A lesson on philosophy due to a lesson on English and German language

[Thorgalaeg]

In fact german, along french, were the languages of science, more than english, then two world wars and the US happened and English became dominant. It is a historical and political thing, not about which language is better for whatever.

And btw it was all about latin before all these messy degenerated barbarian languages spread all over the place like a plague.

 

[Farm Boy]

The local logic of English isn't in the vocabulary so much as the idioms, I thought.

 

[red_elk]

I doubt there are serious differences between indo-european languages in terms of "philosophy" or logic. They derived from common ancestor just a few thousand years ago.
There are much more special languages, like Japanese.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Did you know that no language got as many words as the English language?
That is because English is the whores of languages if there ever was one. And that is because it got not soul. It just adjusts and assembles like bricks, which was my point.
[Dislaimer: "I object to describing females with frequently different partners as whores. Moreno, I personally approve of their message. However, I also will not yield from the richness the word "whore" culturally carries."}
Whereas German is like a plant. Full of bothersome and outright infuriating limitations and cumbersome rules - but also full of subtle meaning flowing as the vanes of a flowers and which English does not have. Does not have on a elementary level. As in - WILL NEVER HAVE. CAN NEVER HAVE. BEYOND ITS SCOPE
Now since this is beyond the typical terms of perception and discussion, I expect this point to have either zero responses or ill-formed angry responses.
I'll be here.

I don't think your brick analogy does the English language justice. While English is rather famous for its large number of synonyms and word layering, I think you ignore how organic that process was. English didn't just sit back a pick and choose what words to take from other languages (at least not until the 18th century) nor is there a governing body like other languages to keep the "purity" of the official dialect intact. English started off as an Anglo-Frisian (West Germanic) dialect which took a few Welsh loan words, then got spliced by vocabulary from a North Germanic language (Old Nordic) and then later from a Romance language (Norman).

English has plenty of soul , there's a reason its a main language of the arts right now. Most of the words one uses in normal conversation come from the original Germanic root-stock, and there is fantastic variation in context from dialect to dialect. English only becomes soulless when you start to use its more scientific or business forms, which is full of Latin or French-based words which 17th-18th-& 19th century academics and scientists Frankensteined together to form many super specific words that most people don't actually use. There's is a few pie charts which pruport to show the origin of English vocabulary, and give numbers that show Romance languages providing the largest percentage. While there is no denying that there are an incredible amount of Romantic loan words, the charts never express that a large percentage of these words are never actually used in conversation.

 

[Borachio]

I remember some English MEP standing up in the European Parliament and saying he thought "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark" (a clear reference to Hamlet, though apropos of what I can't remember, probably the EU itself).

Whereupon a Danish MEP stood up and protested that his country proudly had the least corruption of any country in the world.

The trouble with English is that, although foreign speakers can use it to communicate with other foreign speakers quite effectively, an English speaker will automatically use idioms and cultural references which sail straight over the heads of a lot of foreign speakers. And no one understands what they're saying, apart from other native English speakers.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I remember some English MEP standing up in the European Parliament and saying he thought "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark" (a clear reference to Hamlet, though apropos of what I can't remember, probably the EU itself).

Whereupon a Danish MEP stood up and protested that his country proudly had the least corruption of any country in the world.

The trouble with English is that, although foreign speakers can use it to communicate with other foreign speakers quite effectively, an English speaker will automatically use idioms and cultural references which sail straight over the heads of a lot of foreign speakers. And no one understands what they're saying, apart from other native English speakers.

That Danish MEP was a bit of a blockhead. Anybody minimally educated would get that literary reference. I wonder how many english native speakers know where the "Tilting at windmills" idiom comes from btw.

 

[Borachio]

Don Quixote. (Unless I'm sorely mistaken, or I've fallen through a hole in the space-time continuum.)

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Don Quixote.

I knew you knew it.

 

[Borachio]

I knew you knew I knew it.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I knew + (you knew I knew)*∞ + it

Checkmate.

 

[Borachio]

Lol.

Nice one.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Thinking on it, in fact i checkmated myself.

 

[red_elk]

The trouble with English is that, although foreign speakers can use it to communicate with other foreign speakers quite effectively, an English speaker will automatically use idioms and cultural references which sail straight over the heads of a lot of foreign speakers. And no one understands what they're saying, apart from other native English speakers.

That one was funny.
But this thing about idioms exists in all languages, I think. If we were speaking Russian and I asked you to stop hanging noodles on my ears, you would most probably be puzzled.

That Danish MEP was a bit of a blockhead. Anybody minimally educated would get that literary reference. I wonder how many english native speakers know where the "Tilting at windmills" idiom comes from btw.

"Fighting windmills" is widely known too.

 

[Borachio]

But this thing about idioms exists in all languages, I think.

They certainly do.

But I was talking about foreign speakers of English communicating in a non-idiomatic form of English.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Wasn't it Heidegger who said the only two languages in which one could conduct philosophy were Greek and German?

Maybe that's related to German only having one word.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

This thread is falling short of its potential. While I'm sceptical about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, I think different meanings of words in related languages could give us some insight into related cultures.
I'll use some English/German or German/English examples.

Taxes: I don't exactly know where the English term comes from, and I'm too lazy to research it. It would be taxing. Arguably a waste of time. The German word for tax is Steuer, and it derives from the verb steuern which is pretty close to the English verb to steer. In the English language the concept of Government Taking Your Money is just a burden. A necessary evil at best. In German it implies an agenda. Taxing alcohol and tobacco ? The government is trying to steer the people away from consuming alcohol and tobacco. Increased revenue is is a side effect, the goal is decreased consumption. This gives taxes a sheen of legitmacy beyond King Wants Money.

Mist: In English mist is basically a type of fog. In German Mist means manure. In the olden times mist described the mist rising from a pile of manure. These days English uses it for the superficial and (depending on weather and lighting) easily observed phenomenon, while in German it's used for the physical cause.

Knight/Ritter: This one is the most interesting example. Why is there a K in Kniggit ? Because it's related to the German word Knecht. Knecht means a pretty lowly servant, and a kighthood is pretty much the lowest noble rank. A servant to a lord, king or emperor. The German word for knight is Ritter, a very archaic term for Reiter (English: rider).
The English word for Europe's archetypical warrior aristocracy describes their relationship to the higher nobles, while the German word describes their role on the battlefield.
Maybe that tells us something about the English and the Germans ?

 

[Lohrenswald]

this thread is quit widerlich

 

[Hygro]

Right at the right right right, right?

Lego that suckas

 

[Traitorfish]

Knight/Ritter: This one is the most interesting example. Why is there a K in Kniggit ? Because it's related to the German word Knecht. Knecht means a pretty lowly servant, and a kighthood is pretty much the lowest noble rank. A servant to a lord, king or emperor. The German word for knight is Ritter, a very archaic term for Reiter (English: rider).
The English word for Europe's archetypical warrior aristocracy describes their relationship to the higher nobles, while the German word describes their role on the battlefield.
Maybe that tells us something about the English and the Germans ?

Well, this one might just tell us that the English are weirdos. Far as I can tell- by which I mean "as far as I can google", naturally- most Romance and Germanic languages use words literally meaning "horseman" or "rider", like the French chevalier and German ritter, and non-Germanic, non-Romance languages use either equivalent terms, like the Basque zaldun or Welsh marchog, or direct borrowings, like the Irish ridire, Czech rytíř or Albanian kalorës. The only non-English departure from this is the Slovene and Serbo-Croatian vitez, derived from the old Germanic wiking, warrior. The English seem to be the only people in Europe who've derived their word for an armed, mounted warrior and associated lower-gentry with their historical role as retainers, and it's not really self-evident what unique thought-patterns the English might possess that would have lead them to this.

Sometimes, language is just weird for no particular reason, or at least no reason that's particularly satisfying.

 

[Lexicus]

@Traitorfish Where does the convention of translating the Roman 'equestrian' as 'knight' (which has always bothered me) fit into that?