The German Language

[Rhondazvous]

I'm from Birmingham, but irrelevant : I spell my name like this just because I like the Frencheaux spelling, it's not a regional British thing.

Northern British people say "Ant" instead of "Aunt" as well sometimes. They also say "laff" for "laugh" like Americans do, although they do it with an even shorter, harsher "a" sound that Americans don't seem able to make. British people, in all regions, have a really hard quick "a" sound that you'd hear in words like "cat" or "tacky", but American's don't seem able to form it the way we can. When I hear Americans say "a" it always comes out more like a breathy or nasaly "e" or "ah".

I wasn't aware the spellings had changed in English since Medieval times though, I thought it was all the same standardised written English by like the 1400s.

I will listen for that a sound when playing my audio books. I have to assume their dramatizations are authentic British. They’re professionals. Some of them speak what sounds like “the Kin’s English” and some of them sound like they speak British street English which is hard to follow. But I will listen more closely.

I don’t recall the kinds of changes Redbeard spoke of, either. Did he say when that happened?

But there were other changes. Particularly the shift away from Elizabethan/Shakespearean/King James English which was still spoken by the American Quakers in the 19th century.

I may be wrong but I believe the letter J was introduced in the 16th or 17th century.

[Marsellus Wallace]

fuck = fock

that's all i've got to contribute .

[Regina]

I'm from Birmingham, but irrelevant : I spell my name like this just because I like the Frencheaux spelling, it's not a regional British thing.

Northern British people say "Ant" instead of "Aunt" as well sometimes. They also say "laff" for "laugh" like Americans do, although they do it with an even shorter, harsher "a" sound that Americans don't seem able to make. British people, in all regions, have a really hard quick "a" sound that you'd hear in words like "cat" or "tacky", but American's don't seem able to form it the way we can. When I hear Americans say "a" it always comes out more like a breathy or nasaly "e" or "ah".

I wasn't aware the spellings had changed in English since Medieval times though, I thought it was all the same standardised written English by like the 1400s.

I will listen for that a sound when playing my audio books. I have to assume their dramatizations are authentic British. They’re professionals. Some of them speak what sounds like “the Kin’s English” and some of them sound like they speak British street English which is hard to follow. But I will listen more closely.

I don’t recall the kinds of changes Redbeard spoke of, either.  Did he say when that happened?

But there were other changes. Particularly the shift away from Elizabethan/Shakespearean/King James English which was still spoken by the American Quakers in the 19th century.

I may be wrong but I believe the letter J was introduced in the 16th or 17th century.

It doesn't really matter which dialect they're using, all British people do that hard fast "a" sound. The only difference is that Southerners and posh twats will drag out the letter "a" into a long "ah" in some words, but not all. Like "glaaahss".

Your other questions, I have no idea. The transformation into modern English was slow. Elizabethan/Early Modern English actually wasn't dramatically different to today, it just had the ye olde-ness with the "thou canst" "thy" etc. A lot of people think Elizabethan is "Middle English", but it's not. Real "Old English" (pre-1000AD) and even "Middle English" (1000-1400), modern English speakers would actually struggle to understand them. I don't really know anything more than that, I only know where it came from and what languages have influenced it.

[Rhondazvous]

It doesn't really matter which dialect they're using, all British people do that hard fast "a" sound. The only difference is that Southerners and posh twats will drag out the letter "a" into a long "ah" in some words, but not all. Like "glaaahss".

Your other questions, I have no idea. The transformation into modern English was slow. Elizabethan/Early Modern English actually wasn't dramatically different to today, it just had the ye olde-ness with the "thou canst" "thy" etc. A lot of people think Elizabethan is "Middle English", but it's not. Real "Old English" (pre-1000AD) and even "Middle English" (1000-1400), modern English speakers would actually struggle to understand them. I don't really know anything more than that, I only know where it came from and what languages have influenced it.

Well, that’s what this thread is about—where the languages came from and how they’ve affected one another over the years.

One of my novels is set in the 19th century and my main character happens upon a group of Quakers. I use Katherine Johns Elizabethan English dictionary to authenticate their speech. I’m still not completely sure when to end verbs on –est or –eth, but it’s accessible to the average reader and at the same time won’t make a knowledgeable reader groan—I hope.

[abaris]

Well, look at the Amish. When they're speaking German, you would guess they just came in from Southern Germany. Because they're confined and living isolated. There's not outside influence changing their language.

Arnold Schwarzenegger or Henri Kissinger for that matter, speak German with a heavy accent. They've lost the ability to call any language their own. It's all about people talking to each other and finding some kind of regional convention, how words are pronounced, or how you shorten certain phrases or words.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Thou thinkst - Du denkst

Pretty much what I said above, when quoting you in my edit.

Scotsmen still have the phrase "do you ken?", which basically means "kennst du?" Took me a while (which, by the way is Weile in German) to understand that they don't mean can.

Don't forget loch. They only have one lake in Scotland but they have plenty of lochs. The ch sound is the same too. Also kirk / kirche.

[I_am_not_mafia]

Since we were talking about medieval German and english. There are also a lot of words, not being in common use anymore. You know their meaning, but virtually nobody would use them. And one of them is "Pein", which, of course, translates to "pain" in english.

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

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

Fortnight is archaic?

[Alex K]

Well, look at the Amish. When they're speaking German, you would guess they just came in from Southern Germany. Because they're confined and living isolated. There's not outside influence changing their language.

In fact, their dialect (Pennsylvania German or Deitsch) is largely the same as mine (Süd/Vorderpfälzisch), mixed with some neologisms from English.
It's very amusing for me to listen to them or read their poetry.

[Rhondazvous]

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

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

Fortnight is archaic?

In America, yes. I only see it in novels based in pre 20th century England. But it hasn’t been a part of spoken lexicon. We basically say biweekly. Although that could mean every 2 weeks or twice a week.