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The Awful German Language (1880)

(faculty.georgetown.edu)
186 points nalinidash | 1 comments | 16 May 25 04:09 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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chilldsgn ◴[16 May 25 06:07 UTC] No.44002271[source]▶
I absolutely love German, it is one of my favourite languages, there's such beauty in it. I am not a native speaker, but enjoy studying it. I am a native Afrikaans speaker and I see so many similarities between the two, which I find intriguing.
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bradley13 ◴[16 May 25 06:13 UTC] No.44002292[source]▶
Don't tell the people in the Netherlands and Belgium, but Dutch is a German dialect with pretensions, and Afrikaans is a Dutch dialect, so...
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jgilias ◴[16 May 25 06:42 UTC] No.44002425[source]▶
Well, if it comes to that. German is not _really_ a single language. It’s a dialect continuum consisting of sometimes barely mutually intelligible variants. And yes, if you continue following that continuum, you get to the languages you mention.

A language is a dialect with an army and a fleet. As they used to say.

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arnsholt ◴[16 May 25 07:52 UTC] No.44002824[source]▶
And the continuum has two big groups: High and Low German (High and Low here being z-coordinates, High German dialects because they come from the more mountainous Southern areas and Low German from the lower-lying Northern parts). Modern day Standard German is a High German variant, whereas Dutch (and thus Afrikaans) are Low German.
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fhd2 ◴[16 May 25 12:05 UTC] No.44004410[source]▶
Sorry, got nerd sniped: Isn't it usually the y coordinate that stands for the vertical axis? At least that's how I know 3D coordinate systems, with the z axis either increasing towards or away from the center, left handed vs right handed coordinate systems.
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1. jgilias ◴[16 May 25 13:54 UTC] No.44005561[source]▶
Towards or away from the center is the height, no? As in, you’re the bird at height Z observing the x-y plane under you, and the Z axis goes into you. Or away from you if you happen to be a mole under ground.