Talk:German language

Archives

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1. January 2003 – September 2006
2. October 2006
3. November 2006 – September 2008

Long lists

I'm concerned about the proliferation of long lists in the article - particularly the ones on cognates - for the following reasons

1. the lists are unmaintainable - when are they complete? Can we hope to complete them?
2. the lists dominate the article - do we need this level of detail in a general overview article such as this?
3. they are unsourced - this is especially crucial in etymology where numerous disputed origins for each word are proposed
4. they tend attract numerous additions and grow unchecked - important again given the lack of sources for disputed etymologies
5. redundancy - don't categories such as Category:German loanwords do an equivalent job if we direct our readers to them?
6. wouldn't prose explaining the phenomena (e.g. sound-shifts, calques) with a couple of pertinent examples do the reader more service than an indiscriminate list of examples with little or no explanation of the causes and patterns therein?

Any thoughts? Knepflerle (talk) 12:13, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with you. When I first read this page, I did think it was pretty cool that there were some examples of cognates. But after scrolling down, the thought crossed my mind that the list was too long for an article. I think that the grid can be left but reduced. I'm new, so I wouldn't be able to do this but completely support the idea. Kman543210 (talk) 13:00, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe unsourced lists should be removed and sourced lists reduced to five examples or something like that... -- megA (talk) 14:54, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Next time I get a free moment I'll split these lists off to somewhere more appropriate. Knepflerle (talk) 11:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Good on ya! -- megA (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten about this honest ;) I'm just waiting for a chunk of time long enough to do the job properly. Knepflerle (talk) 11:52, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Deutsche Bühnenschrift?

In 1901 the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a complete standardization of German language in written form while the ''Deutsche Bühnensprache'' (literally: German stage-language) had already established spelling-rules for German three years earlier which were later to become obligatory for general German pronunciation.

Shouldn't that be: pronounciation rules instead of spelling rules? -- megA (talk) 22:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• Bump*? -- megA (talk) 19:34, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Basic Words and Phrases

Apart from it being full of errors and unformatted, do we really need this section? -- megA (talk) 20:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

History Neutrality

There is a neutrality flag under the history section of the page. Is there any discussion of that flag? If so, could it be brought to the fore or at least linked from here? If not, could somebody explain why it's flagged? Btwied (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The tag was added on 27 June 2007 (diff). The discussion is archived in Talk:German_language/Archive_3#POV -- megA (talk) 10:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

User:Zickzack placed a comment on the talk page and the dispute tag, but it doesn't look like anyone responded after over a year of time has gone by. I'm not sure what the policy is, but if someone could take a look at the archived discussion and see if there is validity to the tag. Kman543210 (talk) 11:00, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Have left a note at User_talk:Zickzack to give him the opportunity to participate and clarify the situation further. Any suggestions for improvement so far? Knepflerle (talk) 11:51, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me. As an explanation of the tag: German does not mean High German alone. It includes Low German. Hence, starting the history of German with the formation of High German is not correct. However, I do not see how to solve this elegantly. The wording in "History of German" was somewhat ambiguous, leaving it open if German starts with High German. I liked it.

Anyway, at the time I placed the tag, there were terms like "South Germanic" in use. Since they are gone, I will not insist on keeping the tag. -- Zz (talk) 15:42, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Although you may be technically correct, your suggestion is out of keeping with the customary approach in histories of German - all the handbooks concentrate on the history of High German and do treat the sound shift as the starting point. Even though they may mention Low german, they do not, for example, ever treat the phonological and morphological history of Low German in any details if at all. Most do not even give an overview of the phnological system of Low German. So this is not a question of neutrality but of following the literature. --Pfold (talk) 20:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Word Order

First, I think some mention should be made of the fact that many versions of the example provided would be ambiguous if there were more than one neuter/feminine noun involved. Second, the final paragraph mentions placement of time adverbs right after the verb. I learned the mnemonic TeKaMoLo (Tempo Kausus Modus Lokal) as a broader specification of the default sentence ordering. Is this worth mentioning (with a researched citation, obviously)? Btwied (talk) 14:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Etymology and meaning?

Why don't we have a definition and etymology for the word "Deutsch?" (Like, say, on Dutch language.) RobertM525 (talk) 07:07, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Follow the link to Theodiscus in the names for German section. Agreed, it could be better signposted. --Pfold (talk) 20:04, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

While that article seems to have sufficient information to exist in its own right, and is interesting, I maintain my belief that this article could use a section in the model of the Dutch language article on the etymology and definition of the word "Deutsch" (and perhaps "German" as well). RobertM525 (talk) 04:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

German speakers in the US

The Wikipedia-article "Languages of the United States" says that currently, more than 47 million Americans claim German ancestry, the largest self-described ethnic group in the U.S., and 10% of them speak or could speak the language. That's why it would be useful to change your implausible number of German speakers accordingly. Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.163.56.149 (talk) 16:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

The source agrees with the information in the article that approximately 1.4 million people in the US speek German in the home. If you think it is wrong and want to change it, provide an updated source that agrees with the information you think is correct. I suggest you discuss it here first though. A new name 2008 (talk) 16:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I doubt you'll find a more reliable source than the US Census Bureau. An unsourced supposition in another article (which I've just marked as such) is certainly far less reliable. Knepflerle (talk) 17:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, according to the raw data out of Americans declaring themselves as being of German ancestry, over 96% also state they are monolingual English speakers, so the 10% figure is obviously pure fantasy. I've added the requisite reference. Knepflerle (talk) 17:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Your source states that 3.8 % of the 49,178,839 people with German ancestry speak German at home. This represents 1.87 million people, but not ~ 1.4 million as stated in the article. Over 96% say that they speak only English at home, which doesn't mean that they are monolingual English speakers. Steffi Graf, for example, speaks English at home because Agassi doesn't speak German. Others may speak German in a club, in the pub or at the work place. Therefore it would be more useful to count the total number of speakers and not only the speakers at home. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.163.56.64 (talk) 15:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

No. 96.2% monolingual English does not mean 3.8% speak German. It means 3.8% are not monolingual English. They could be not monolingual (with any two languages) or, monolingual in another language (which need not necessarily be German). As for the rest - if we had reliable figures for that we would include them. But we don't, so we don't. Unsourced reinterpretations of data are covered by WP:SYNTH. Knepflerle (talk) 18:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Your data interpretation is highly unusual. You suppose that from the 3.8 % people with German ancestry, which don't speak English at home, a part could speak Spanish or Chinese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.163.54.24 (talk) 12:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about Chinese, but there may well be people of German ancestry from South America who have moved to the U.S. and speak Spanish or Portuguese at home. There may be Russlanddeutsche who moved to the U.S. and speak Russian at home. There may be deaf people of German ancestry who speak American Sign Language at home. There are all sorts of reasons why people of German origin in the U.S. who don't speak English at home don't speak German at home either. We also cannot assume that all 1.38 million people who do speak German at home are of German ancestry. There may well be people of other ancestries who, for example, are married to a German and speak German at home. —Angr 13:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Angr makes very valid points. More fundamentally however, I am not interpreting the data whatsoever - I am merely repeating it here, with no futher commentary, inference or synthesis. Further guesses based on this data may be more or less sensible, but that's all they are - guesswork. All we know about the 3.8% is that they are not monolingual English. No more, no less. Knepflerle (talk) 17:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There is also the question of what ancestry means in this context - the vast majority of Americans will not have ancestry of just one country. The ancestry they declare is the one they identify with most - the reasons for this connection are not always linguistic. This connection may be several generations removed and only down a small portion of the heritage - considering how quickly expatriate knowledge of ancestral languages falls off over generations, the ancestry-language link is not as strong as you might think. 82% of Americans are monolingual English speakers, despite considerably fewer than 56% of Americans declare ancestry from an English-speaking country (44.9% declare German, Mexican, Italian, French, Hispanic, Polish, Dutch, Norwegian, Native American or Swedish ancestries). Therein lies the danger of trying to make too strong inferences from ancestry. Knepflerle (talk) 17:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I would also point out that your statement above that "over 96% also state they are monolingual English speakers" is not accurate. Over 96% state they speak English at home - but that number certainly includes bilinguals as well as people whose native language is not English but who speak it at home anyway. —Angr 17:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Will add "at home" where necessary to the articles for accuracy. Knepflerle (talk) 18:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that the notion "at home" is absolutely not determinant. A Spanish-speaking husband will speak more than probably English at home with his German-speaking wife. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.163.51.234 (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a question of what we have sources for. Our information comes from the US census, which asks "What language do you speak at home?", not "What is your native language?". So we have to report the number of people who speak German at home, while realizing that this may exclude many native German speakers and may include many non-native German speakers. —Angr 15:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

the mentioned "dialect" in the section "Cognates with English"

I don't know wether my subject was mentioned before or not but as a native German speaker I do not recognize the words that are named in the column "dialects" in the third table of the section "Cognates with English". I am well versed with german accents/dialects but that one seems very unfamiliar to me. I think the written examples are very unrepresentative for German dialects. Mangercratie (talk) 22:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems you have little to do with German dialects if you think that the written examples are "very unrepresentative". The affinity of the dialect words with English is much more visible than in the case of standard German. Therefore the section "Cognates with English" should be concentrated more on German dialects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.133.119.191 (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

No need to be condescending. It's you who doesn't seem to understand what Mangercratie has written. These words are "unrepresentative" in that they do not represent any distinct dialect and are thus completely unscientific. It has already been discussed, see the archive. -- megA (talk) 10:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

What you try to qualify as "completely unscientific" is the only logic way to be followed. Maybe you know that in the 5th century AD among the invading Germanic tribes in England there were Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Swabians, Franks and others. Hence the present-day English includes many thousends of words that stem from all these tribes. The same words can be found today in the respective German dialects. Other interpretations would not be in concordance with the historical and linguistic facts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.133.95.106 (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Swabians in England? Let's stop this discussion short before it gets out of hand. Let's leave the information in the chart but structure it more clearly, so that the respective dialects are kept together and not just wildly mixed. Would that be something we can agree on? Trigaranus (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You are assuming that English has taken up words from German dialects in the 5th century AD, but that neither have changed, and words are still obviously related? Lars T. (talk) 14:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

If there is someone out there who can actually identify these "dialects", go ahead. To me, this looks like a hodge-podge of random "made-to-fit" words without scientific justification. There is no way to separate "parallel evolution" from actual parentage, if there is any. Should there be a source for which words are from what dialect and how they are actually related to English (what about English dialects, then? Should they be included as well?), fine. At the moment, this is a striking example of WP:OR and nothing more. I am tired of this discussion, too, since we have aleady been over this in the past. IMO the table should go, or be restricted to verifiably sourced examples. -- megA (talk) 11:32, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Well put. Knepflerle (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

For a recently discovered example of Convergent Evolution in Biology, see [1]. Lars T. (talk) 14:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes! Thank you! I mentioned this some time before, but nobody actually seems to care... The discussion is archived somewhere. As a native speaker, this seems to be a curious and unsourced mixture of words from several unidentifiable Upper and Mid-German dialects. Whether some examples are made up, I can't tell. The whole thing is unscientific and unsourced, IMNSHO. -- megA (talk) 11:33, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Apologies! I offered and haven't forgotten, but have had really limited en.wp time since. I ought to get chance soon, but of course if anyone wants to take the lead or offer a hand they're more than welcome. Knepflerle (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd do it myself, but my opinions, as stated before, might seem too radical. IMHO, it would suffice to retain about 5 examples of every table (since these lists will never be complete) and lose the dialect table, since this seems OR and no distinct dialect anyway. (A way to keep part of it would be to label each dialect word with the dialect it comes from...) -- megA (talk) 13:19, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that would be a good idea for now. My ultimate plan iss to take the existing data in the tables and salvage it into a decent self-standing article, but that will take time to do the reading for the referencing properly. Take it out for now, and I can get the old stuff from the history when I get time. Thanks ;) Knepflerle (talk) 13:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be the best to create different columns representing different dialects. I could tell you e.g. the swabian form of each word. :D Mangercratie (talk) 20:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This might be interesting, but does it really belong in the "Cognates with English" or in this (general overview) article at all? -- megA (talk) 17:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

New Picture

File:Sprachwarietäten Deutsch.PNG

Maybe someone could attach this picture to the article? It´s about German standad and regional varieties. The colours mean the following: dark green: German as spoken in Germany, light green: Luxembourgian German, olive green: Beligian German, dark blue: Austrian German, light blue: South-Tyrolian German, dark violet: Swiss German, light violet: Liechtensteiner German, turquoise: German speaking minorities.--193.170.52.132 (talk) 23:30, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't quite see the point of pretending national boundaries are also dialect boundaries. And are there really so many German speakers still in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania? —Angr 06:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, the map is mainly about standard varieties. Therefore, I think it makes sense to display national boundaries as boundaries between different varieties of Standard German. Though I must admit I doubt if there is a Belgian or Liechtenstein standard variety of German.

As to the speakers in Eastern Europe: I thinks the map displays wishful thinking rather than facts.Unoffensive text or character (talk) 08:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The map seems to indicate the three national standards (Ger, Aut, Sui) and the smaller "national Germans" (it's correct in including Standard German in Liechtenstein as a subtype of Swiss Standard German, and also correct in including Belgian and Luxembourg German as subtypes of German Standard German, although it leaves out Luxembourgish). But the eastern language exclaves seem entirely outdated. Trigaranus (talk) 15:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, the eastern exclaves are only showing the widespread living place for a minority. The prevailing opinion about German standard varieties (and pleas call all German speaking people "National Germans" Americans are neither English people...) is, that there are three main Varieties and four regional varieties. Thos varieties are largely codified and therefor basically bounded to national borders. And standerd varieties are not "dialects".--77.116.142.82 (talk) 02:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

You cannot compare the German "Sprachraum" with the American melting pot. The Swabians in Romania (Banat) speak the same dialects as in Baden, Alsace, Palatinate or Hesse. But at the same time they speak standard German. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.133.119.191 (talk) 00:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

My point about the eastern exclaves is that there is no German-speaking minority in those places anymore. If I went to Kołobrzeg, Bydgoszcz, Wrocław, Opole, Katowice, Liberec, Cheb, Kežmarok, Kremnica, Satu Mare, Timişoara, Sighişoara, or Braşov today, I wouldn't find a German-speaking minority there. Whether the standard varieties are dialects depends on your definition of "dialect" (the word has several meanings). —Angr 10:40, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Now, now. If there is "no German-speaking minority" in Opole, I wonder who the "Schlesisches Wochenblatt" (published in Opole) and the "Polen-Rundschau" is published for and for whom "Schlesien Aktuell" is broadcasting. And why the German language has official (auxiliary) status in certain regions or cities of Poland, Hungary and Romania, with e.g. bilingual signs or official documents. It's obvious that the number of speakers has dwindled after WW2, and has virtually diasppeared from most cities mentioned above, but claiming there is no German-speaking minority in Poland or Romania is just, sorry, nonsense. See German minority in Poland and Bilingual communes in Poland for an interesting read. German native speakers in Romania: about 45,000, according to 2002 Romanian government census.[2] [-- megA (talk) 12:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The German news papers in Romania are: Allgemeine Deutsche Zeitung (Bucarest), Banater Zeitung (Timisoara / Temeschburg), Karpatenrundschau (Brasov / Kronstadt) and Hermannstädter Zeitung (Sibiu / Hermannstadt). In the enumerated cities there are also German secondary schools.

Maybe some more research should be put in it, e.g. marking only officially recognized minority or auxiliary language regions on the map (such as Opole Voyvodship in Poland, etc). But where would that leave Alsace? -- megA (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Alsace is a major case of disregard of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.133.119.191 (talk) 18:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Preposterous construction

In a chart in this article (do a search to find it), information in two successive rows appears this way:

--

wer | who | where | see below
wo | where | who | see above

--

In other words, one reads the entry for "wer," is asked to see below to "wo," and then is asked to "see above" back to "wer." If humans were computers, I suppose we'd be stuck in an endless loop at that point.

If you want people to look at a specific word, mention that word! "See above" and "see below" are ridiculously imprecise in a long chart in any context. Moncrief (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

German a "fundamentally SOV" and "CP-V2, SOV" language.

Now I normaly would not care but since it really bugs me I have to ask you.
Not only to claryfy this to me but also to some wiki articles who lack the class of this one.
This is not an attack to the people who work on these articles but I don't really have the knowledge nor do I know if I am that right.
So it is more a request to help.

Out of interest I found the category Linguistic typology where most articles use german examples (and in my eyes right).
But after some klicks I found V2 word order where german is placed in the category CP-V2, SOV.
Now shoot me if I am wrong but isn't the most common used main clauses case anything else but SOV (normaly SVO) ?
I agree with Subject Verb Object which states "Some languages are more complicated: in German and in Dutch, SVO in main clauses coexists with SOV in subordinate clauses (See V2 word order.)" and I even know that main clauses of SOV are possible still I don't get the classification at all.
And what bugs me even more is that even if it would be SOV (which I still don't belive) it would not mean that it is some kind of "standard" in german. So I don't really get the classification.

And then I found Time Manner Place (where you can read my comments - I made some argument errors and decided to let the pros deal with each other...) and read "German uses V2 word order in main clauses and other circumstances, but is fundamentally SOV." which was changed on to "German (which is fundamentally SOV but uses V2 in certain circumstances, especially main clauses"
Now shoot me again but I don't see the word "fundamentally" really working here.
If my language would be "fundamentally" SOV I think I would know as well as the german wiki page which says something very different "Die deutsche Sprache ist demnach eine SPO-Sprache mit Verbzweitstellung, auch wenn einige weitere Stellungen möglich sind. Diese verändern dann aber den Sinn des Satzes. Ebenso verhält es sich bei den slawischen Sprachen." (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satzstellung). The comments of the autor explain Talk:Time_Manner_Place it thru "Can the most common word order for German be SVO, yet still be irregular? YES." which to me has not much to do with his conclusion that some parts are fixed in german (which I know - but don't see the connection).

Anyway I hope you help me, him and wiki by helping those articles (w. references and text).
I really don't mind if I am wrong it would just be great to hear it from more than one person. :)
Regards and thank you very much! (and sorry if I am wrong here but I really dont get the wiki structure for these cases... 79.192.227.92 (talk) 09:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)