[Big-C]

Hi everyone,

I usually just lurk for the lively debate that occurs here, but this time I'm hoping to get a little help.

I recently went back to school to get my masters degree, and am currently in a Linguistics class. My area of study for a report due this semester is Germany.

Would anyone who happens to live or have lived in Germany lately be willing to accept an email from me, and respond to about 15 questions? Admittedly, many of these questions are wide-ranging and seem unfocused; that's because I'm trying to find an issue or area of study related to current events. One example question would be "is there a feeling that the English language is encroaching on your nation, and do people have concerns about it? Like what?"

I don't really know the protocol for this, so I guess PM me your email address if you're interested? Not sure how else to pursue this.

On another note - does anyone have any suggestions on how to search foreign-language sites? Two problems I have getting started are:

1. Which sites do I regularly search (again, German sites), and
2. Is there an automated search function somewhere that I can put in keywords, and when they come up, the sites/articles/whatever are emailed to me?

Thanks for any help!

-Chris

[subego]

Those seem like interesting questions. I wouldn't mind hearing some responses.

[Big-C]

I guess if nobody minds, I'll post the questions I have; maybe easier for people than just doing this off-line.

So without further ado:

• What is most popular 2nd language taught in Germany?
• I see 2.4% Turkish immigrants living in Germany; How do people feel about that?
• What is required for German citizenship - must you speak German?
• Any political issues associated with language? (for example, in Los Angeles, people grumble about whether we should have English-letter-only signs - no asian letters).
• If I were to search for keywords in the German language, I was thinking of "Literacy" and "Language"; Which websites should I monitor for this information?
• I've heard that for people over 50 yrs old, they speak russian, but under 50 don't. Is this true? Any comments/elaboration?
• Any social issues related to language that are currently debated/
• Does religion have any impact on language spoken?
• Dialects. Can you understand each dialect within Germany?
• Technologically Powerful country; has recent technical jargon influenced language greatly? Do you use the English words for "Internet" and "Blog", or are their German equivalents? If so, do you go out of your way to find German equivalents?
• In the U.S., their are class differences in speech. Is the German language the same way?
• How much (approx) of the country is literate? Is it a huge priority with the nation, or is it optional?
• Do you have rural communities that shun education as irrelevant? If so, is it common?
• Speech Type: English is SVO. Is German? English is very "possession" oriented (mine, yours). Would you say German is?
• Is German a gender-oriented language? By contrast, English is becoming more and more gender-neutral.
• History of German language; Any references/comments you can recommend? For instance, having invented the printing press, did Germany automatically have a huge shift towards literacy?

Even if only a few of these questions are answered, it would help me to go from having very little knowledge about the German language to giving me ideas on what to research.

Thanks again!

[TETENAL]

[*]What is most popular 2nd language taught in Germany? English.
[*]I see 2.4% Turkish immigrants living in Germany; How do people feel about that? Turkish immigrants are not popular.
[*]What is required for German citizenship - must you speak German? Yes. Exact requirements depend on the Bundesland.
[*]Any political issues associated with language? (for example, in Los Angeles, people grumble about whether we should have English-letter-only signs - no asian letters). No.
[*] If I were to search for keywords in the German language, I was thinking of "Literacy" and "Language"; Which websites should I monitor for this information? Google. I guess I don't understand this question.
[*] I've heard that for people over 50 yrs old, they speak russian, but under 50 don't. Is this true? Any comments/elaboration? Not true at all. Russian was taught as 2nd language in the GDR though.
[*] Any social issues related to language that are currently debated/ No.
[*] Does religion have any impact on language spoken? No.
[*] Dialects. Can you understand each dialect within Germany? It can get tough at times.
[*] Technologically Powerful country; has recent technical jargon influenced language greatly? Do you use the English words for "Internet" and "Blog", or are their German equivalents? If so, do you go out of your way to find German equivalents? Anglicisms are prevalent.
[*] In the U.S., their are class differences in speech. Is the German language the same way? Rurally dialects are more common than in cities.
[*] How much (approx) of the country is literate? Is it a huge priority with the nation, or is it optional? 100%
[*] Do you have rural communities that shun education as irrelevant? If so, is it common? No. Not common.
[*] Speech Type: English is SVO. Is German? English is very "possession" oriented (mine, yours). Would you say German is? English and German are both Germanic languages, so they have obviously similar grammar. I don't know what you mean by "possession oriented" though. German has possessive pronouns of course.
[*] Is German a gender-oriented language? By contrast, English is becoming more and more gender-neutral. The German language has a grammatical gender.
[*] History of German language; Any references/comments you can recommend? For instance, having invented the printing press, did Germany automatically have a huge shift towards literacy? The introduction of the compulsory education led to the increase in literacy says Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabe...in_Deutschland

[Oisín]

A few of those are a bit imprecise in their asking. I’m not German, but I can answer at least some of them—though be sure to take any native German speaker’s word over mine.

What is most popular 2nd language taught in Germany?

I don’t have statistics, but I can’t imagine it would be anything but English.

Dialects. Can you understand each dialect within Germany?

I doubt many people have a grasp on each dialect in Germany; but as far as I can tell, most Germans can understand most dialects with no greater difficulty. Some of the more diversive and ‘oddball’ dialects might require a day or two of getting used to them for people from vastly different dialect backgrounds, but that seems to be all.

Not quite the same can be said for the ‘German’ spoken in Austria and Switzerland, though. I’ve met Germans who had little trouble following conversations in Switzerdütsch, and I’ve met Germans who had to listen very hard to get much.

In the U.S., their are class differences in speech. Is the German language the same way?

This is one of those imprecise questions. What do you mean by “class differences in speech”? That certain dialects are perceived as belonging to the upper layers of society (New Hampshire dialect, for instance?) while others retain connotations of lower social status (southern dialects)? Or are you referring to sociolects (the switching between different levels of speech when faced with different situations, going from formal through intimate)?

In both cases, I’d have to say the answer is yes, actually. That’s true not only for English and German, but for pretty much any other living, spoken language in the world. It’s not an intrinsic characteristic of the language, but rather of the geographic and demographic structure and ‘layout’ of the people who speak it and the country (or countries) they live in.

How much (approx) of the country is literate? Is it a huge priority with the nation, or is it optional?
Do you have rural communities that shun education as irrelevant? If so, is it common?

These two kind of belong together.

I’m assuming you’re referring to simple literacy here, i.e., being able to read and write? If so, this site says it’s at about 99 per cent, which sounds about right to me. Literacy is not really a ‘huge priority’ in most western European nations; it’s more considered a matter of course (as I should think it would be in the US, as well).

‘Shunning’ education is not an option. Different areas naturally have different goals and priorities within education, but nowhere it is actively shunned; that wouldn’t be allowed in a society like Germany (or most of Europe, or the US, or pretty much anywhere else).

Speech Type: English is SVO. Is German? English is very "possession" oriented (mine, yours). Would you say German is?

I have to ask this: how long have you done linguistics? English is a Germanic language. English and German are very similar, both in vocabulary (minus the slew of Romance loan words English has absorbed, where German’s been a bit more withholding), grammar, and basic structures.

Yes, German is an SVO language (though in subordinate clauses the verb is phrase-final), and the rules for inversion are very similar to the English ones.

The only Indo-European languages I can think of that are not predominantly SVO are the Celtic ones (all except Brythonic, which has gone back to SVO due to French influence, are VSO), Latin (which had very free word order, but tended towards an SOV structure), and Hittite (the word order in which is hopeless, if I recall correctly).

I’m not sure what you mean by saying that English is “possession oriented”, but the possessive system in German is somewhat similar to the English one: there’s an actual genitive, which is waning in spoken German, and then there’s the dative + possessive pronoun construction, which is gaining ground at its expense. Unlike in English, the gradual loss of the genitive is not based on animacy, but it occurs nonetheless.

Is German a gender-oriented language? By contrast, English is becoming more and more gender-neutral.

Once again, you’re unclear.

Are you referring to grammatical gender? If so, then yes, German is a gender-oriented language. There are three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter), and all modifiers (pronouns, demonstratives, articles, adjectives) must be declined accordingly. Not sure what you would mean by saying that English is “becoming more and more gender-neutral” if you’re talking about grammatical gender, though: English lost all vestiges of grammatical gender several hundred years ago.

Or are you referring to semantic gender, i.e., using different words for persons/animals/objects of different gender (‘he’ for a man or [rarely] a country, ‘she’ for a woman or a ship, ‘it’ for a table)? In that case, English is not really losing any gender-orientation (apart from the increasing unlikelihood of hearing someone refer to ships or countries as ‘she’ and ‘he’, respectively). German would still be very gender-oriented in this case, though, since grammatical gender requires the speaker to always refer to masculine words as ‘him’ (or ‘that’, but declined in the masculine gender). Oppositely, German is losing the distinction when referring to people: it has become very common (might have been so for a long time, I’m not sure) to refer to a male person (‘him’) as der (‘that’ or ‘it’, in the masculine gender), rather than er ‘he’.

History of German language; Any references/comments you can recommend?

If you’re doing linguistics and specialising in German(y), you need to know more than just the history of German. You need to know the history (at least in broad terms) of the entire Germanic family (and a good basic knowledge of the history of the Romance family wouldn’t hurt, either). Go to your university’s linguistics library and look there: there are literally thousands of excellent books written on the subject(s).

[Oisín]

I see Tetenal’s a lot better at brevity than I am

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

I doubt many people have a grasp on each dialect in Germany; but as far as I can tell, most Germans can understand most dialects with no greater difficulty.

I'm not sure if this is true. It really depends how far apart (geographically) those dialects are.

I bet that someone from rural Bavaria will have a very hard time to understand someone from rural Schleswig Holstein. And someone from Berlin will have a had time understanding someone from rural Baden Wuerttemberg.

I guess the closer to a big city you are, the more "watered" down are the dialects, and people will be able to understand each other. Outside of the big cities, it can get tough.

Also, one comment regarding Schwiizerduetsch and Austrian: this also depends from where you are. Bavarians tend to have less problems than someone from Northern Germany.

-t

[analogika]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I'm not sure if this is true. It really depends how far apart (geographically) those dialects are.

I bet that someone from rural Bavaria will have a very hard time to understand someone from rural Schleswig Holstein. And someone from Berlin will have a had time understanding someone from rural Baden Wuerttemberg.

I think you're mixing up dialects and actual languages, although IIRC the distinction between the two terms is not exact.

Plattdeutsch (Low German, spoken mostly in rural communities of Northern Germany) is a different language that comes with its own dozens of local regional dialects - Lübecker Platt, Hamborger Platt, etc.

Historically, Plattdeutsch was the language of the Low German tribes that were slowly displaced by the High Germans that moved northward from the Hannover region aeons ago and brought their language with them.

A Berliner will have little trouble understanding a rural Baden-Württemberger after a couple of days acclimatization and brief explanation of substituted vocabulary (e.g. "Schnake" for "Mücke" - mosquito - and "Mücke" for "Weberknecht" - those flying spidery insects).

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by analogika 

I think you're mixing up dialects and actual languages, although IIRC the distinction between the two terms is not exact.

I'm not mixing up anything, I'm sticking to the OP question. I'm sure he meant "dialects" more in the sense of languages.

From an American perspective, he is (IMO) asking: how different are the regional variations in language ("dialects") ?

Of course, you can't compare English to German, because German actually consists of real language differences (as you pointed out), rather than just dialects. And in that respect, I maintain that some people living in northern Germany might NOT be able to understand people from southern Germany at all.

-t

[subego]

Originally Posted by analogika 

dozens of local regional dialects - Lübecker Platt, Hamborger Platt, etc.

Mmmmmmm... Hamburger Plate.




Sorry.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I'm not mixing up anything, I'm sticking to the OP question. I'm sure he meant "dialects" more in the sense of languages.

From an American perspective, he is (IMO) asking: how different are the regional variations in language ("dialects") ?

Of course, you can't compare English to German, because German actually consists of real language differences (as you pointed out), rather than just dialects.

WTF English?

I'm talking about Plattdeutsch, which is regional, but not a dialect.

A Bavarian will have absolutely no trouble understanding Schleswig-Holstein *dialect* (NOT Holsteiner Platt), because that's just a mild variant of High German with a couple of vowel shifts, suppressed syllables, and word substitutes. Nech? Oder watt?

[Big-C]

Wow! I had to go out and came back to quite a bit!

I've mostly breezed through this, but I'll answer what struck me as the most relevant question by Oisin: this is my first semester of linguistics, so I don't have any background yet - I'm just starting the journey so to speak. I've also signed up at livemocha to learn German; never tried learning a foreign language before, much less one online. Not sure how that will go but have to got to start somewhere.

There really is a lot of information to go through here, which is just wonderful. Trying to find an area of research means I'll be going through this thread with a fine tooth comb.

Anyway, thanks everyone - your insights and answers are very much appreciated!

-Chris

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by analogika 

WTF English?

I'm talking about Plattdeutsch, which is regional, but not a dialect.

A Bavarian will have absolutely no trouble understanding Schleswig-Holstein *dialect* (NOT Holsteiner Platt), because that's just a mild variant of High German with a couple of vowel shifts, suppressed syllables, and word substitutes. Nech? Oder watt?

WTF ?

You wanna be anal about terminology ? Go suit yourself. Klugscheisser !

-t

[analogika]

Sorry - just re-read your post now, and I get it.

Misunderstanding at 5 a.m.

[Oisín]

Of course, you can't compare English to German, because German actually consists of real language differences (as you pointed out), rather than just dialects.

The same is true for English. Put an Alabaman and someone speaking thick Weegie and see how well they communicate. Even people from only a few hundred kilometres south of the Scottish border sometimes need subtitles for Weegies.

It’s true, though, that compared to the vast size (geographically) of the English-speaking area, the language has remained surprisingly homogenous.

I think you're mixing up dialects and actual languages, although IIRC the distinction between the two terms is not exact.

One of the eternal problems of linguistics: that it’s simply not possible to make a definite distinction between dialect, regionalect, and language. It’s more or less up to each person to make up their own mind as to what they consider a language.

For me, personally, I set the border quite high: academically, I consider all forms of German (including Austrian and Switzerdütsch) to be dialects of the same language. I even include Dutch and Flemish in that. I also consider the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian) to be one language, and the same for Icelandic and Faeroese, and also for Spanish and Portuguese (perhaps including Italian).

In everyday usage, though, I consider them separate languages, since that’s the general practice and what people are used to.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

TFor me, personally, I set the border quite high: academically, I consider all forms of German (including Austrian and Switzerdütsch) to be dialects of the same language. I even include Dutch and Flemish in that.

Woah.

Okay.

So, in those criteria the answer to the original question is:

No. A guy from Southern Baden would not instantly understand two northern German farmers speaking Plattdeutsch to each other.

If he has the aptitude for it, he can get the hang of it quite quickly, but it's on a level akin to the difference between Cockney and rural Jamaican patois or Pidgin English. Many consider the latter separate languages, some consider them dialects.

Of course, in addition to Low German (Plattdeutsch), there's also areas where completely different languages are spoken - such as Frisian in some areas along the North Sea, which is actually the closest living relative to Old English. These languages are kept alive as part of the cultural heritage of these regions, but in everyday life, they have mostly been supplanted by High German - which everybody speaks.
Frisian language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Oisín]

Woah.

Heh. Yeah, not many (outside the Indo-Europeanist community) agree with me on that one. But that’s okay, I have no problem accepting them as separate languages, either.

[Powerbook]

[*]What is most popular 2nd language taught in Germany?

Taught - English, then French then Latin/Italian/Spanish/Russian
Spoken - Turkish, then Greek/Italian

[*]I see 2.4% Turkish immigrants living in Germany; How do people feel about that?

Depends - the were upper class Turks from the sixties and early seventies, they and their kids are integrated, but the uneducated workers with their ill bred children is another matter...

[*]What is required for German citizenship - must you speak German?

Jawoll! The rules are getting stricter, also.

[*]Any political issues associated with language? (for example, in Los Angeles, people grumble about whether we should have English-letter-only signs - no asian letters).

More a thing in Austria. The most debates are about (missing) language knowledge itself.

[*] If I were to search for keywords in the German language, I was thinking of "Literacy" and "Language"; Which websites should I monitor for this information?

Not sure I understand the question.

[*] I've heard that for people over 50 yrs old, they speak russian, but under 50 don't. Is this true? Any comments/elaboration?

Why would they? Many former _East_-Germans would understand and some even speak Russian because of its former "brother state", though. Right after the German reunification nearly nobody ever bothered again to learn the language.

[*] Any social issues related to language that are currently debated/

Nothing new. The efforts are to give re-settling people and guest workers (the classic immigrant) language support so that they are better integrated.

[*] Does religion have any impact on language spoken?

Don't know. Turks have been the biggest immigration group, so that naturally there are a bunch of problems with what could be considered "Moozlems".

[*] Dialects. Can you understand each dialect within Germany?

Normally yes. If two extremes (north<->south or west<->east) meet, there might be some difficulties, but not when people are able to speak High German.

[*] Technologically Powerful country; has recent technical jargon influenced language greatly? Do you use the English words for "Internet" and "Blog", or are their German equivalents? If so, do you go out of your way to find German equivalents?

I know I do. Sometimes even "3l33t"-fantasy words are created (e.g. flatrate = Flachratte). Most people are just too dumb and lazy to question language development, though. The typical MTV-generation German kid might probably speak more "Denglish" than really German. Gah!

[*] In the U.S., their are class differences in speech. Is the German language the same way?

Class like in social class? Yes, there is, huge differences. A worker's German is like another world to a Professor's German.

[*] How much (approx) of the country is literate? Is it a huge priority with the nation, or is it optional?

Well nine years of school are mandatory, and most of the German schools are not bad (especially when you stay the 10-13th year). Also there is a big debate about make the funding for schools and universities better and force more competition between them. I would from observations indeed say a German Joe knows more about things in the world than the American Joe.

[*] Do you have rural communities that shun education as irrelevant? If so, is it common?

No. I don't really think that's possible, the country is rather small.

[*] Speech Type: English is SVO. Is German? English is very "possession" oriented (mine, yours). Would you say German is?

Jawoll. See Oisín's information.

[*] Is German a gender-oriented language? By contrast, English is becoming more and more gender-neutral.

Yes. You mean stuff like "Hey guys", when you talk to girls? Haven't noticed such a thing here.

[*] History of German language; Any references/comments you can recommend? For instance, having invented the printing press, did Germany automatically have a huge shift towards literacy?

You should invest more time here with a library and sources like history books. To speak the language yourself would be a big advantage. I'm not so sure, quick Wikipedia-knowledge is the way to go here.


Regards
PB.

[OreoCookie]

• What is most popular 2nd language taught in Germany? English, then French and Latin.
• I see 2.4% Turkish immigrants living in Germany; How do people feel about that? That depends on the person. There is an increasing awareness of the fact that they need to be integrated. The argument is how to integrate them.
• What is required for German citizenship - must you speak German? No. It suffices, for instance, if your mother has German citizenship. If you want to `immigrate from scratch', then* yes. (* There are exceptions for those who fled from the Nazis, their successors may still apply for German citizenship.)
  
  The important difference between German and American immigration law is that our law is based on the `principle of blood' vs. the `principle of birth(place)'. That's because Germany (as all `old' nations) was formed as country of Germans (as opposed to a country of immigrants).
• Any political issues associated with language? (for example, in Los Angeles, people grumble about whether we should have English-letter-only signs - no asian letters). Yes, some immigrants are reluctant to teach German to their kids, which usually decreases their chances of getting a decent job.
• If I were to search for keywords in the German language, I was thinking of "Literacy" and "Language"; Which websites should I monitor for this information? Not sure what you're aiming for here.
• I've heard that for people over 50 yrs old, they speak russian, but under 50 don't. Is this true? Any comments/elaboration? People in former Eastern Germany have learnt Russian as first foreign language, in the West, it was English. After the reunification, both now learn English as first foreign languages.
• Any social issues related to language that are currently debated/ Lack of German proficiency means worse jobs, just like in the US. Problems in school, because classes are in German.
• Does religion have any impact on language spoken? Not really.
• Dialects. Can you understand each dialect within Germany? Depends on the dialect. People are usually (read: 90 %) able to speak and understand high German (or something closer to it). It's easy to understand them then. If people are living on the country side, then it may be harder.
• Technologically Powerful country; has recent technical jargon influenced language greatly? Do you use the English words for "Internet" and "Blog", or are their German equivalents? If so, do you go out of your way to find German equivalents? We readily absorb English words and even make some pseudo-English words of our own (e. g. Handy = cell phone). We tend to prefer English words these days as they are shorter.
• In the U.S., their are class differences in speech. Is the German language the same way? Yes and no: it's mostly coupled to education, not social class. It's not like in England where class determines your `dialect'.
• How much (approx) of the country is literate? Is it a huge priority with the nation, or is it optional? Germany is completely literate (> 99%). Nine years of education are mandatory and there is no home schooling. After your getting one of three different degrees, you can go to vocational school (= community college-ish), college (Fachhochschule) or university. You need Abitur for the latter.
• Do you have rural communities that shun education as irrelevant? If so, is it common? No, but as everywhere, if your parents don't have university education (vocational schools take the role of most colleges), then statistically, their children are less likely to receive university education.
• Speech Type: English is SVO. Is German? English is very "possession" oriented (mine, yours). Would you say German is? The most common complaint is that `the verb is often at the end', so no. Second question: yes.
• Is German a gender-oriented language? By contrast, English is becoming more and more gender-neutral. In what sense? In the sense that it is now more proper to say sales person instead of sales man? In that sense, yes. Things are more complicated since German nouns have one of three genders (male, female, neutral). If you know the gender, you use the proper gender, if you are looking to hire somebody, you use a slash to indicate both genders, for instance.
• History of German language; Any references/comments you can recommend? For instance, having invented the printing press, did Germany automatically have a huge shift towards literacy? No, I'm not a linguist.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Sorry - just re-read your post now, and I get it.
Misunderstanding at 5 a.m.

That's ok. I take the Klugscheisser back. Make that an Earlymorningscheisser

-t

[Jan Van Boghout]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

For me, personally, I set the border quite high: academically, I consider all forms of German (including Austrian and Switzerdütsch) to be dialects of the same language. I even include Dutch and Flemish in that. I also consider the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian) to be one language, and the same for Icelandic and Faeroese, and also for Spanish and Portuguese (perhaps including Italian).

Classifying Dutch and German as dialects of one language is simply absurd. Sure, they have common roots, but they're quite far apart grammatically at this point. You might as well throw French and Italian together too...

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Jan Van Boghout 

Classifying Dutch and German as dialects of one language is simply absurd. Sure, they have common roots, but they're quite far apart grammatically at this point. You might as well throw French and Italian together too...

German and Dutch are still a lot closer to each other than Italian and French. As I said, though, I might well pair Italian with Spanish and Portuguese. There’s nothing absurd about my classification, it’s just based on different criteria than those most people use for defining dialects vs. languages.

[Big-C]

Wow - it's like the gift that keeps on giving! There's so much information to go through, and having multiple people answer the same questions is really interesting to review, as anyone might expect.

As for my poorly written question of:
If I were to search for keywords in the German language, I was thinking of "Literacy" and "Language"; Which websites should I monitor for this information?

I was thinking I could use alta-vista or someplace to translate certain key words, like language, or literacy, and then search German news sites for those words. Unfortunately, I don't know any German news-specific web sites to search through, or if those words (language, literacy) were the best to words to search. I guess I was thinking there might be slang words (maybe "language" & "literacy" are just too literal) that might be more in the news right now in Germany.

Anyway, I really do appreciate everyones input. THANK YOU!

[TETENAL]

Google News: Alphabetisierung

[Goldfinger]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

German and Dutch are still a lot closer to each other than Italian and French. As I said, though, I might well pair Italian with Spanish and Portuguese. There’s nothing absurd about my classification, it’s just based on different criteria than those most people use for defining dialects vs. languages.

So what are those criteria exactly? I must agree with Jan that it's a pretty strange classification. German and Dutch may sound somewhat the same and we have words that are "shared" between the languages in one form or another, but they are VERY different languages grammatically IMHO. I understand that you lump the Scandinavian languages together and Spanish with Portuguese. But, Dutch and German?
Enlighten us!

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by Goldfinger 

So what are those criteria exactly? I must agree with Jan that it's a pretty strange classification. German and Dutch may sound somewhat the same and we have words that are "shared" between the languages in one form or another, but they are VERY different languages grammatically IMHO. I understand that you lump the Scandinavian languages together and Spanish with Portuguese. But, Dutch and German?
Enlighten us!

My background is from Indo-European studies, which does have a tendency to make all languges seem a bit closer to each other than they might actually be.

Dutch and German are different, in almost every way, there's no doubt about that. But they’re still close enough that they consider a ‘group’ of their own, which is what I call a language. One of the defining factors, for me, is that they (almost) make up a continuum of dialects; that is, in the areas around the border, there are dialects that are somewhere in between Dutch and German and have traits from both (though perhaps not as profoundly as, say, on the Swedish-Norwegian border, or around the northern borders of Portugal).

Perhaps I should rather say that I consider German and Dutch regionalects of a common language, and that both regionalects are further divided into dialects, of course. That’s the same terminology I’d use for Chinese: one language, divided into about half a dozen regionalects, further divided into a plethora of dialects.

(Many of the Chinese regionalects are a lot farther apart than Dutch and German, by the way; Mandarin and Min, for instance, are about as close—grammatically and pronunciation-wise, that is—as Switzerdütsch and Jamaican English!)

[OreoCookie]

@Goldfinger
I also heard that linguists group Finnish, Hungarian and Japanese (!) into one category (perhaps also Turkish, but I'm not completely sure). It's more about the structure of the language as far as I see (e. g. that these languages use particles to determine the meaning of parts of the sentence).

[analogika]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

@Goldfinger
I also heard that linguists group Finnish, Hungarian and Japanese (!) into one category (perhaps also Turkish, but I'm not completely sure). It's more about the structure of the language as far as I see (e. g. that these languages use particles to determine the meaning of parts of the sentence).

Well, Finnish and Hungarian are *always* lumped together, since they are, apparently, very closely related (all universities I've ever seen had a department for Finno-Ugristik (Finno-Ugrian Studies)).

Never seen Japanese lumped in there, although I saw a presentation by a liguist once who did interesting stuff like trace the word for "horse" from Japan ("uma") through China ("ba" IIRC) and India ("ga" or "gao" or so) all the way to Europe ("Gaul" in colloquial German), showing that on some levels, almost all languages in Eurasia are interconnected. Interesting, though I haven't the expertise to judge how valid that approach is.

[OreoCookie]

I talked to my Finnish and Hungarian colleagues here (one each) and I was explaining some Japanese grammar to them and they said that `in principle', it works in the same way.

[Oisín]

CRAP! I’d just typed out a mega-long post here, and was typing the last three characters, when I accidentally hit Command instead of Option and lost everything! Right. All over again, equally long-winded this time around, I fear:

I also heard that linguists group Finnish, Hungarian and Japanese (!) into one category (perhaps also Turkish, but I'm not completely sure). It's more about the structure of the language as far as I see (e. g. that these languages use particles to determine the meaning of parts of the sentence).

I think you got some of that a bit backwards: Finnish and Hungarian are indeed (as Chris said) related, though not particularly closely. They’re about as close as English and Farsi (i.e., mutually completely and utterly incomprehensible), but they were actually the first pair of distantly related languages to be recognised (before Indo-European theories started surfacing!).

There’s a lot of dispute over Japanese and Korean. The most common approach, as far as I know, is to lump them in with the Altaic languages, that also consist of Mongolian, Manchu, Tungusic, and Turkic language families (Uighur belongs in there, too, but I can’t remember if it’s a family of its own or belongs under Turkic). It’s very disputed, though—even whether or not there really is such a thing as an Altaic phylum of languages is the object of heavy debate.

Never seen Japanese lumped in there, although I saw a presentation by a liguist once who did interesting stuff like trace the word for "horse" from Japan ("uma") through China ("ba" IIRC) and India ("ga" or "gao" or so) all the way to Europe ("Gaul" in colloquial German), showing that on some levels, almost all languages in Eurasia are interconnected. Interesting, though I haven't the expertise to judge how valid that approach is.

I’ve never seen that particular one, but there are lots of these, and they can be either very good or very bad. This one sounds like it’s a bit crooked, though—but that’s just because I’m not a proponent of the Nostratic theory

It’s quite easy for a good linguist to provide plausible links between single words in a slew of different languages, like your example there. They need to be seen in a broader connection to make sense or be valid, though: if they’re not put in context of comparisons of grammatical structures, sound laws, basic-meaning vocabulary coincidence, coincidence of affixes (prefixes, infixes, suffixes) in morphology, etc., then they’re basically worthless.

To use the same example, a horse, I can easily reconstruct (or rather, since this is a well-established example, quote) trace through all the Indo-European languages, based on the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root for ‘horse’, H₁éḱwo-(s):

Latin equus, Greek ἵππος (hippos) (not sure that’s the right diacritic, it’s too tiny; it’s supposed to be acute accent with spiritus asper), Irish each, Welsh ebol, Tocharian A yŭk, Gaulish epos, Sanskrit aśva (dunno how to write it in Sanskrit), Lithuanian ašva, Old Norse iór, Old English eoh, etc. (there are plenty more, but I don’t know/remember them )

That list is pretty worthless taken out of context, though: it needs the corroborative evidence provided for all the soundlaws that prove these are all (almost) regular developments into each daughter language, as well as the coincidences in structures, morphologies, grammar, and (most importantly, almost) affixes that prove that these languages are actually all related, it’s not just a loan word (it might be in some cases, but definitely not in all of them). Without that, it doesn’t come off as a very valid claim to say that hippos, yŭk, iór, and ašva all come, quite regularly, from the same word.

[analogika]

Thanks for your elaborate response; to be honest, that's the only example I remember of a lecture held some twenty years ago...I have no idea whatsoever of the context.

[Oisín]

(Yes, of course—I was elaborate, not merely long-winded and droning on. )

[subego]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Greek ἵππος (hippos) (not sure that’s the right diacritic, it’s too tiny; it’s supposed to be acute accent with spiritus asper),

Finally, something I can help with!

ἵππος

on everything else. Very interesting.

[Oisín]

Yup, that’s what it was supposed to look like—I was just too lazy to make the text big enough to be able to distinguish the spiritus lenis from the spiritus asper (damn Lucida Grande, making them look so alike).

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

(Yes, of course—I was elaborate, not merely long-winded and droning on. )

I see you're not used to dealing with people who're actually *interested* in this stuff...