4 ms·

I think there is a certain stigma to English people using German words, on account of the fact that the nations have a long history of rivalry and open warfare

by mmjaa 9y ago

I think there is a certain stigma to English people using German words, on account of the fact that the nations have a long history of rivalry and open warfare against each other .. perhaps a linguist can pipe in and tell us if there was ever a period where Spanish words had a similar degree of stigma, after wars and so on ..

eru 9y ago
The Brits and the Germans historically got along like a house on fire during the vast majority of the last few hundred years. If anything, the stigma you talk about should exist between English and French.
- smallnamespace 9y ago
  That's easily complicated by the fact that the roots of the rivalry between France and England was in large part stoked by French-speaking Norman conquerors. Few native English speakers will read this paragraph and identify all these French-derived words as being 'French', since they have become such a plainly integral part of English: complicate, fact, rivalry, part, conqueror, native, paragraph, identify, derive TL;DR can't speak English without also speaking a bunch of French in the process, especially since French words represent all the elite, cultured words (e.g. 'cow' vs. 'beef')
  - tome 9y ago
    It seems that "fact" doesn't belong in that list but rather it comes directly from medieval Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fact https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fact https://www.peigencihui.com/word/fact https://www.peigencihui.com/word/fact
  - eru 9y ago
    The Norman conquest was way back, and wasn't even the latest invasion. (The Dutch conquered Britain in the meantime.) The Norman conquest played a role, especially in language, but the later major power / colonial empire rivalry would have developed regardless of history, just dictated by geography and clashing interests.
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Yes, I'm aware of that, I mean in the context of the last 100 years, apropos German-English, English-English, American-English, and so on. I think a bit of American vernacular has a German'ification phase, the languages seem to be intertwined, but this is just an opinion based on observation through personal life experience not some kind of academic point of view. I'd love to know the linguistics basis behind such intermingling.
  - eru 9y ago
    I've seen some of what looked like Germanification of idioms. Eg 'couple' in British English seems to mean exactly two. In German 'paar' (lower cased!) is basically synonymous with 'a few', and the Americans seem to be using 'a couple' also in that wider sense?

by mmjaa 9y ago

eru 9y ago

The Brits and the Germans historically got along like a house on fire during the vast majority of the last few hundred years. If anything, the stigma you talk about should exist between English and French.

smallnamespace 9y ago
That's easily complicated by the fact that the roots of the rivalry between France and England was in large part stoked by French-speaking Norman conquerors. Few native English speakers will read this paragraph and identify all these French-derived words as being 'French', since they have become such a plainly integral part of English: complicate, fact, rivalry, part, conqueror, native, paragraph, identify, derive TL;DR can't speak English without also speaking a bunch of French in the process, especially since French words represent all the elite, cultured words (e.g. 'cow' vs. 'beef')
- tome 9y ago
  It seems that "fact" doesn't belong in that list but rather it comes directly from medieval Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fact https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fact https://www.peigencihui.com/word/fact https://www.peigencihui.com/word/fact
- eru 9y ago
  The Norman conquest was way back, and wasn't even the latest invasion. (The Dutch conquered Britain in the meantime.) The Norman conquest played a role, especially in language, but the later major power / colonial empire rivalry would have developed regardless of history, just dictated by geography and clashing interests.
mmjaa 9y ago
Yes, I'm aware of that, I mean in the context of the last 100 years, apropos German-English, English-English, American-English, and so on. I think a bit of American vernacular has a German'ification phase, the languages seem to be intertwined, but this is just an opinion based on observation through personal life experience not some kind of academic point of view. I'd love to know the linguistics basis behind such intermingling.
- eru 9y ago
  I've seen some of what looked like Germanification of idioms. Eg 'couple' in British English seems to mean exactly two. In German 'paar' (lower cased!) is basically synonymous with 'a few', and the Americans seem to be using 'a couple' also in that wider sense?