HAVE GERMAN WILL TRAVEL Sprache

DIE DEUTSCHE SPRACHE / GERMAN LANGUAGE

Description of German Language: "An Outsider's View of Germanlanguage"

7,anseatic eague m the t an 15t centuries. The influence of the Habs­ "Das. Volk der Dichter und Denker" Grimm's Law burg dynasty on the German language is considerable and undeniable, although It is true that Jonathan Swift called Whereas all Germanic languages without in some instances the Habsburg emperors the Germans the most stupid of all exception were subjected to a first co_uld hardly be called "German" emper­ peoples, and that the French critic Lautverschiebung or consonant shift, ors. Charles V, for instance, is said to have Dominique Bouhours thought them utter­ which was completed around 500 BC. A despised German to the extent that he ly incapable of becoming either writers, second such consonant shift occurred be­ spoke German only to his horse; and his composers, or philosophers. But ori the tween 500 and 650 AD, which affected ·successor Ferdinand I could not speak it at other hand, two historians, the American the High German dialects only, while all. John Lothrop Motley and the Frenchman leaving, Low German speech unchanged. Hippolyte Taine, credited the Germans The consonants affected by this sound Luther's Bible translation with being the. main source of all modern shift under Grimm's Law were essentially ideas in European and American culture. the stop sounds or plosives. The intitial One of the most important events in the In the same vein of thought, the Bri­ Anglo-Saxon t as in ten becomes zehn in history of the German language, is tish novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton made High German, final t in heart becomes Martin Luther's translation, at the Wart­ his famous statement that the Germans Herz, and in medial position after a vowel butg, of the New and Old.Testaments were das Volk der Dichter und Denker, as in the word water, t changes into ss, ' into his native Central German tongue. that is to say, the people of writers Wasser. A p turns into pf, for ff. Eng­ Up to that time, no official German and thinkers. lisli pool becomes German Pfuhl, 'drop be­ language had existed, only the dialects of comes Tropfen, pepper changes to (!feffer, the northern low lands (Niederdeutsch) English influ~nced by French and to help is he!fen. The non-initial k and those of the high terrains of Cen­ soui:1d of English changes to the German tral and Southern German (Hochdeutsch). After discussing the German language spelling ch, variously pronounced de­ Luther's translation of the Bible per­ from the sociological and cultural points pending on the phonetic environment, as manently established the latter as stan­ of view, let us now take a brief look at its will be explained later. Thus the pronunci­ dard literary German and relegated linguistic characteristics. We mentioned ation machen for to make contrasts with all others to the status of dialects. fact that it belongs to the western branch that of brechen for to break. Finally, the of the Germanic languages, whidr in English voiced d is expressed by a Ger­ With the upsurge of a desire for nation­ turn is a subdivision of the Inda-Euro­ man t, hard becoming hart, a dance is al unity in the wake of the war of pean la~guage family. English is close- ein Tanz, and a saddle is ein Sattel. liberation from the Napoleonic occupa­ ly relatea to German. In the fifth and The English th, which does not exist tion, there also developed a keen inter­ sixth centuries AD, the Germanic tribes in German, turns into a d. A thing is est in t e cultural heritage an t e of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes emi­ ein Ding, a feather is eine Feder, and language of the German people which grated to the British Isles. Their language a bath becomes ein Bad. culmil)ated in a 19th century of extraordin­ underwent a profound change as a result ary achievements in the fields of literature, of the invasion of the Normans in 1066 Among the difficulties facing the begin­ the arts and sciences, which tremen­ (about 35 percent of the English vocabu­ ning student of German the first ahd dously enhanced the prestige of German ary is derived from the French). The earli­ smallest problem may be. that of the in the eyes of foregin observers.-Fur·­ est Anglo-Saxon was linguistically closest Gothic or Fraktur alphabet. thermore, successive waves of liberal Ger~ to Frisian, another one of the Germanic man emiRrants fleeing from po litical dialects; and the saying goes: "Good but­ Runic inscriptions oppression ijt ome introduced German ter and good cheese is good English and in many countries abroad. In the United good Fries:: The earliest written material we have States, for instance, Pennsylvania Dutch T e German languag~ itself had retained from the so-called pre-literary period is still the language of a linguistic minor­ a good deal of inflection, which is of the Germanic tribes consists of a ity, and, according to a Naxi propa­ characteristic of the early stages of few inscriptions written in Runic charac­ ganda story, English as the otticial language development. The Sanskrit of ters. Scholars are of varying opinions as tc:i language of the United States· won out 1500 BC is more inflected than the the g_rigin of .the Runes,.altbough it is gen­ over German by a mere one vote margin. Classical Latin of 100 AD; Latin more erally agreed that they did not originate Teddy Roosevelt was a great admirer of than. German, and German more than wit t e Germanic peoples. At any rate, German, and Henry Wadsworth Long­ both the Romance and English lan­ Runes were insufficient for literary pur­ fellow considered it more important guages. In German proper we must dis­ poses. The first" books written in a Ger­ for a young poet than any other language_. tinguish between Niederdeutsch, spoken manic dialect (Gothic) used· an alphabet Due to anti-German 'feelings during based on Greek. Through the Roman WW I, however, the number of American in the low flat regions of the North, and Church the Latin alphabet was introduced students studying German dropped from a Hochdeutsch of the hilly and mountain­ into Germany, where it established a firm prewar high ot 30 percent to a mere trac­ ous areas of Franconia, Thuringia, Bavaria, and lasting hold. The Fraktur, or Gothic tion of that figure. On the other hand, and Austria, or in other words the type which causes students difficulties German suffered no adverse effect at the geographical center and south. today has nothing to do with the Ger­ end of WW II, and interest in it remains manic tribe, the Goths, but rather high, e~pecially among science students. refers to a script in which t.he rounded