In the first place, I would leave out the Dative case. It is as bad as Latin. Now that is a good idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from its lonesomeness. And eighthly, and last, I would retain Zug and Schlag, with their pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. Now there is that troublesome word vermählt: to me it has so close a resemblance — either real or fancied — to three or four other words, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the latter. This is why we present the ebook compilations in this website. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife’s Foot — she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck — he goes; now its Chin — it goes; now its Nose — she goes. Having pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the German. Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache: Mark Twain: 9783925817700: Books - Amazon.ca. The edition I've read was bilingual and I took the chance to savor some German with a useful facing-page translation. The German word also is the equivalent of the English phrase “You know,” and does not mean anything at all — in talk, though it sometimes does in print. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. German names almost always do mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. “The Awful German Language” is an essay by Mark Twain published as Appendix D in A On October 31, , Twain delivered a lecture titled “Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache” (“The Horrors of the German Language” in English). The capitalizing of the nouns I have already mentioned. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Discover Prime Book Box for Kids. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page — and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said… But far before this virtue stands another — that of spelling a word according to the sound of it. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Or would not a consumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in a shirt-collar and a seal-ring, into a storm which the bird-song word Gewitter was employed to describe? The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of. However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. This sort of gewgaws undignify a speech, instead of adding a grace. Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache [Mark Twain] on *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. I will make a perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks and some hyphens for the assistance of the reader — though in the original there are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to flounder through to the remote verb the best way he can: “But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) government counselor’s wife met,” etc., etc. -- Proverbs xxxii, 7. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. Download Free The Awful German Language Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache Mark Twain The Awful German Language Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache Mark Twain When somebody should go to the ebook stores, search initiation by shop, shelf by shelf, it is essentially problematic. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during several weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years. This item is dated away back yonder months ago. These cookies do not store any personal information. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a Schlag into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn’t let him promptly heave a Zug after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him simply say also! Account & Lists Account Returns & Orders. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel. Time presses — is there none to succor and save? Das englische Original wurde zuerst in der Anthologie A Tramp Abroad als Annex D veröffentlicht. ( Log Out /  “The Awful German Language” is an essay by Mark Twain published as Appendix D in A On October 31, , Twain delivered a lecture titled “Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache” (“The Horrors of the German Language” in English). When we wish to speak of our “good friend or friends,” in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form and have no trouble or hard feeling about it; but with the German tongue it is different. Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does not mean — when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet. It will very squander the time. Buy Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache the a by Mark Twain (ISBN: ) from Amazon’s Book Store. Therefore, it is either der(the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, according to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. This allows for an analysis in linguistic weight assigned to various typological and stylistic aspects of language which revolve around the difference between an analytic language like English with a language like German that is a synthetic language with some analytic characteristics. I have worked at it hard for three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase — `Zwei Glas‘” (two glasses of beer). Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Ungeordnet und unsystematisch sei sie, schlüpfrig, ganz und gar unfassbar - jene schreckliche deutsche Sprache, über die der große Mark Twain sich in seinem gleichnamigen Essay auf ebenso spitzfindige wie treffsichere Weise ereifert. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is. they repeat it several times, if they choose. They think our ladies have the same custom, perhaps; for I once heard a gentle and lovely old German lady say to a sweet young American girl: “The two languages are so alike — how pleasant that is; we say `Ach! But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. But these little instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal German system of piling jumbled compounds together. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. I heard lately of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no longer — the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and healing to his lacerated spirit. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. — troublesome? The Awful German Language. But in English, when we have used a word a couple of times in a paragraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak enough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates exactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Now observe the Adjective. I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look and sound between words which have no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the foreigner. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. Thanks for deutschhe us about the problem. Some utterly brilliant, quality ‘Twain here! To increase the difficulty there are words which seem to resemble each other, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they did. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to persuade his tongue to refer to things as “he” and “she,” and “him” and “her,” which it has been always accustomed to refer to it as “it.” When he even frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the right places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it is no use — the moment he begins to speak his tongue flies the track and all those labored males and females come out as “its.” And even when he is reading German to himself, he always calls those things “it,” where as he ought to read in this way: 2. “Freundschaftsbezeigungen” seems to be “Friendship demonstrations,” which is only a foolish and clumsy way of saying “demonstrations of friendship.” “Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen” seems to be “Independencedeclarations,” which is no improvement upon “Declarations of Independence,” so far as I can see. Die schreckliche deutsche Sprache oder auch Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache[1] ist ein kurzer humoristisch-satirischer Essay des US-amerikanischen Schriftstellers Mark Twain aus dem Jahre 1880. On the first page Twain writes: Explore the Home Gift Guide. It sounds about as wicked as our “My gracious.” German ladies are constantly saying, “Ach! There is no other way. Für mich jedenfalls spricht aus jeder Zeile seiner "gnadenlosen Kritik" sehr viel Sympathie und Bewunderung. Feb 03, Miguel rated it really liked it. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our literature, but it has gone out now. Ich selbst liebe die schreckliche deutsche Sprache sehr. Tach Allerseits, vielleicht gibt es Kollegen, die diese Liebeserklärung an die deutsche Sprache noch nicht kennen. “The Awful German Language” is an essay by Mark Twain published as Appendix D in A On October 31, , Twain delivered a lecture titled “Die Schrecken der deutschen Sprache” (“The Horrors of the German Language” in English). Yeah, every day someone create a new compound and you can never look them up in the dictionary but theiy’re so typisch Deutsch. I translated a passage one day, which said that “the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest” (Tannenwald). As understood, ability does not recommend that you have astounding points. July 1. Deutsche Version. Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the Parenthesis distemper — though they are usually so mild as to cover only a few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it carries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a good deal of what has gone before. Find the best information and most relevant links on all topics related toThis domain may be for sale! Sent from and sold by Amazon. Hello Select your address Books Hello, Sign in. There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I could have used it sooner, but I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? I have tried this process upon some of the above examples. If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Skip to main content.ca. Buy the selected items together This item: Twain doesn’t just complain about the absurdity of some of German language’s aspects, he also offers suggestions for its improvement. The Awful German Language Die Schreckliche Deutsche Sprache Mark Twain Library Genesis is a search engine for free reading material, including ebooks, articles, magazines, and more. Mark Twain schildert sehr humorvoll, wie schwer es für anderssprachige Menschen ist, die deutsche Sprache zu lernen und zu verstehen. Very well — then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion — Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something — that is, resting(which is one of the German grammar’s ideas of doing something), and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. You can begin withSchlag-ader, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to Schlag-wasser, which means bilge-water — and including Schlag-mutter, which means mother-in-law. I think it’s funnier when you are English, because we have some of the weird construction things they have in German in Dutch too. Er schlug seine ganz eigene Reform der Sprache vor und läßt diejenigen, die diese Sprache lieben, aber ihre Fallstricke kennen, mehrfach laut auflachen. Ungeordnet und unsystematisch sei sie, schlüpfrig, ganz und gar unfassbar - jene schreckliche deutsche Sprache, über die der große Mark Twain sich in seinem gleichnamigen Essay auf ebenso spitzfindige wie treffsichere Weise ereifert. ( Log Out /  So he resorts to the dictionary for help, but there is no help there. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any German word is pronounced without having to ask; whereas in our language if a student should inquire of us, “What does B, O, W, spell?” we should be obliged to reply, “Nobody can tell what it spells when you set if off by itself; you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out what it signifies — whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod of one’s head, or the forward end of a boat.”. For instance, if one is casually referring to a house, Haus, or a horse, Pferd, or a dog,Hund, he spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to them in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and unnecessary e and spells them Hause, Pferde, Hunde. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing; but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the government in the work of reforming the language. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to the book. The various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious and harassing business. I wish to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration: “In the daybeforeyesterdayshortlyaftereleveno’clock Night, the inthistownstandingtavern called `The Wagoner’ was downburnt. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. — In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was successfully removed from a patient — a North German from near Hamburg; but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The Awful German Language A little learning makes the whole world kin.— Proverbs xxxii, 7.I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. It confuses the plurals; and, besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Dative case, except he discover it by accident — and then he does not know when or where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how he is going to get out of it again. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It was only the sound that helped him, not the meaning; [3] and so, at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died. 3. I have heard of an American student who was asked how he was getting along with his German, and who answered promptly: “I am not getting along at all. Title: Die schreckliche deutsche Sprache /The Awful German Language Mark Twain Buch PDF Created Date: 1/15/2019 11:44:40 AM A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neuter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither. Ehrgeiz vielleicht noch, ja sogar Neid. In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. This is an extremely easy means to … And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. I have shown what a bother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well this is only a third of the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective to be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter. Very well, I am ready to reform it. The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Simmons, clerk of the county and district courts, was in town yesterday,” the new form put it thus: “Clerk of the County and District Courts Simmons was in town yesterday.” This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward sound besides. Die Sprachen, die sich nicht entwickeln, sind die tote Sprachen. I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. language die schreckliche deutsche sprache mark twain by online. I spoke entirely in that language. The German word for hell — Hölle — sounds more like helly than anything else; therefore, how necessary chipper, frivolous, and unimpressive it is. Reviewing applications can be fun and only takes a few minutes. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird — (it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of consequence to anybody): “Where is the bird?” Now the answer to this question — according to the book — is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English: “The trunks being now ready, he DE- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself,PARTED.”. Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp.