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Wow, this is such an incredible take-down, thank you for sharing! German is one of those languages where the spoken and written languages are incredibly distin

• tharkun__ 3y ago
  It's funny to see this actually. I never thought about it the way I read it from Mark Twain. Neither had I ever thought about English being a hard language because it has no regularity and every second word is an exception in how to pronounce it. But French eludes me. Written German of the times of Mark Twain is also quite different from today's. Of course the actual context dictates formality as well. Personally I can't understand Shakespeare era English nor German. It's just gibberish to me. With lots of concentration maybe but not just reading or listening to it. Also, the whole Dative and Genetive thing is not just a formality/written vs spoken thing but more a generational and societal one. Using Dative for things where the rules actually prescribe Genetive is a class thing. Working class usually means everything is just Dative. And if you're not good at learning languages. Even as a German native speaker. If you are trying to sound high society and snobbish you'll use a lot of Genetive in the proper way. Or if you simply learned it that way and it became second nature to do it correctly. A lot has changed that way since Twain.
  • aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > Written German of the times of Mark Twain is also quite different from today's. The German language mutated less over the centuries than the English language. An educated native German speaker should be able to mostly understand the "Nibelungenlied" (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied), a text written down in the mid 13th century, which is thus nearly 800 years old.
    • tharkun__ 3y ago
      -Ish I guess :) Uns ist in alten mæren wunders vil geseit von helden lobebæren, von grôzer arebeit, von freuden, hôchgezîten, von weinen und von klagen, von küener recken strîten muget ír nu wunder hœren sagen A "mær" (as Maer - imagine an a umlaut) does exist still but the word is so antiquated that I don't expect kids these days to know it. "wunders"? No idea. Something about "wonder"? "vil" sure, viel (a lot). "geseit". No idea. "seit" is that "sein" (to be)? Doesn't fit the rest of the sentence I guess. Definitely need to look that up. "lobebæren". No damn idea whatsoever. Now "grôzer arebeit", sure that's "grosser Arbeit" but when I look at the "translation to German" (from the middle high German the original apparently is written in) it says it's "groesse Muehsahl". Close enough of course. Kind of like translating French word for word into German. It sort of makes sense but is just hopelessly old and weirdly structured but you can understand a lot of it. But it requires lots of brain power. Nothing that I can do while listening/talking, only while reading. "hôchgezîten": Hochzeiten? Like weddings? Makes no sense. Maybe "Hochzeiten" as in 'high times'? Funnily same word different pronunciation depending on context :) "recken" very old word. Again something kids these days probably have no idea about. I do but it's been a while I learned it all. "strîten" means streiten I guess which makes sense given the Recken, but without knowing what those are, not sure. "muget" Sounds like "muggle" but maybe "moeget"? So "moegte ihr". "nu wunder hœren sagen": "jetzt wunder hoeren sagen"? But what does that mean? Some of this may not be a problem of "Shakespeare's times" vs. today but also "poem language" vs. "regular people language". I have trouble with poems. I'd write it as this basically: Uns ist in alten Maeren viel Wunder <no idea what geseit is> von Helden <somethingwhatever>, von grosser Arbeit von Freuden, Hochzeiten, von Weinen und von Klagen, von kuehner Recken streiten moeget ihr Wunder hoeren sagen Now even after looking up the two missing words, geseit is gesagt (to say) and lobebaeren just doesn't exist but was somehow translated to something I still would not be able to understand this if it was just read to me. I have to read it myself and actively think about it. On the other hand my sibling posts meandering whole paragraph sentence is very easily understandable. On the other hand, here's a recipe for strengthening a wooden shield with leather in old English: take lether that ys half tannyd and drye hym and shave the flesshe syd and take glwu wt water and set yt over the fyere and melte yt wt water and then al hote ly yt a pone the leder on the flesshe syde and strawe ther on the powder of glasce bete yn a brasene morter ... I'll stop there so we stay within the same 4 lines. But I had a much easier time reading that than the Niebelungenlied. And yes, my mother tongue is German :) take leather that is half tanned and dry him and shave the flesh side and take glue with water and set it over the fire and melt it with water and then while hot lie it upon the leather on the flesh side and strew thereon the powder of glass beaten in a <brasene I had to look up but also makes sense: brass-en> mortar If anything, except for spelling mistakes like syd vs. syde, I think that's actually more consistent than modern English. I.e. I'd say syd for side is perfect. A y by itself makes the "why" sound. So syd is exactly how I'd write it if I was told to write it just from hearing the word once and knowing the alphabet. Why does it need an e at the end and why would we nowadays write it as side but not pronounce the e (like French sort of, just leave out the last 1-3 letters when pronouncing a word).
• aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  Honestly, in my experience as a native German speaker spoken and written German are more similar to each other than spoken and written English. Just speak German as you would write it might sound a little bit more formal than is usual, but it won't cause you any trouble to err a little bit on the "too formal" side. > I've felt that the written language requires massive intellect to pull apart as a non-native speaker, in comparison to the spoken language (once you adjust for pronunciation, etc.). I rather think that the people who you spoke with used a simpler structure of sentences than is common in educated circles because you would otherwise have difficulties understanding them. You should actually rather feel spoiled: in older German texts, it can actually easily happen that a whole paragraph consists of one single sentence (this rarely occurs in contemporary texts). Just to give one single arbitrary example: "Wenn es die Verwirklichung von Urträumen ist, fliegen zu können und mit den Fischen zu reisen, sich unter den Leibern von Bergriesen durchzubohren, mit göttlichen Geschwindigkeiten Botschaften zu senden, das Unsichtbare und Ferne zu sehen und sprechen zu hören, Tote sprechen zu hören, sich in wundertätigen Genesungsschlaf versenken zu lassen, mit lebenden Augen erblicken zu können, wie man zwanzig Jahre nach seinem Tode aussehen wird, in flimmernden Nächten tausend Dinge über und unter dieser Welt zu wissen, die früher niemand gewußt hat, wenn Licht, Wärme, Kraft, Genuß, Bequemlichkeit Urträume der Menschheit sind, – dann ist die heutige Forschung nicht nur Wissenschaft, sondern ein Zauber, eine Zeremonie von höchster Herzens- und Hirnkraft, vor der Gott eine Falte seines Mantels nach der anderen öffnet, eine Religion, deren Dogmatik von der harten, mutigen, beweglichen, messerkühlen und -scharfen Denklehre der Mathematik durchdrungen und getragen wird." (https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/musil/mannohne/chap011.html https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/musil/mannohne/chap011.htm...) And no, I have no difficulties understanding this sentence.
  • myth2018 3y ago
    > And no, I have no difficulties understanding this sentence. This is what calls my attention most. During your language acquisition process, your brains may develop some specialized connections to handle such sentences. In Portuguese (and probably in most languages) it is possible to build such monstrosities -- and there are concrete examples which I won't recall now. However, one does that for literaly reasons, to sound overly sophisticated or intentionally difficult etc. It's definitely not a natural way to write, and it probably never happens spontaneously on spoken language. I can, very sporadically, grasp such long sentences in my language at the first pass, but it's always difficult and, even then, I usually reread just to make sure I really understood it.