Re: Fundamental difference between English and German

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:38:09 +0000, MM <kylix_is@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

While editing my memoirs I recalled the early days of learning German
and how funny it was to find the verb at the end of the sentence.

Perhaps it is this simple difference that accounts for the huge
differences in national character between Germans and the English,
though I haven't worked out how or why yet.

But take the simple sentence:

I must eat...vegetables.

And in German:

Ich muss Gemüse... essen.

So while we put more importance on the verb, the Germans place it on
the noun. To a German brain, therefore, the noun, or object, precedes
the verb and must surely be more important. Thus German could be said
to be object-oriented.

We could say "I must eat...." and nobody knows what it is, though they
know that we see the need to eat "something" (assuming the sentence
hasn't finished yet).

But the Germans say "Ich muss Gemüse..." and nobody knows yet,
exactly, what the person intends to do with those vegetables. But it's
the vegetables that are initially significant, not what will happen to
them.

I have a suspicion that our intrinsically lackadaisical approach in
our outlook (have you ever seen a country lane that took the
straightest path?) way back in the dim and distant past, way before
Chaucer, decided it was too much effort to wait until the end of the
sentence, and so over centuries we changed the word order to suit and
the result was, eventually, modern English and THE English.

there is no logical difference between verbs and nouns....

there is a problem in word order when communicating in
a group...
using the person's name at the end, means most people
will ignore the communication...

thus.....jak, you must eat.....and...you must eat, jak....
with..you must eat jak...it is unclear who must eat jak....
thus it is better to say...cabbage, you must eat jak...
then there is...cabbage you must eat, jak....

regards

--
web site at www.abelard.org - news comment service, logic, economics
energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,396 document calls in year past
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