5 ms·

I'm intrigued by your comment that German dominance was far greater than English, for some reason I don't think that's true. Could you expand upon this?

albertcardona 17y ago
I have been told that German almost made it as the official language of the entire USA when the constitution was set up. The legend says it lost to English for a few votes, but that poll apparently didn't take place. In any case: "On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a proposal, not to give German any official status, but merely to print the federal laws in German as well as English" See this: http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/legend.htm http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/ess...
- tokenadult 17y ago
  I was told that (or, rather, read that) when I was young, but this is incorrect. http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.asp http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend The United States has had a lot of German-speaking residents since colonial times, who became United States citizens when the country was founded, but there was never, ever a serious attempt to designate German the national language. Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency with German-language public speeches (and also French-language public speeches), and my two maternal grandparents, both born in the United States, were educated solely in the German language, but English has always been the main interlanguage among the various ethnic communities living on United States territory.
HSO 17y ago
I think he meant dominance w.r.t. Danish only, not all languages like English today.
abrahamsen 17y ago
Not sure what I can say when you don't believe me. Here is an article from the Danish national encyclopedia (in Danish). http://www.denstoredanske.dk/index.php?title=Samfund%2C_jura_og_politik/Sprog/Tysk_sprog/Tysk/Tysk_(Tysk_i_Danmark) http://www.denstoredanske.dk/index.php?title=Samfund%2C_jura... German was the official language of the Danish military until 1772, and equal to Danish in the city administration and guilds. Another article: http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Samfund%2c_jura_og_politik/Sprog/Dansk/dansk/dansk_(Historie)/dansk_(Historie_-_Nydansk_(efter_1525) http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Samfund%2c_jura_og_politik/Spro...) No foreign language has had greater impact on Danish than Low German ... 16-17% of the Danish words are from Low German, 4-8% from Greek or Latin, 2-4% from French, and less than 1% from English. [ For comparison, around 2% of the English words are from Danish (from the viking era), according to Joseph M. Williams _Origins of the English Language_ ].
- dantheman 17y ago
  I misunderstood (HSO - caught my error: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614738 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614738). Thanks for the info.

albertcardona 17y ago

I have been told that German almost made it as the official language of the entire USA when the constitution was set up. The legend says it lost to English for a few votes, but that poll apparently didn't take place. In any case: "On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a proposal, not to give German any official status, but merely to print the federal laws in German as well as English" See this: http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/legend.htm http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/ess...

tokenadult 17y ago
I was told that (or, rather, read that) when I was young, but this is incorrect. http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.asp http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/german.asp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend The United States has had a lot of German-speaking residents since colonial times, who became United States citizens when the country was founded, but there was never, ever a serious attempt to designate German the national language. Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency with German-language public speeches (and also French-language public speeches), and my two maternal grandparents, both born in the United States, were educated solely in the German language, but English has always been the main interlanguage among the various ethnic communities living on United States territory.

HSO 17y ago

I think he meant dominance w.r.t. Danish only, not all languages like English today.

abrahamsen 17y ago

Not sure what I can say when you don't believe me. Here is an article from the Danish national encyclopedia (in Danish). http://www.denstoredanske.dk/index.php?title=Samfund%2C_jura_og_politik/Sprog/Tysk_sprog/Tysk/Tysk_(Tysk_i_Danmark) http://www.denstoredanske.dk/index.php?title=Samfund%2C_jura... German was the official language of the Danish military until 1772, and equal to Danish in the city administration and guilds. Another article: http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Samfund%2c_jura_og_politik/Sprog/Dansk/dansk/dansk_(Historie)/dansk_(Historie_-_Nydansk_(efter_1525) http://www.denstoredanske.dk/Samfund%2c_jura_og_politik/Spro...) No foreign language has had greater impact on Danish than Low German ... 16-17% of the Danish words are from Low German, 4-8% from Greek or Latin, 2-4% from French, and less than 1% from English. [ For comparison, around 2% of the English words are from Danish (from the viking era), according to Joseph M. Williams _Origins of the English Language_ ].

dantheman 17y ago
I misunderstood (HSO - caught my error: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614738 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614738). Thanks for the info.