Images are downsampled to low resolution for screen view only; print result will be higher quality. Mark Twain The Awful German Language rev.3 (02-26-10) Images are downsampled to low resolution for screen view only; print result will be higher quality. Mark Twain The Awful German Language Mit einem Grußwort von US-Botschafter Philip D. Murphy und einem Essay von Prof. Holger Kersten AP Photo rev.3 (02-26-10) rev.3 (02-26-10) Images are downsampled to low resolution for screen view only; print result will be higher quality. Inhalt 7 Grußwort von US-Botschafter Philip D. Murphy 9 Mark Twain: The Awful German Language 35 Mark Twain: Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache. Rede im Concordia Club in Wien 42 Brief von Mark Twain an Bayard Taylor “The German language is a dozen fragments of words flung into an 45 Prof. Holger Kersten: Mark Twain, „der treueste Freund octagonal cylinder - take a good look at them before you begin to turn the machine, for you will never see them in their simplicity again - never der deutschen Sprache“ never any more. Turn ! - up spring your fragmental elements with Ver's & Be's & Ge's & Er's & lein's & schen's & gung's & heits & keits & zu's 60 Kurze Biographie von Mark Twain & a thousand other flashing and blazing prefixes, affixes & interjections broidered on them or hung to them. - Turn & turn! The combinations will be infinite, & bewilderingly enchanting & magnificent - but these, 62 Das Mark Twain Project der also, like the original fragments you shall see but once, then lose them University of California, Berkley forever. The patterns in this linguistic kaleidoscope are never repeated.” – Mark Twain Notebooks & Journals, Bd. 2 , S. 253 64 Impressum rev.3 (02-26-10) rev.3 (02-26-10) Images are downsampled to low resolution for screen view only; print result will be higher quality. Grußwort Mark Twain beschrieb in seiner Abhandlung „Die schreckliche deutsche Sprache“ seine Erfahrungen beim Erlernen der deutschen Sprache. Da auch ich Deutsch lerne, kann ich seine Frustration gut nachvollziehen. Aber wie Professor Holger Kersten, unser deutscher Experte für Mark Twain, der auch einen Beitrag zu diesem Buch geschrieben hat, bin ich der Meinung, dass Twains Essay seine Liebe zur deutschen Sprache zum Ausdruck bringt. Twain beklagt nicht nur den deutschen Dativ, Schachtelsätze und nicht enden wollende zusammengesetzte Substantive, er schwelgt auch in der deutschen Sprache und schwärmt vom deutschen Theater und der deutschen Literatur. Mark Twain reiste 1878 an Bord desselben Schiffes nach Europa, das auch einen neuen US-Botschafter nach Berlin brachte. Mein Vorgänger, Botschafter Bayard Taylor, war Dichter und studierte die deutsche Sprache. Seine Übersetzung des Faust ins Englische ist bis heute eine der anerkannten Ausgaben des großen Werkes von Goethe. Mark Twain beneidete Bayard Taylor um seine Deutschkenntnisse, wie ich das tue. Eine der Freuden und Lektionen aus Mark Twains einzigartigem Humor – sogar einhundert Jahre nach seinem Tod – besteht darin, dass es bildend, inspirierend und motivierend sein kann, sich über etwas lustig zu machen, insbesondere über die eigenen Unzulänglichkeiten. Während ich also einmal mehr diesen Essay über die wunderschöne – nicht die schreckliche – deutsche Sprache lese, fasse ich Hoffnung. Berlin, im März 2010 Botschafter Philip D. Murphy 7 rev.3 (02-26-10) rev.3 (02-26-10) Images are downsampled to low resolution for screen view only; print result will be higher quality. 601 THE AWFUL GERMAN LANGUAGE A little learning makes the whole world kin. — Proverbs xxxii, 7. I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, pos- sibly a “unique;” and wanted to add it to his museum. If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during sev- eral weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is. Surely there is not another language that is so slip-shod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and hither, in the most helpless way; and when Anmerkung der Herausgeber: at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground Die Ziffern am Außenrand der Seiten verweisen auf to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten die Seitenzahl der amerikanischen Originalausgabe von A Tramp Abroad, erschienen im Jahre 1880 in Hartford, Connecticut, parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, “Let the pupil bei der American Publishing Company [u.a.] make careful note of the following exceptions.” He runs his eye 9 rev.3 (02-26-10) rev.3 (02-26-10) Images are downsampled to low resolution for screen view only; print result will be higher quality. down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in Ger- instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another man that the bird is staying in the blacksmith shop “wegen (on ac- Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues count of) den Regen.” Then the teacher lets me softly down with 602 to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one of these the remark that whenever the word “wegen” drops into a sentence, four confusing “cases” where I am master of it, a seemingly insig- it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of nificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with consequences—and therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from shop “wegen des Regens.” under me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird— N.B.—I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there (it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of conse- was an “exception” which permits one to say “wegen den Regen” in 603 quence to anybody): “Where is the bird ?” Now the answer to this certain peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception question,—according to the book,—is that the bird is waiting in is not extended to anything but rain. the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Of course no bird There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. would do that, but then you must stick to the book. Very well, I An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and im- begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I begin at the pressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I say to myself, the ten parts of speech—not in regular order, but mixed; it is built “Regen, (rain,) is masculine—or maybe it is feminine—or possi- mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, bly neuter—it is too much trouble to look, now. Therefore, it is and not to be found in any dictionary—six or seven words com- either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, ac- pacted into one, without joint or seam—that is, without hyphens; cording to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each enclosed in interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses, masculine. Very well—then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply which re-enclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or pens with pens; finally, all the parentheses and re-parentheses are discussion—Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other it is doing something—that is, resting (which is one of the Ger- in the middle of the last line of it—after which comes the verb, man grammar’s ideas of doing something,) and this throws the rain and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. However, this rain about; and after the verb—merely by way of ornament, as far as I is not resting, but is doing something actively,—it is falling,—to can make out,—the writer shovels in “haben sind gewesen gehabt interfere with the bird, likely—and this indicates movement, which haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of dem Regen into den Regen.” Having completed the grammatical the flourish to a man’s signature—not necessary, but pretty.