English and intelligability with Germanic languages

Travis   Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:50 pm GMT
The main thing here, though, is that in many ways the English verbal system is not that different from an analogously stripped down version of the German verbal system; most of the parts which make the German and French verbal systems more similar to each other than either is to the English one are simply due to loss of inflection in the English one, the use of <werden> for the passive and (explicitly marked) future in German aside. This is especially apparent when one looks at the verbal system of not Late Modern English but rather Early Modern English, which still retains person/number inflection like that of standard Hochdeutsch in the present singular.

The similarities of English and German grammar which are clear include:

* Their both having both inseparable verb prefixes and separable verb particles (English separable verb particles differ only from German separable verb prefixes in that they are usually separate from verb stems themselves rather than obligatorily being prefixed to the verb root in many positions, and are more mobile in the sentence structure than their German counterparts)
* Their both having many verb-preposition pairs which act as if they are lexically tied together, due to verbs often having meanings which are very different and often non-obvious based on which preposition is used with them
* Their both having wordforms which can be used readily as prepositions and separable verb particles, and which may also be used at times as inseparable verb prefixes as well.
* Both having weak, strong, and mixed verbs, with mixed verbs being weak verbs with irregular preterites and past participles
* Both having very similar past participle forms, except that the analogue of "ge"- has been lost in English (like in Northern Low Saxon)
* Both having only two basic morphological verb tenses, present and preterite, with all other semantic verb tenses/aspects being formed with auxiliary or modal (or quasimodal in the case of English) verb forms or with time adverbial forms
* In particular, both English and German lack a specific dedicated way to form the future, with a mixture of modal/quasimodal and time adverbial forms being used in the place of such
* The morphological present perfect is used as a semantic past tense of sorts in both English and German, even though this is much more prominent in German than in English
* English and German auxiliary and modal/quasimodal verb forms are independent of main verb forms and may be separated by other wordforms and phrases; note, though, that in English such is primarily in the form of adverbial material being able to precede a main verb stem (which is more similar to such in the North Germanic languages), whereas in German such is part of its verb movement system which results from being basically SOV but also being verb-second
* Both English and German have infinitive clause constructions where the direct object of one verb, in accusative case, is simultaneously used as the subject of another verb, which is marked as an infinitive
* Both English and German have marked infinitive constructions using a marker, which is <to> in English and <zu> in German, with which verbs quality other verbs, clauses, and nouns, and are used in an effectively nominal fashion (where they may be found as subjects or referred to by prepositions); note, though, that in English such forms the basis of its quasimodal constructions, where historical <to> very commonly is tied directly and inseparably to the quasimodal verb (note the parallel between English <have to> and German <haben zu> however, but the English form here is far more common than its German counterpart)

There is probably much more I could say here, but this is a basic rundown of many of the similarities between the English and German verbal systems, outside of the superficial differences between them with respect to inflection and modal usage.
Philx   Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:04 pm GMT
Hey Travis, many of the thing you said are commons also in other germanic languages like dutch and danish, as far i know...
Travis   Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:10 pm GMT
>>Hey Travis, many of the thing you said are commons also in other germanic languages like dutch and danish, as far i know...<<

Yes, what I said above is most common to all the Germanic languages, for the most part, except Afrikaans, which has significantly reworked its verbal system compared to those of German, Dutch, and English; but even then, its loss of the preterite for the vast majority of words is not that much different from the effective loss of the preterite in speech for many normal verbs in many High German and Low Saxon dialects except that it has been made formally fixed.
Philx   Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:19 pm GMT
By the way I've heard that dutch is more complex even than german for what regards pronounce and vocabulary it is true?
Travis   Sun Feb 19, 2006 10:30 pm GMT
>>By the way I've heard that dutch is more complex even than german for what regards pronounce and vocabulary it is true?<<

The matter about German and Dutch is that the vowel system of German is generally far more orthogonal and symmetrical than that of Dutch. The vowel system of standard Hochdeutsch is such that all monophthong phonemes other than /@/ exist in short-long pairs, with the exception of the triplet /E/, /E:/, and /e:/ (where /E:/ has merged with /e:/ in more northern varieties thereof), and furthermore the short and long members of these pairs also clearly differ in tenseness, with the short member being lax and the long member being tense, with the exception of /a/ versus /a:/. Furthermore, standard Hochdeutsch as a set of diphthong phonemes that would likely be quite familiar to the average English-speaker, it being /aI/, /aU/, and /OY/ (which differs from GAE /OI/ in that it does not unrounded on the offglide).

However, note that that German dialects do differ from each other quite significantly with respect to their phonology, so what I have said above really only applies to standard Hochdeutsch. The main factor is that many German dialects may preserve sections of their vowel system which are closer to that of Middle High German than that of standard Hochdeutsch, especially with respect to long vowels and diphthongs. In particular, many Upper German dialects have the falling diphthongs /i@/, /u@/, and /y@/, or close analogues, corresponding to MHG /ie/, /uo/, and /ye/, which correspond to many instances of /i:/, /u:/, and /y:/ in standard Hochdeutsch; note that Upper Alemannic dialects may also preserve the MHG long vowels /i:/, /u:/, /y:/, which correspond to many instances of standard Hochdeutsch /aI/, /aU/, and /OY/. Also, many German dialects have not merged what correspond to MHG /eI/, /aI/, and /i:/, which have all merged as /aI/ in standard Hochdeutsch; in particular, they may have not merged MHG /eI/ with MHG /aI/ and /i:/.

The vowel system of standard Hochdeutsch in its overall orthogonality and having "pure" long monophthongs differs from standard Dutch, where in pairs of "short" and "long" monophthongs, sometimes they differ in both length and quality (usually tenseness, as in /E/ versus /e:/) and sometimes they differ in only quality (as in /Y/ versus /y/). Furthermore, Dutch has "holes" in its vowel system where German has short-long vowel phoneme pairs, as it has /2:/ without a short or lax counterpart and it has /u/ without a long or lax counterpart. Also note that the long middle vowel phonemes /e:/, /o:/, and /2:/ are actually realized as weak falling closing diphthongs, unlike their German counterparts, which are pure monophthongs. Another note is that its set of diphthong phonemes is relatively novel by English-language standards in that has /Ei/ (written <ij> or <ei>, corresponding to Middle Dutch /i:/ and /eI/), /9y/ (written <ui>, corresponding to Middle Dutch /y:/), and /@u/ (written <ou> or sometimes <au>, corresponding to Middle Dutch /oU/ and /aU/). It also has the "pseudodiphthongs" /aI/ and /oI/, written <aai> and <ooi>, even though these are not classically called diphthong phonemes in standard Dutch.

As for other aspects of pronunciation, standard Dutch is rather notorious for its use of /G/ corresponding to both German /C/ (or /x/ in various Alemmanic dialects) and German /g/, and in that it has /sx/ corresponding to most instances of German /S/ (but it will have /s/ in some places where German has /S/, especially corresponding to the German suffix -<(i)sch>). Note, though, that many southern Dutch dialects use a voiced palatal fricative /j\/ in the place of Algemeen (Beschaafd) Nederlands /G/. Also note that the phoneme sequence /sj/ is realized as /S/ in standard Dutch, and that furthermore various northern Dutch dialects also have /S/ corresponding to West Frisian /S/ in loanwords from West Frisian. Another note is that Dutch maintains a phonemic differentiation between /v/ and /v\/, which may be difficult to many non-native speakers due to the closeness between the two articulation-wise.
Travis   Sun Feb 19, 2006 10:34 pm GMT
>> Middle Dutch /y:/<<

This above should be Late Middle Dutch /y/, which in turn is the result of the merger of earlier Middle Dutch /y/ and /u/, as in <hus> : /hus/ -> <huus> : /hys/ -> <huis> : /h9ys/.
greg   Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:57 am GMT
Travis : stimmt. Trotzdem gibt es auch Unterschieden.
Travis   Mon Feb 20, 2006 9:57 am GMT
>>Travis : stimmt. Trotzdem gibt es auch Unterschieden.<<

Yes, there are many differences between the verbal systems in English and German, but these tend to be more superficial than many more fundamental similarities, and pertain to things more like inflection, verb position within clauses, and modal usage, which are things that tend to differ significantly throughout the Germanic languages in particular, and consequently are not specifically differences between English and German alone.

Furthermore, many of the places with respect to such where English differs from German are places where it has things in common with various Germanic languages other than German; for example, the use of <will>, <shall>, and <going to> in English to construct the future (besides time adverbials) are similar to, say, Danish <ville>, Danish <skulle> and Dutch <zullen>, and Dutch <gaan> respectively. As for the construction of the passive, the passive is another thing which the Germanic languages as a whole are not particularly consistent with respect to the construction of; consequently, it is not of that much consequence to say that English differs from German with respect to such, as the construction of such is quite different in, say, the North Germaic languages to begin with.
greg   Tue Feb 21, 2006 6:08 am GMT
Travis : il serait intéressant de vérifier comment se construisait le passif en vieil-anglais et si un schéma identique se retrouvait inchangé en moyen-anglais tardif. D'autre part, il faudrait s'assurer de savoir si le tour périphrastique propre aux temps tels que le futur de l'indicatif en anglais et en allemand était déjà présent au moyen-âge ; je mentionne cet aspect car les langues latines (les différents types de latin + les langues romanes et leur diachronies) ont connu des allers-retours entre tour morphologique et tour périphrastique ou, plus exactement : tour morphologique (latin classique et impérial) —> tour périphrastique (bas latin et latin tardif) —> tour périphrastique lexicalisé (anciennes langues romanes) —> tour morphologique (langues romanes modernes).

Ich werde alles später übersetzen : ich bin in der Eile. Trotzdem kann man alles auf englisch dollmetschen ?
Corine   Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:34 pm GMT
I totally agree with what "guest" posted on Feb 10: I don't know much about German, unfortunately, but I'm learning Dutch and living in a Dutch-speaking environment. As everyday-words in English are Germanic, whereas French words are much more conceptual. a Dutch speaker will be much more comfortable learning English for an everyday-use, which makes him/her quickly intuitive.

Some Belgian dialects are also close to English in pronunciation: even if the word should officially be pronounced very differently, the fact they pronounce it "the English way" helps them a lot... you couldn't reverse that: English speakers will maybe find "vijf" not very close to their "five" if it's pronounced "veaf" (a bit as in the English word "spread" with a slighter longer vowel) as they usually do in Brussels, but they would find similarities if they heard it pronounced "fife" as they do in Scherpenheuvel...!

I found the forum while desperately looking for a study or book about how words have migrated from German to English via Dutch and found your conversation really really interesting! Would anyone be of any help for finding that sort of book? A bit of a dream christmas present!
Travis   Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:53 pm GMT
>>I found the forum while desperately looking for a study or book about how words have migrated from German to English via Dutch and found your conversation really really interesting! Would anyone be of any help for finding that sort of book? A bit of a dream christmas present!<<

The matter with respect to such is that Dutch is already close to High German by virtue of being a Low German language to begin with. Consequently, in such cases one would have to demonstrate that such words were not native to Dutch in the beginning, and even if they are not native to any Low Franconian dialect, that they did not originate in another Low German language (the obvious candidate here being Low Saxon) instead of originating in some High German dialect. Thusly, such is not quite as straightforward as it might initially seem.

That said, I don't know of any books or sites which would have any particular information on the subject; however, I would suggest googling it for starters myself.
Ed   Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:55 am GMT
Here is a sentence that is written exactly the same in English and Afrikaans:

My pen is in my warm hand.

What better example of English being like another Germanic language? Of course the pronunciation is different, 'my' is pronounced more like the English month 'May' and the d in 'hand' is devoiced so the word sounds more like the English 'hunt'.

Perhaps there should be a movement to purify the English language by purging out French influences? We could replace French words with Germanic ones or at least spell them in a more Germanic way.
Ed   Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:24 pm GMT
I agree that Germanic words in English tend to be more 'viceral' while Latinate words tend to be perceived as distant, cold or sterile.

This is probably why I feel more affection for a Germanic language like Afrikaans than a Latin one like Spanish. Spanish can be very beautiful but it doesn't have the same warmth to it for me.
greg   Fri Mar 17, 2006 12:46 pm GMT
Ed : « Perhaps there should be a *movement* to *purify* the English *language* by *purging* out French *influences*? We could *replace* French words with Germanic ones or at least spell them in a more Germanic way. »

Ça va être très — très — difficile, voire impossible...
Ed   Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:23 pm GMT
My suggestion was not entirely serious Greg, though some languages have done similar things.

Movement - beweging
Pure - skoon, suiwer
Language - taal
Purge - skoonmaak
Influence - beïnvloed
Replace - vervang

> Ça va être très — très — difficile, voire impossible...

Sorry, I don't understand this - three something?