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Germanic Pride. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| aokoye Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5541 days ago 235 posts - 453 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, Japanese | Message 81 of 90 11 April 2010 at 4:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I don't know where you're getting your information but it is so amazingly and scientifically untrue. Also lets not pretend that the only treatment for depression is drugs because it's not.
http://www.nimh.nih .gov/health/publications/depression/complete-index. shtml#pub5 (take out the spaces) Parts of this thread are making me feel good and bad - good because there are apparently a fair amount of people who haven't witnessed or experienced clinical depression. Bad because a. the stigma around depression, among other things, still exists and b. this thread has gotten so amazingly off the rails and I definitely helped it along. Edited by aokoye on 11 April 2010 at 4:35am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6379 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 82 of 90 11 April 2010 at 5:19am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Enough with the depression talk please otherwise the thread will be closed.
Eric 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Vinlander Groupie Canada Joined 5821 days ago 62 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 83 of 90 11 April 2010 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Depression is sympton not a disease. People's brains are like computers they have different hardware(biology) and different software(thoughts). Either part can cause the symptom. However were only talking about thoughts or enviroment and lifetstyle here. The point of all this is simple due to our North American enviroment, we feel a void you could call it depression I think completely missing the point. We feel a urge the older we get to fill to have some sense of belonging.
Anyhu getting back to the language part. I don't care about race, I care about people that view their origin from europe regardless of race. Some of these people like me feel like there disconnected from their connection in Europe. As many people disconnect from everything in general. So what do we wanna latch on to? Language as it's the only thing that really retains itself. Since my genetic roots at this point are meaningless(latin/celtic), I'd latch on to what makes linguitic heritage and focus of English's Germanic origins. So I guess the more general question is, do you see your language learning as a way to get in touch with a community that can't be found present in your life due to your status. I mean for north american's/Anglo's in general, as most other places have stronger geographic connections. Edited by Vinlander on 11 April 2010 at 5:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6949 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 84 of 90 11 April 2010 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Guys, English is classified as a Germanic language because the older form of English, German, the Scandinavian languages, Gothic, etc. used to all be THE SAME LANGUAGE (which we now call Proto-Germanic). So regardless of borrowed vocabulary, English IS a Germanic language. It's not really a matter of opinion or debate, so saying it 'should' be a Romance or Celtic language (neither of which have any closer of a genetic relationship to English than Persian or Hindi) is moot, akin to saying I 'should' be considered the sister of my cousin because we look alike and I copied her wardrobe.
The similarities between English and the Romance family are a result of either their more distant kinship (Latin and Proto-Germanic were both at one distant point in time Proto-Indo-European, so this would lend some grammatical and lexical similarities, but theoretically not much more than that between English and Persian or Hindi), or from the borrowings from French following the Norman conquest (which are superficial similarities, as some have pointed out, that do not permeate the core structure of the language). If you believe that English should be considred a Romance language due to lexical borrowings alone, then I guess by that same logic, Japanese and hundreds of other languages that have borrowed from European languages should be in that same family as well. By the way, the grammar of modern English is very similar to that of modern High German, even more similar to Dutch, and practically indiscernable from other Germanic languages such as Frisian and Scots. Reading a text from Shakespeare (whose English is indeed classified as Modern English), the grammar is undeniably German, and it probably wouldn't take a linguistic expert to identify the sound shifts that led to the separation between English and other Germanic dialects. (thou= du, thee = dich, thine= dein in German, to give an example off the top of my head, though there are of course more modern equivalents). I think that reading English and other Germanic texts from only a few hundred years ago might be an experience akin to reading texts in various Romance languages today. Of course, the rift between these sister Germanic languages has only widened over time, but on the other hand, I don't think anyone would argue that English has become any more of a Romance language during that interval. Anyway, I would encourage those who are interested/confused to research into the Indo-European language family (beginning, perhaps, with the family tree), as it really is a fascinating topic! More to the point of the topic, I have to second what others before me have said - sadly, only language geeks in America seem to know that English is a Germanic language, so I don't think anyone is learning it out of 'language family pride' who wasn't already learning it for other reasons. I'd concede that many are learning it (or Russian, or Chinese, or whatever other language) out of some distant family heritage, though - clinging nostalgically to some bygone era when each country had its strong, unique national and cultural identity. We can identify such sentiments in comments on this very forum, such as "I think such-and-such people are demeaning their beautiful cultural heritage by using so many English loanwords". While our culture celebrates diversity and globalization, I think there is also an aspect that romanticizes the notion of a 'pure' linguistic/cultural identity uncorrupted by the all-pervading influences of English loanwords, western fashion, and McDonalds. Thus the secret longings of some language geeks that Japanese would be more purely Japanese, German would be more purely German, and in the OP's case, English would be more purely English (though in reality these concepts don't really make sense, I hope you all understand what I mean). Edited by Lucky Charms on 11 April 2010 at 6:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5696 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 85 of 90 11 April 2010 at 11:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I was at a social event with a group of college students at a friend's house, when an individual, who shall remain nameless, described himself as naturally gifted with languages and then after rattling off a list of his linguistic conquests, matter-of-factly informed us with an air of authority that the English language was in fact descended from Greek. Then another person piped up and said, "But I thought it was from Latin". "Nope, it's Greek." was the elegant refutation. I nearly fell out of my chair (or would of had I not been standing). Anyways, long story short: apparently putting someone in a choke hold with an Indo-European linguistics textbook and screaming "it's Germanic: say it, say it" at the top of one's lungs is considered aggravated assault in my little corner of the world—I feel there was clearly provocation in this case though. I don't seen to get invited to many parties anymore. Edited by egill on 13 April 2010 at 12:11am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| DaisyMaisy Senior Member United States Joined 5380 days ago 115 posts - 178 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 86 of 90 12 April 2010 at 4:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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regarding the original topic - I am a native English speaker, as were the majority of my ancestors, who came to the US from England during the colonial period. So I don't feel "Germanic"; I feel a kind of kinship with the English. I don't understand the concept of English equalling some kind of descent from Germany. My understanding is that English and German shared a common ancestor language ages ago. English doesn't come from German - it is a related branch on the tree of languages.
My grandfather was a Swedish speaker from Finland. So I do enjoy learning a bit of Swedish and Finnish (which is a wickedly cool language, I have to say!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| masmavi Triglot Newbie Germany Joined 5708 days ago 9 posts - 17 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Spanish, Yiddish, Turkish, Italian | Message 87 of 90 12 April 2010 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Germanic doesn't mean it comes from German- that seems to be a common misconception.
Germanic languages, such as English, German, Dutch, Swedish,Danish, Danish, Icelandic, ect, all have a common ancestor- but this ancestor of course wasn't German. German is of course related to the Germanic ancestral language, but so is English, Swedish, etc. German and Germanic just sound similar, that's all. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 88 of 90 13 April 2010 at 5:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Also, did you know 9 out of 10 people fail at committing suicide? Call me a bad person, but I find this hilarious. I mean, you can't even kill yourself? Come on man. Not that I would kill myself, I'm selfless enough to realize I'd hurt other people by doing it, and I know there's always someone out there who had a worse day than me and they made it through, so I can too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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