Why I Love German, Germans, and Germany

After recently visiting the Netherlands and becoming rather fond of the country, its people, and its language as part of an ongoing railway trek around Europe, I made my way to Germany. 

My first destination in Germany was Hamburg, which I got to with relative ease despite an absence of national rail services that day due to a strike. As a Brit this amused me greatly since we're always complaining about the lacklustre rail service in our country.

I've only been fortunate enough to visit Germany once before during a previous Europe-wide expedition over half a decade ago when I visited Berlin for two nights. Despite being turned away from a club without any given reason, I enjoyed my time there. Armed with nothing but a phrasebook, I did my utmost to remember the year of German I took when I was 14 years old.

German is not one of my spoken languages and the amount I learnt in school accounts for little more than simple greetings, numbers, and how to ask for directions. Despite this, using the same outdated phrasebook and the internet, I managed to find the missing vocabulary I needed in most situations.

Much like in the Netherlands, I was lucky enough to enjoy some local hospitality. After making my way to Münster via Bremen, I sampled some fantastic German baked goods and beers, of course. From there it was a long but pleasant train journey to Munich, where I was told to prepare for a very different (in a good way) variety of German.

While making the mistake of overindulging in one of Munich's most popular pursuits, drinking, I was treated very kindly by everyone I met, who were more than willing to humour me as I attempted to speak their language, patiently listening as I horrendously butchered it.

I'll admit that I don't learn languages very well from reading verb tables, and as a result find myself eavesdropping on anyone and everyone in public spaces. Thanks to this seemingly rude practice, I'd like to debunk the myth that German is an aggressive and harsh-sounding language. While admittedly not as melodic as Italian, perhaps, I found the phonemes to be rather soothing.

I was also fascinated by the prevalence of compound nouns in German. While I had also noticed this in Dutch, in German it seemed so much more mind-boggling, perhaps due to the diacritic marks used, and therefore more interesting.

Now I'm not sure whether to learn Dutch or German upon my return home. Have you learnt or do you speak either of these languages? If so, make your case for which one I should focus on in the comments below.

Why I Love Dutch, the Dutch, and the Netherlands

Until recently, I was never a huge fan of Amsterdam and hadn't really visited anywhere else in the Netherlands (with the exception of the Efteling theme park), so I'd never really had an experience to write home about.

I'd visited Amsterdam with my parents when I was at an age when I still thought girls were disgusting. This meant that during an accidental trip into the red-light district (which is right by a beautiful church I was visiting), the view of scantily-clad prostitutes in the window made me cry.

On a later trip around Europe I ended up partaking in a small amount of Amsterdam's other popular pursuit, cannabis, and the ensuing paranoia coupled with again accidentally finding the red-light district led to a wholly unpleasant time.

As they say, the third time's the charm, and upon my arrival in Amsterdam, the first destination in a trip around Europe, I was adamant that I was going to enjoy myself and change my poor opinion of the city and, by extension, the country. I made sure to find the beautiful parts of the city and subsequently the beautiful people of the Netherlands.

Even though I was hoping to learn some Dutch and had quickly consulted a couple of web pages on the matter, when I stumbled with the longer words and seemingly endless number of vocalic phonemes, the locals were all very friendly while they put me to shame with their flawless mastery of my mother tongue.

From Amsterdam, I headed eastwards to the city of Zwolle to meet a good friend and exceptional English teacher. In Zwolle I was treated to the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of the city, as well as travelling on a typically-Dutch bicycle that was kindly provided for me.

The Netherlands, and Zwolle in particular, is a wonderful place for cyclists and while it seemed odd to me that nobody wears a helmet when cycling, it became abundantly clear that with all the cycle paths, cyclist-friendly road layouts, and drivers that are very familiar with being surrounded by bikes, there was little danger of ever encountering any trouble.

I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on a couple of English lessons at the school where my friend taught and was left completely astounded by the level of English on display. The older children were discussing Jewish-American Literature and not only providing exceptional insight into the passages they had read, but doing so in impeccable English.

So it might be pretty clear that I think the Netherlands is a wonderful place, since the people were friendly and happy to converse with us in English without being upset that my Dutch is abysmal. While I don't speak Dutch and the words I know could be written on a postage stamp, I love the look, feel, and sound of the language.

One particular highlight was sitting in on a lesson on English accents. As a special guest, I was allowed to provide a sample of my finest Geordie. The children then had to ascertain, given my accent, where I came from. Sadly, they were more familiar with the accents of those on the reality tv show Geordie Shore (which I was shocked to find the Netherlands is also subjected to) than a typical Geordie accent, and struggled to pinpoint my city of origin. Nevertheless, it was an incredibly fun and eye-opening experience, putting my foreign language education in the United Kingdom to shame.

The Dutch Language

Since large portions of my time in the Netherlands were spent speaking English, I did my best to learn as much as I could about the language from native speakers while trying to pick up as much vocabulary as possible from every example of the written language.

While the phonetic differences between Dutch and English are vast, the language is similar enough to English to make my ears hone in on speech. This left me confused as my brain clearly felt it could understand the language but never quite managed.

While other languages have left their mark on the Dutch language, you can certainly tell that English and Dutch are cousins as many words have shared roots that become apparent when you hear or read them.

Despite struggling with the pronunciation of countless phonemes, I would certainly recommend learning Dutch. While you could argue that it may not vastly increase your career prospects, I found the language both beautiful and fascinating, and am very keen to learn more.

My only criticism of the whole experience is that any English speaker may find it hard to have an entire conversation in Dutch with the natives. I got the impression from the Dutch people I met that they are not only masters of English, but also very keen to use their foreign language skills. I'm sure once I reach the level of basic communication I will enjoy many wonderful conversations in Dutch, if I could just get a chance to practice!

The Etymology of Colours: Part 3

Last Wednesday and Friday, we looked at the etymologies of the colours of the rainbow. Today we're back with a few colours that people often consider, at least in film and television, to not be worthy of the term "colour".

Black

The darkest colour has had an interesting journey into the English language. While its origins are found in the Proto-Indo European (PIE) term *bhleg- which means "to burn, gleam, or flash", it inspired a number of related terms in other languages before its current incarnation in English.

The PIE word *bhleg- became the Proto-Germanic term *blakkaz meaning "burnt" and inspired the Old English term blæc, which gave us the term we use today, black. In addition to meaning "black", it also meant "ink" and "dark".

Grey

While grey is commonly considered a dull colour, its etymology is far from dull. The Proto-Germanic term for grey was *grewa-, which evolved into græg in Old English and grei in the Mercian dialect. The word's Proto-Germanic roots are also shared by terms in Dutch, German, Middle Dutch, Old High German, Old Frisian, and Old Norse.

White

While complete opposites, black and white are the oldest colour terms to have been used by humans. As a result, it's hardly surprising that the origins of white date back to PIE. The PIE term *kwid- also meant "to shine" in addition to referring to the colour. This meaning remained connected to the word as it evolved into the Old English term hwit, whose meanings of "clear", "fair", "bright", and "radiant" all point to its PIE origins.

With all the colours, hues, and shades in the world, we certainly haven't covered all the colours. If we've missed your favourite colour, please tell us its etymology in the comments below. We'll be back on Wednesday with this week's country profile.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Etymology of Colours: Part 2

On Wednesday we looked at the origins of words we use for colours, focusing on the first three colours of the visible light spectrum: red, orange, and yellow. Today we'll be going through the remaining colours.

Green

In Middle English and Old English, the colour green was grene. In Proto-Germanic *gronja- was the root of green, grass, and grow, as well as the root of the word for green in a number of other related languages such as Dutch, Danish, Old Frisian, Old High German, Old Norse, and Old Saxon.

Earlier, the term in Proto-Indo European (PIE) languages is thought to have been *ghre-, which means grow, since green is the colour of most vegetation.

Blue

The story of blue is fascinating. The word comes from the Old French term blo, which generally referred to a range of colours and shades including what we would now consider blues, greys, blonds, and other pale colours. The term is thought to have evolved from the Proto Germanic term *blæwaz, which gave rise to the term in a huge number of languages.

While in PIE languages the term for blue is fairly widespread, what really makes the colour fascinating is the lacunae it has left in other world languages. While in English the colours green and blue are fairly distinct, there are plenty of languages where the two colours are referred to by one term. Several languages in Asia, including Old Chinese, Old Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese did not distinguish between the two and refer to a concept of a blue-green range that doesn't really exist in English.

The term for blue is thought to be a latecomer to the vocabularies of many languages since the dye is so difficult to make, while autumnal shades such as reds, oranges, and yellows were easier to make and therefore required terms sooner.

Indigo

For many English speakers, designating the colour between blue and violet seems arbitrary and difficult to define. Its presence in the spectrum is thought to be a result of Sir Isaac Newton's superstition against the number six.

The colour chosen by Newton was none other than indigo, a term whose origins can be found in the Greek name for the colour dye which came from India. The Greek word indikon (ινδικόν) became indicum in Latin before inspiring indico in Spanish and endego in Portuguese, which are considered to be the root of the Dutch word indigo. The Dutch term entered the English language in the 16th century.

Violet

The last colour in the rainbow is violet. The term came from Old French by way of Latin where it was viola in reference to both the colour and the flower. It is thought to have come from a PIE language somewhere in the Mediterranean. During the 14th century, the term came to Middle English from the diminutive of the Old French viole.

After the weekend, we'll be back to look at the terms for some of the colours outside of the visible light spectrum.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Etymology of Colours: Part 1

Today we're taking a trip through the rainbow as we look at the etymology and origins of the names we use for colours. For simplicity, we're going to start today with the classic "rainbow" colours, which Sir Isaac Newton dubbed the spectrum, from the Latin for "apparition". The term later became used to reference the visible light split through a prism, another Latin word meaning "sawed", which originated as the Greek term prisma.

Red

The first colour of the rainbow has origins in several languages and unfortunately can't be traced back to one single language. The word red was written as rēad in Old English. In fact, the British surname Reed is from the Old English for red, and is pronounced in a similar manner to how it was said before vowel shortening occurred in Middle English.

Before Old English, the word was rauthaz in Proto-Germanic, from rewdʰ, a Proto-Indo European (PIE) word. As a result of this origin, a large number of languages have similar words for the colour.

Orange

The word, colour, and fruit called orange, is often subject to a large degree of debate. While many people claim that it is one of the only words that rhymes with no other word, this is not actually true. The word sporange, a sac where spores are made, is one of the few words that rhyme with it that isn't a proper noun.

Rhyming aside, there is also a debate as to whether the fruit was named because of the colour or whether the colour was named after the fruit. Etymologists consider the colour to be named after the fruit since the word's origins are from the Sanskrit word for the tree. नारङ्ग or nāraṅga made its way into Persian as نارنگ, or nārang, before reaching European languages.

While the word nārang remained fairly true to its roots in a number of European languages, when it reached Old French it is thought to have lost its initial "n" due to rebracketing, whereby the initial "n" was thought to be part of the indefinite article "une" so that "une norenge" was heard as "une orenge".

Yellow

Yellow has an interesting etymology that is similar to that of the colour red. Yellow's roots begin with PIE languages. The root of yellow in PIE has retained the same root as yell for several millennia, as both words originate from the PIE root gʰel-. This shared root has resulted in a number of European languages, particularly the Germanic languages, having similar words for yellow. The words for yellow in Dutch, East Frisian, German, Swedish, and West Frisian all have similar origins.

The term ended up in Proto-Germanic as gelwaz before it became geolu in Old English. This Old English term gave us the word we use today for yellow. However, it should be noted that in Middle English, the term also referred to colours and tones that we wouldn't consider yellow by today's standards, including a number of blue and grey colours.

We'll finish the remainder of the rainbow on Friday when we'll cover the colours with shorter wavelengths.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

United Nations Day: The Languages of the UN

Today, October 24, marks the date that the Charter of the United Nations came into effect. While it hardly makes for a riveting read (you can read it here if you must), what it does in practice is far more astounding, since it acts as the treaty that founded the UN.

The flag of the UN

The treaty itself was signed on 26 June 1945 at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. When it was signed, Poland was the only of the 51 founding nations not present,  eventually signing the treaty a couple of months later.

The five permanent members of the Security Council (P5) at the time, the Republic of China, France, the UK, the US, and the USSR, ratified the charter alongside a number of other nations. While it may seem odd to mention the P5, their importance will become evident as we look at the official languages of the UN.

When the charter was made, it was written in five languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. It wasn't until the first General Assembly that the five official languages and working languages of the UN were decided. Initially, English and French were decided upon as the working languages.

Spanish was added as a working language in 1948, making the three languages the status quo for the General Assembly until 1968, when Russian was added as the fourth working language. By this point, four of the five official languages were in use as working languages. Chinese was then made a working language in 1973, making all five original official languages also working languages.

Arabic was added as both an official and a working language in 1973. The official language status of Arabic only extended to the General Assembly and its "main committees", as opposed to the five other languages, which held official status throughout all committees. For the first three years after Arabic became an official language, the Arab nations of the UN were expected to fund the procedures required enact this change.

After seven years as an official language for the General Assembly and its main committees, Arabic's official status was extended to all subcommittees in 1980. Three years later, all six languages were adopted as the official languages of the Security Council.

Currently, there are a number of additional languages vying for official language status. In 2009, the president of Bangladesh suggested that Bengali be an official language of the UN. Esperanto has also been suggested, despite its relatively small number of speakers.

Hindi and Portuguese have also been suggested since they are both widely-spoken languages. The Secretary-General of the UN and the Turkish Prime Minister have also suggested that Turkish become one of the official languages.

Do you think the UN uses the right languages? Which languages do you think should become official languages of the UN? Tell us in the comments below.

Celebrating the Linguistic Life of Richard Francis Burton

On this day in 1890, Richard Francis Burton's fascinating life came to an end. Today we've decided to honour the man with a post about his life and his work as both a linguist and translator. While the stories of linguists and translators are often fascinating to us, few have led a more interesting and exciting life than Richard Francis Burton.

The hyperpolyglot himself in his later years.

Burton was born on 19 March 1821 in Torquay, England. However, a relatively small amount of his time was spent in his hometown since his family travelled often when he was a child. He spent a good number of his very early years in Tours, France after his family moved there in 1825. Burton later returned to England to attend a prep school in Surrey.

As his family travelled across Europe, generally between the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, Burton's love for languages led to him learning a considerable number of them. Starting with primarily Romance languages, he learnt French, Italian, Latin, and Neapolitan. He also learnt some Romani following a supposed affair with a gypsy woman, as well as learning Arabic during his time at school.

Having enlisted in the East India Company's army, Burton shipped out to India where he mastered a number of the local languages, including Hindustani, Gujarati, Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki and Marathi, not to mention improving upon his Arabic and adding Persian to his rapidly-growing list of languages. He also owned a group of monkeys which he attempted to communicate with, earning him much ridicule from his fellow soldiers.

Eventually, a sense of adventure compelled Burton to undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca, earning him widespread fame. However, Burton was undercover during the pilgrimage. While he had extensively researched and improved upon his Arabic, he pretended to be Pashtun in order to help explain why he spoke the way he did.

Burton was an active participant in the Crimean War after he rejoined the army. After an alleged mutiny in which Burton was mentioned during the subsequent enquiry, he spent time exploring Africa.

After several stints exploring Africa, Burton's later years were spent in diplomatic and academic roles. He spent time in Brazil, Damascus, and Trieste, to name a few places. He also continued to travel and write before undertaking the translations that earned him significant recognition.

Sir Richard Francis Burton translated the Kama Sutra, which generated considerable controversy at the time. He also translated The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, which is often known as Arabian Nights. By the time Burton died, he had mastered somewhere between 25 and 40 languages, depending on how you count them, making him more than worthy of our respect.