2014 13:28:07 GMT -7
I quit watching after the second word was spit out. I just wasn't in the mood for crude humor, and don't expect to take a second look. Kai (Ron), It is a typical silly and smallminded European thing to ridicule or mock the language of another nation and with that the culture and people of that country who are linked to that language. Because literature (Proze and poetry), autobiographies and biographies, theatre and music are written in that specific language. The mocking and disliking of the German language have 19th century and 20th century roots. Pieter, I am not at all objecting to the topic. The presentation struck me immediately as juvenile, third rate humor. If I were in a different mood, or if I had been prepared for it as I was when I watched Borat, I could have enjoyed it - perhaps. As it is, this specific presentation struck me as something I would expect from someone in high school or in the early years of college. Kai |
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Post by kaima on Aug 27, 2014 17:00:23 GMT -7
Now getting on to the less serious side of the Terrible German Language, these are a few of my own observations, with no spittle as on the video: The Germans will remain far ahead of us in productivity, as everything they do is "Arbeit" = Work. Americans work, tinker, play with, fool with, hack .... thus we can't compete unless we drop all of those words and stick with "work". Their geometry is inside-out. They think of triangles as "three corners". There is no chance of their improving their standing as long as they stick to their schooling system where they send their children to the garden and their trees to school. (kindergarten and baumschule_. But then, all of that is for naught compared to the observations made by Mark Twain; one short example: * ** * In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print -- I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books: "Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera." * ** * You can read a much fuller analysis at www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html |
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