It
is interesting to look at youth pop culture. These young people seem
to have strong regional identities or senses of their origins, and like
to use dialects – some pop music has become famous and popular
using regional dialects in the lyrics. Standard German used to be favoured,
but things have changed.
—
In France, they call the spread of English as ‘English invasion
of French’ and try to get rid of the English influence in the French
language. Are people feeling the threat by English in the same way in
Germany?
Yes, there is a government agency in France which aims to keep French
‘pure’. It banned the use of English in France, but people
use it anyway. Germany has a body which promotes standard rules of German
for example through dictionaries and grammar books, but they have never
banned the English use. Actually they’ve just made drastic changes
recently through a spelling reform which simplified some traditional
uses.
If you wish to draw
joy from the whole
You must recognise the whole in its smallest parts.
Goethe
|
Many
adults deplore young people using or importing more English words, but,
when you think about it, some of these English words actually originated
from old German, but they just don’t know because the languages
have changed. Do you know the English expression ‘to come full
circle’? It may be the case here where German as a ‘parent’
language of English, had a lot of influence on it, but now English is
influencing German.
For
instance, my mother complains that her son calls his children ‘kids’,
but the origin of the word ‘kid’, which means a ‘baby
animal’ is Germanic. It has broadened in meaning so it can be used
for human babies. So people just do not realise that they have something
in common with the word.
—
What is particularly difficult for someone who is learning German?
Well, I cannot tell it simply, because it depends on the backgrounds
of those who learn German. But one of the difficult things is the complexity
of forms, for example the articles or verb endings. Say ‘the king
met the knight’, both ‘the’ for the subject and the object
are the same in English, but in German, the form shows the position
in a sentence, and each is different according to the position and gender.
It
can change into 12 or so different cases, while in English it can be
expressed only as ‘the’ usually with a preposition. English
made those complex grammar structures more simple, the only verb ending
left is ‘(e)s’ for third person singular. German has one for
each person and you have to remember all them.
The
articles represent three attributes – masculine, feminine, and
neutral. French only has the first two, but German has the three. For
example, a table is masculine, a light is neutral, and a bag is feminine;
this is called grammatical gender. Does it make sense?
—
(Perplexed) How can we discern the differences?
(Laughter) There is no logical why one is masculine, feminine or neutral,
although some are logical. Some words are masculine and others are feminine
in German, but in French some of these attributes are opposite, e.g.
for the 'sun' and 'moon'! Another example is that a ‘woman’
is feminine, but a ‘girl’ is ‘neuter’! But we cannot
tell why it is categorised like that, so you must remember every single
word.
—
Is German easier to learn for English speakers because English is the
closest to German?
English is close in some ways, in a historical perspective, but as I
said, modern English is much simpler, dropping those complex grammars,
so many English speakers also have difficulty learning those forms,
and pronouncing the sound ‘ch’ from the throat.
—
Are there any more similar languages to German?
Yes, Dutch is similar. It has a similar sound too and many expressions
or structures are similar.
