Monday, June 24, 2024

English with German Syntax



Languages develop in their own way in different places, and the rules for word order vary mightily. YouTuber Overlearner demonstrates this by having a German conversation (with himself) that uses English words but German grammar and syntax. The effect is somewhat of a word salad that we can understand with some effort. And beware the gendered nouns; those will baffle you.

We know that the English language is descended from German, but that was a long time ago. Old English had syntax rules that were quite like German, but English changed over time and established the word order that native English speakers now use every day. That doesn't mean either system is right or wrong  -it's just different. Seeing the different ways syntax is used gives me more respect for whoever developed machine translation. As weird as it can be sometimes, it's a miracle that it works at all. In the YouTube description, Overlearner explains how he had to make some choices in untranslatable words, and went with whatever would be most confusing. (via Laughing Squid)



2 comments:

  1. So Yoda came from Germany?
    xoxoxoBruce

    ReplyDelete
  2. May I suggest "The awful German language" by Mark Twain?

    -Barry

    ReplyDelete