German has the cool feature of just cramming a bunch of words together to make a new word. That’s about the only thing I know about it as someone who’s just interested in language as a concept.
For people interested in language who speak English, I will recommend this book, which kinda blew my mind explaining why my native tongue is so stupid for good reasons:
Well, English prefers genitive constructions, and rarely compounds more than two words, so native English speakers have trouble to parse words like Kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamhedencomitéleden, Speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode or Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, despite compounding being a core feature of Germanic languages, not only German. English just cought a severe case of French back in 1066…-
I hope you’re aware that words like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz aren’t exactly easy to understand for Germans, either. If there’s one thing English is usually really good at, it’s dumbing things down to a level that’s easy to understand for the reader; some scientific texts are genuinely easier to understand in the English translation than in the German original, even if you’re a native German speaker with a relevant university degree.
English isn’t stupid. It’s organic. Just like any other language. Two native English speakers can communicate with each other clearly and easily, which is the point of language. Saying a language is stupid because it is difficult to learn by non-native speakers, or because it is easy to get your wrist slapped by a hard-nosed grammarian is just hand-wringing.
Learn about the Great Vowel Shift and how the timing for it, as well as the timing of the printing press, created a mess of a language with few consistent rules. It’s a stupid (written) language because history made it that way.
I mean, you are kind of missing my point. Native English speakers (or writers) can communicate easily with each other. That is literally the only thing that matters in a language. The consistency of grammatical rules is irrelevant.
I didn’t miss your point. You missed mine, which I clarified by adding (written) to make it clear that I wasn’t talking about spoken language. We can speak. That’s fine. The book that I initially referenced is about the written language and I made an effort to clarify that. You didn’t pick up that I was only calling the written language stupid. But I also talked about the introduction of the printing press relative to the Great Vowel Shift, and you missed that too. It was always about writing, spelling, pronunciation, and grammatical rules: things that don’t matter in spoken language.
German has the cool feature of just cramming a bunch of words together to make a new word. That’s about the only thing I know about it as someone who’s just interested in language as a concept.
For people interested in language who speak English, I will recommend this book, which kinda blew my mind explaining why my native tongue is so stupid for good reasons:
Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme and Other Oddities of the English Language
It’s really not that different.
German: Dampfschiffkapitän
English: steam boat captain
German, if compound words worked like in English: Dampf Schiff Kapitän
English, if compound words worked like in German: steamboatcaptain
Well, English prefers genitive constructions, and rarely compounds more than two words, so native English speakers have trouble to parse words like Kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamhedencomitéleden, Speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode or Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, despite compounding being a core feature of Germanic languages, not only German. English just cought a severe case of French back in 1066…-
I hope you’re aware that words like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz aren’t exactly easy to understand for Germans, either. If there’s one thing English is usually really good at, it’s dumbing things down to a level that’s easy to understand for the reader; some scientific texts are genuinely easier to understand in the English translation than in the German original, even if you’re a native German speaker with a relevant university degree.
Sadly, for some Germans it does
English isn’t stupid. It’s organic. Just like any other language. Two native English speakers can communicate with each other clearly and easily, which is the point of language. Saying a language is stupid because it is difficult to learn by non-native speakers, or because it is easy to get your wrist slapped by a hard-nosed grammarian is just hand-wringing.
Learn about the Great Vowel Shift and how the timing for it, as well as the timing of the printing press, created a mess of a language with few consistent rules. It’s a stupid (written) language because history made it that way.
I mean, you are kind of missing my point. Native English speakers (or writers) can communicate easily with each other. That is literally the only thing that matters in a language. The consistency of grammatical rules is irrelevant.
I didn’t miss your point. You missed mine, which I clarified by adding (written) to make it clear that I wasn’t talking about spoken language. We can speak. That’s fine. The book that I initially referenced is about the written language and I made an effort to clarify that. You didn’t pick up that I was only calling the written language stupid. But I also talked about the introduction of the printing press relative to the Great Vowel Shift, and you missed that too. It was always about writing, spelling, pronunciation, and grammatical rules: things that don’t matter in spoken language.