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Germanic Pride.

 Language Learning Forum : General discussion (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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Vinlander
Groupie
Canada
Joined 5821 days ago

62 posts - 69 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 90
08 April 2010 at 5:26am | IP Logged 
Is it just me or is there a large amount of native English speaker who are feeling a draw to English's Germanic roots. I'm of course in no denial about my own. I'm just trying to figure out why others feel like this. I have two main theories as to why.

Firstly we English speakers love Germanic Europe. Not because of any racial reason. There rich and modern with few flaws unlike most places in the world. Even latin europe, have much weaker economies, slavic europe is just poor. There similar for obvious reasons to our culture. They usually do quite well when compared to Americans in fitness, education, safety, standard of living, they usually are quite high on best places to live. Theses are mostly factual reasons why we like Germanic Europe. These of course are mostly new developments. In the past latin europe was much better off, but I think thats part of the point, there modern and did it mostly on there own.

The second reason I think us Anglo's are drawn to our Germanic roots, is our disconnect in the modern era from almost all of past roots. I mean most white North Americans have no recent link to europe, our religion, our family, family history, we feel to much guilt associated with our country, removal from our local community, and feel the past is just to out of touch with the modern age. We can't even take pride in our language as it's just silly to feel attached to a language, that just seems like a tool in the great goal of the commercialization, and globalization of all life as we know it.


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tritone
Senior Member
United States
reflectionsinpo
Joined 6120 days ago

246 posts - 385 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French

 
 Message 2 of 90
08 April 2010 at 5:44am | IP Logged 
I think its just you...or maybe you are frequenting too many language forums on the internet, where that sentiment may exist.

Most English speakers don't know that English has anything to do with the Germanic language family, and think it's based on latin.



Edited by tritone on 08 April 2010 at 5:45am

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ManicGenius
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5481 days ago

288 posts - 420 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 90
08 April 2010 at 5:49am | IP Logged 
O.o

uh... what?

Vinlander wrote:
I mean most white North Americans have no recent link to
europe

Gonna have to disagree with you on this one with my friend from Belarus, and another
from Poland. Fresh off the boat as they say. (Literally, that's how they describe
themselves)

Vinlander wrote:
our religion

Uh... what religion? Pretty sure I'm a white north american and I'm not the big C, if
that's what you mean. I know plenty of Hindus, Muslims, and Jews right near me that'd
raise an eyebrow at that as well.

Vinlander wrote:
our family, family history

Gonna disagree again here, people love talking about their families and where they come
from. (And I love to hear it and tell my own). At least when you ask them.

Vinlander wrote:
we feel to much guilt associated with our country

... *sigh* ... not this crap again

Vinlander wrote:
removal from our local community, and feel the past is just to out of
touch with the modern age

If anything I feel more connected with my "local community" and the world at large with
the advent of the intertubes.


Vinlander wrote:
Is it just me or is there a large amount of native English speaker who
are feeling a draw to English's Germanic roots

It's just you.

Edited by ManicGenius on 08 April 2010 at 5:51am

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ManicGenius
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5481 days ago

288 posts - 420 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese

 
 Message 4 of 90
08 April 2010 at 5:53am | IP Logged 
tritone wrote:

Most English speakers don't know that English has anything to do with the Germanic
language family, and think it's based on latin.


+1 Bingo.

But technically it is based on Latin to a degree. And French. And German. And...
well... pretty much damn well whatever hodgepodge got in there. Some Gaelic? some
peppered Asian flair sir? Some African?...
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Johntm
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5422 days ago

616 posts - 725 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 90
08 April 2010 at 5:55am | IP Logged 
I feel no Germanic pride (probably because my ancestors weren't Germanic), and I never hear people talking about Germany. Maybe every once in a while, but mainly from kids who take German or my German teacher (doesn't teach German, but he's from Germany).
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chucknorrisman
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French

 
 Message 6 of 90
08 April 2010 at 5:58am | IP Logged 
I'm not a native English speaker (and not a Germanic person either) but I think it would be cool, to say the least, if English used some more old Germanic words instead of the Latin ones.

Edited by chucknorrisman on 08 April 2010 at 5:58am

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ManicGenius
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5481 days ago

288 posts - 420 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Esperanto, French, Japanese

 
 Message 7 of 90
08 April 2010 at 6:00am | IP Logged 
chucknorrisman wrote:
I'm not a native English speaker (and not a Germanic person
either) but I think it would be cool, to say the least, if English used some more old
Germanic words instead of the Latin ones.


How often do you say "Aspirin", "diesel", "hamburger", "kindergarten"?

Well... maybe not kindergarten as often, but the rest come up on a daily basis for me.
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Chung
Diglot
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20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 8 of 90
08 April 2010 at 6:12am | IP Logged 
I'm not so sure. A lot of native speakers of English around here seem enamored with the Romance languages (esp. French, Italian or Spanish) rather than the other Germanic languages.

I remember reading about a movement from the 19th century whereby some intellectuals wanted to "Germanicize" English more by resurrecting words of Germanic origin or by creating neologisms or calques based on German to replace existing items of Romance origin. For one reason or another, the movement never really took off and at most many of the neologisms or calques ended up coexisting with the Romance loanwords they were supposed to replace.


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