5 ms·

Don't tell the people in the Netherlands and Belgium, but Dutch is a German dialect with pretensions, and Afrikaans is a Dutch dialect, so...

patates 1y ago
I can speak English and German which makes me able to somewhat understand written Dutch (especially if I know the context), but no chance when it's spoken.
- lqet 1y ago
  As a German, I enjoy reading the Dutch text on supermarket products and manuals, it is a source of great fun in my family :) Children especially love it. Dutch just has so many words that sound extremely cute and funny to Germans: "Sleep well" -> "Slaap lekker", in German "Schlaf lecker" = "Sleep tasty". "Nuttig" -> "Useful", in German "nuttig" means "slutty" "Huren" -> "to rent", in German "huren" means "to whore". "Oorbellen" -> "earrings", "ear bells".
  - jamiek88 1y ago
    It’s the same for me, a Brit, reading screenshots my Dutch mates send me from say TikTok or whatever localized to Netherlands one that tickles me is ‘reacties’ underneath instagram posts!
  - fransje26 1y ago
    "Uitvaart" -> Funeral, in German "Ausfahrt" -> exit :-)
- davedx 1y ago
  Right! I speak English and Dutch, so I can read maybe less than half of German. It's just enough to be tantalising but not enough to really understand it. Likewise with Swedish.
- snovymgodym 1y ago
  Knowing English and German also makes it possible to understand something like 50-75% of written Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish in my experience. Apparently a part of this is due to a huge number of Low-German loanwords present in all three due to the influence of the Hanseatic league in the region during the middle ages.
jgilias 1y ago
Well, if it comes to that. German is not _really_ a single language. It’s a dialect continuum consisting of sometimes barely mutually intelligible variants. And yes, if you continue following that continuum, you get to the languages you mention. A language is a dialect with an army and a fleet. As they used to say.
- awanderingmind 1y ago
  'A language is a dialect with an army and a fleet ' --> I hadn't heard this before, love it! For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...
  - woodruffw 1y ago
    A bit of relevant context: the quote is from Yiddish, which is primarily Germanic with significant admixture from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic languages. (One of my current favorite party tricks is speaking Yiddish to German speakers, and cranking up the other aspects to see where the intelligibility breaks down.)
    - noduerme 1y ago
      I took a trip to Germany with my Dad, who grew up with Yiddish-speaking parents, and it was amazing to watch people's eyeballs pop out as they began to understand him and then realize what they were hearing.
    - wqpfofo 1y ago
      zaftig.
      - woodruffw 1y ago
        זאַפטיג איז יא אַ גוט װאָרט :-)
- arnsholt 1y ago
chilldsgn 1y ago
Yep. I find it easier to understand German verbally than Dutch. I struggle when Dutch people speak to me, the way they pronounce words are hard on my ears. German feels softer.
- melvinroest 1y ago
  Native Dutch speaker here. I find German softer on the ears too. Except for Dutch in the South (Belgians and South NL), that's soft on my ears too. But not my accent, we are descendants of monsters. Why otherwise would we pronounce the G the way that we do?
  - hengheng 1y ago
    https://youtube.com/shorts/oNv7SBY32a8 https://youtube.com/shorts/oNv7SBY32a8 Yes, yes you are.
woodpanel 1y ago
Well, it's not a coincidence that the English word for the language of the Netherlands is the same the German state calls itself: "dutch" / "Deutsch". A people and their language predated the concept of nation-states, but when the latter arrived obviously (geo-)political interests started to blur the facts. So if you conflate the German state with Germans (I'd challenge that and view the German state as a continuation of the Prussian state), and you don't like the interests of the German state, it is predictable where you'll land on this issue. Because of this, even if their national anthem does so, calling the Dutch Germans would infuriate them and rightly so, because it would imply justification to some for things like those happening between Russia and Ukraine right now. I think in the end it is also a matter of "national" self-confidence. While Luxemburgish is virtually indistinguishable to the German ear from say the dialect of Cologne, Swiss-German is hardly understandable for anyone outside of Switzerland. Yet, the Swiss don't have an urge to re-label their dialect as a separate language. And the urge of the Dutch to re-lable themselves is lesser than that of Luxemburg because seemingly no one questions their identity.
- School-Cotton 1y ago
  All national identities are to a large extent constructed (or less charitably: made up). So the 21st-century idea that Germans are people with a passport from the Federal Republic of Germany is not really any more or less valid than the 19th-century idea that Germans are a cultural group spanning various states including Austria (and maybe even including the Netherlands).
- fhd2 1y ago
  Also noteworthy are the different terms for "German" in different languages, they're quite far apart: "Deutsch", "Allemagne", "Nemți", which all derive from the names of different Germanic tribes. Depending on which tribes surrounding countries (which were faster to establish nation states) were closest to, that's what they called all Germans. And it stuck.
  - woodpanel 1y ago
    true-ish. I'm not aware of any tribes that would give name to Deutsch and Nemti. Rather, Deutsch is the generic self-description for all tribes, and Nemti was a generic description of all tribes by slavic people (ie Niemy in polish meaining "without the ability to speak")
arp242 1y ago
A Dutch speaker read Afrikaans without too much effort; understanding spoken Afrikaans is a bit harder, but depending on the person it can be fine. A Dutch speaker can't read or understand German. Some words are similar, but the same can be said about English. There are a number of differences in the grammar and alphabet. Of course they're related languages; because I can speak English, German, and Dutch I can kind of read Swedish or Danish on account of being Germanic as well. But that doesn't make a "dialect with pretensions". We might as well say that all current Germanic languages are some sort of "dialect with pretensions" of some old Germanic language. But that doesn't really mean anything.
- burning_hamster 1y ago
  > A Dutch speaker can't read or understand German. A Dutch speaker can't necessarily read or understand German. However, a Dutch person nearly always does, and often flawlessly so.
  - arp242 1y ago
    This is just wrong. I have nothing more to add, because this is just not the case. Maybe it was true 60 years ago, but not today.
zahlman 1y ago
I did once tell one of them something quite like that. I was assured with a smile that the feeling is mutual.
lucb1e 1y ago
How is English then not a German dialect with pretensions? Is there a certain threshold in number of words that must originate from a different language family, or what's the logic here?

patates 1y ago

I can speak English and German which makes me able to somewhat understand written Dutch (especially if I know the context), but no chance when it's spoken.

lqet 1y ago
As a German, I enjoy reading the Dutch text on supermarket products and manuals, it is a source of great fun in my family :) Children especially love it. Dutch just has so many words that sound extremely cute and funny to Germans: "Sleep well" -> "Slaap lekker", in German "Schlaf lecker" = "Sleep tasty". "Nuttig" -> "Useful", in German "nuttig" means "slutty" "Huren" -> "to rent", in German "huren" means "to whore". "Oorbellen" -> "earrings", "ear bells".
- jamiek88 1y ago
  It’s the same for me, a Brit, reading screenshots my Dutch mates send me from say TikTok or whatever localized to Netherlands one that tickles me is ‘reacties’ underneath instagram posts!
- fransje26 1y ago
  "Uitvaart" -> Funeral, in German "Ausfahrt" -> exit :-)
davedx 1y ago
Right! I speak English and Dutch, so I can read maybe less than half of German. It's just enough to be tantalising but not enough to really understand it. Likewise with Swedish.
snovymgodym 1y ago
Knowing English and German also makes it possible to understand something like 50-75% of written Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish in my experience. Apparently a part of this is due to a huge number of Low-German loanwords present in all three due to the influence of the Hanseatic league in the region during the middle ages.

jgilias 1y ago

Well, if it comes to that. German is not _really_ a single language. It’s a dialect continuum consisting of sometimes barely mutually intelligible variants. And yes, if you continue following that continuum, you get to the languages you mention. A language is a dialect with an army and a fleet. As they used to say.

awanderingmind 1y ago
'A language is a dialect with an army and a fleet ' --> I hadn't heard this before, love it! For the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...
- woodruffw 1y ago
  A bit of relevant context: the quote is from Yiddish, which is primarily Germanic with significant admixture from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Slavic languages. (One of my current favorite party tricks is speaking Yiddish to German speakers, and cranking up the other aspects to see where the intelligibility breaks down.)
  - noduerme 1y ago
    I took a trip to Germany with my Dad, who grew up with Yiddish-speaking parents, and it was amazing to watch people's eyeballs pop out as they began to understand him and then realize what they were hearing.
  - wqpfofo 1y ago
    zaftig.
    - woodruffw 1y ago
      זאַפטיג איז יא אַ גוט װאָרט :-)
arnsholt 1y ago

chilldsgn 1y ago

Yep. I find it easier to understand German verbally than Dutch. I struggle when Dutch people speak to me, the way they pronounce words are hard on my ears. German feels softer.

melvinroest 1y ago
Native Dutch speaker here. I find German softer on the ears too. Except for Dutch in the South (Belgians and South NL), that's soft on my ears too. But not my accent, we are descendants of monsters. Why otherwise would we pronounce the G the way that we do?
- hengheng 1y ago
  https://youtube.com/shorts/oNv7SBY32a8 https://youtube.com/shorts/oNv7SBY32a8 Yes, yes you are.

woodpanel 1y ago

Well, it's not a coincidence that the English word for the language of the Netherlands is the same the German state calls itself: "dutch" / "Deutsch". A people and their language predated the concept of nation-states, but when the latter arrived obviously (geo-)political interests started to blur the facts. So if you conflate the German state with Germans (I'd challenge that and view the German state as a continuation of the Prussian state), and you don't like the interests of the German state, it is predictable where you'll land on this issue. Because of this, even if their national anthem does so, calling the Dutch Germans would infuriate them and rightly so, because it would imply justification to some for things like those happening between Russia and Ukraine right now. I think in the end it is also a matter of "national" self-confidence. While Luxemburgish is virtually indistinguishable to the German ear from say the dialect of Cologne, Swiss-German is hardly understandable for anyone outside of Switzerland. Yet, the Swiss don't have an urge to re-label their dialect as a separate language. And the urge of the Dutch to re-lable themselves is lesser than that of Luxemburg because seemingly no one questions their identity.

School-Cotton 1y ago
All national identities are to a large extent constructed (or less charitably: made up). So the 21st-century idea that Germans are people with a passport from the Federal Republic of Germany is not really any more or less valid than the 19th-century idea that Germans are a cultural group spanning various states including Austria (and maybe even including the Netherlands).
fhd2 1y ago
Also noteworthy are the different terms for "German" in different languages, they're quite far apart: "Deutsch", "Allemagne", "Nemți", which all derive from the names of different Germanic tribes. Depending on which tribes surrounding countries (which were faster to establish nation states) were closest to, that's what they called all Germans. And it stuck.
- woodpanel 1y ago
  true-ish. I'm not aware of any tribes that would give name to Deutsch and Nemti. Rather, Deutsch is the generic self-description for all tribes, and Nemti was a generic description of all tribes by slavic people (ie Niemy in polish meaining "without the ability to speak")

arp242 1y ago

A Dutch speaker read Afrikaans without too much effort; understanding spoken Afrikaans is a bit harder, but depending on the person it can be fine. A Dutch speaker can't read or understand German. Some words are similar, but the same can be said about English. There are a number of differences in the grammar and alphabet. Of course they're related languages; because I can speak English, German, and Dutch I can kind of read Swedish or Danish on account of being Germanic as well. But that doesn't make a "dialect with pretensions". We might as well say that all current Germanic languages are some sort of "dialect with pretensions" of some old Germanic language. But that doesn't really mean anything.

burning_hamster 1y ago
> A Dutch speaker can't read or understand German. A Dutch speaker can't necessarily read or understand German. However, a Dutch person nearly always does, and often flawlessly so.
- arp242 1y ago
  This is just wrong. I have nothing more to add, because this is just not the case. Maybe it was true 60 years ago, but not today.

zahlman 1y ago

I did once tell one of them something quite like that. I was assured with a smile that the feeling is mutual.

lucb1e 1y ago

How is English then not a German dialect with pretensions? Is there a certain threshold in number of words that must originate from a different language family, or what's the logic here?