The German Language

[abaris]

My home language also shares some similarities with German, probably because it's derived from Dutch (It's Afrikaans)

Comes from the same region, after all. I can roughly make sense of a written Dutch text, but I don't understand the spoken language.

[Jenny A]

The ease with which this kind of fake German can be made up and understood is an indication of how close the languages are.

ACHTUNG!ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS!DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

Anonymous from IBM lab circa 1955

[abaris]

Anonymous from IBM lab circa 1955

Good, but not as good as what Italian tourist regions came up with in the 70ies and early 80ies. They actually managed to turn innocent words into vulgarities sometimes. Especially funny when displayed in Neon letters over a shop. As seen in Lignano where a shop owner prudly presented Arsch Artikel - I guess, the similarity to Arse is obvious.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The ease with which this kind of fake German can be made up and understood is an indication of how close the languages are.

ACHTUNG!ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS!DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN.IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS.ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

Anonymous from IBM lab circa 1955

Here's another.  Over seven minutes, but worth it, I think.





Boru

[Jenny A]

Anonymous from IBM lab circa 1955

Good, but not as good as what Italian tourist regions came up with in the 70ies and early 80ies. They actually managed to turn innocent words into vulgarities sometimes. Especially funny when displayed in Neon letters over a shop. As seen in Lignano where a shop owner prudly presented Arsch Artikel - I guess, the similarity to Arse is obvious.

Is there German word for odd foreign German like Engrish?

[Regina]

Then again, as a writer, I like using archaic English words such as “fortnight.”

Interesting you call "fortnight" archaic, that word is still commonly used in The UK

You can see the beginnings of language shift have happened in the differences between British and American English. A few centuries of relative separation has already made some differences in the words we use. It just hasn't happened at the same speed that Medieval English and German emerged, because we haven't been as isolated from eachother.

It'll probably stop happening altogether in the modern world, because we have international media and constant contact between different nationalities now. British and American English have been getting more similar in the last few decades, not less. The same can probably be said for Iberian Spanish and forms of Latin American Spanish.

[Alex K]

Ah, the famous blinkenlights!

[abaris]

Something like pitchen English, no.

But I use to watch tv series and movies in English and sometimes they have so called Germans, Austrians, whatever. Without any language coach, obviously. That's just bad German, if you even want to call it that. Mostly I don't even understand what they're supposed to have said. It's that bad.

An obvious example, though in a different category, would be the audio commentary for the Fritz Lang film M. The narrator spoke Mörder as Moder. Actually, it would have been pretty simply to coach him. Just tello him to spell it like murder and you're spot on.

Moder, by the way, is the German word for mold.

[Rhondazvous]

If I learned German, it would probably be textbook German.  So I’d probably not run into any archaic German.

Sure, everyone does with a foreign language. But it pays off to read books, listen to songs or to watch movies at the same time. That tells you much more on how people use their language than any textbook can offer.

Yes, I’m sure you didn’t learn how to say “shit and run” from a textbook or else you have some funky education over there.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Alex is right. Most of our Latin roots came in from Old French because English wasn't considered "pretty" enough compared to French. That kind of language shaming is also part of the reason that even the Germanic parts of English have so many silent letters that weren't there prior to this period (the "u" in the word "build" wasn't always there, for example). They were literally just adding letters to their words to make them prettier on paper like French words.