The Beautiful German Language
When you ask someone to list the most appealing languages, German is quite unlikely to be in that list. This is unfortunate. Perhaps it is not flowy and melodic like the romance languages nor as flexible as English, but there is an elegance in the perceived perversity.
Language as pure noise
Growing up, my Dad and I watched movies on the weekend together. It was a great bonding experience. Like many of us my Dad is fascinated with the movies of his youth and slightly before (how many people in their thirties now are into 80’s music/fashion/movies? Yes, my hand is up too.) This meant “old” movies. Before you wander off to read something with more explosions hear(read?) me out. The old movies had to rely on language and acting and had a lot of great jokes that do not rely on swearing at the camera for 5 minutes straight.
One of my favorites from that time with Dad is the Court Jester starring Danny Kaye (as an aside here, Angela Lansbury plays the beautiful young princess.) The basic idea is Robin Hood-esque. Forest outlaws against evil ruler in castle with a number of twists that for this post are irrelevant. There are tons of great language jokes in the film, but I want to show one scene in particular. Danny Kaye’s character is a bit of a buffoon but is a good actor. He is taking the role of a court jester to sneak into the castle and is stopped by guards. To prove that he is well traveled he shows his use of language. The character knows none of these languages and yet even in spilling out nonsense in the proper tones can convince the guard. It is hard to describe, so here is the scene from YouTube. The language bit starts at 0:50 if you are really impatient, though the first half has a point that I will come back to.
Even if he had not prefaced each of the snippets, I expect each of us would still be able to pick out which language he was “speaking“. There are certain sounds and patterns that a language takes that we recognize even if we (like the poor guard) understand nothing. Back to the idea of German and its form. In the film clip note how German is quite aggressive and for my ears seems to last longer than the other snippets even though he claims they all mean “let us go to the castle.” French contains a romantic kiss and Italian is more passionate like the German but with the romance language flair. These are the stereotypes that form the character of these languages.
German is a Marching Band
To my ears there is definitely an elegance to German, though dissimilar to the grace of the flowing romance tongues. German is more like a well trained marching band, for me specifically the drum corps. In my High School our football team was awful. Seriously, I remember seeing maybe two touchdowns during several years of watching. The band however was award winning, so it was more fun to watch the band at games than the game itself. If languages could be personified in the form of bands, then German is very definitely the marching band. The beauty is in the rhythm and the crisply executed movements. A couple of hundred people moving and stamping in unison led by the rhythmic aggressive banging of the drum. This is our staccato Germanic tirade.
To further this metaphor, French is an orchestra with a refined air and melodic sing-song. There is a bit of a bite in it as the conductor stares down his nose at the audience before concentrating on the music. Not to be too cliche here, but Italian then becomes an opera. The romantic orchestra is there as well, but the main focus is the pouring out of soul of the singer. (This vision is helped by the fact that so many operas are in Italian.) The melodic tones of the instruments blend and the tune is the thing.
English is clearly a jazz band to me. Anywhere from a single trumpet to a few guys with whatever instruments sitting together and jamming. Back to the video clip, the first half is a narrator that is almost over the top cheesy to me. I love it though, that ability to bend English and improvise. It takes the drumming from German and the trumpet from the orchestra. Even the stately cello is co-opted in the form of the bass. English is a mix of the two sources Germanic and Latinate.
Beautiful German
We are somehow attuned to beauty being harmonic and melodic, whereas German is clearly not this type of music. It is rhythmic, sharp and crisp. The elegance comes in properly executed forms and flourishes, not in a melody. Too many flourishes ruins the choreography and although there is a tune, the drums and the bass beat of it all overwhelm the delicateness of that melody. So it comes off harsh if you are expecting an orchestra.
Perhaps that is just the sign of native fluency, but I can’t really bend German yet. It is my goal to be able to do “used car salesman” voice or almost over-the-top like that narrator in the Court Jester in German. I’ll get there eventually. Until then I will enjoy the marching rhythm that is the beautiful German language.
This post is part of the German Roundtable‘s January topic of language. Take a look at the other entries to this month.
I leave you with one last link to peruse. Mark Twain, the well traveled American writer, wrote a text about the Awful German Language that, if you understand any German at all, is one of the most hilarious things ever about the language. If you like his humor and way of writing like I do, it is worth the time to read through.
German is an exacting Language - Grounded Traveler
October 5, 2013 @ 8:49 am
[…] is hip. Though it has been hip for several hundred years (looking at you Mark Twain). It is not lyrical or even friendly in its tone and can come off very harsh almost rude. Many of the linguistic […]
» The Best Travel Quotes of the Year, So Far… » thedepartureboard.com
March 28, 2012 @ 2:03 am
[…] From The Beautiful German Language by Andrew Couch. […]
March 6, 2012 @ 2:51 pm
One of my best friends is from Berlin and her german sounds so pretty…it definitely changed my opinion of the language.
March 7, 2012 @ 9:16 pm
Wow. The Berlin German that I have heard seems a bit clipped somehow compared to the almost slurring sound here in the south. Sort of the difference between the southern drawl and Boston accent. I haven’t really spent much time in Berlin though, so maybe I need to go listen more. Glad you are seeing the beauty in the language.
January 19, 2012 @ 5:27 pm
Love the music metaphors 🙂 German = drum band 🙂 I agree with you… German is of course a far cry from the melodic rythms of French or Italian, but I also think that unfortunatly, many Americans think German is much harsher than it is in reality because the only German they ever hear is from WW II documentaries and obviously military German is harsh. Which lanuage isn’t in military terms?
January 20, 2012 @ 9:20 pm
Thanks. I am a great fan of metaphors of all types.
I imagine there are some languages where the military is not much harsher than the normal language. Though I have a wild imagination. And honestly German can be harsh even in normal conversation if you don’t understand. As mentioned, my German teacher told us not to smile as it would spoil the letters. Smiling and Ö’s and Ü’s don’t apparently mix.
January 20, 2012 @ 11:34 pm
Really? Your teacher said that? 🙂 I’ve never even thought about that. Of course you’re right, some languages are much more easy on the ears than German, but I think foreigners often pronounce it harsher than it needs to be. But I’m naturally biased, so… I might be way off 🙂
January 21, 2012 @ 12:19 pm
There is a point though. When you are just starting off those sounds are hard. The mouth has to be just right when you are practicing and smiling is disruptive. Now I can almost do it. German is vastly different across regions. I learned from a woman who spent 10 years in Konstanz. But I know people that learned in Berlin and I think their German sounds harsher than what I get down south.
January 23, 2012 @ 5:54 pm
Oh yes, the dialects all over Germany. I’m from close to Cologne and when I first moved close to Stuttgart to study there, I found that they all sounded very “funny” and at times I couldn’t understand what they were saying at all. Northern dialects in Germany sound pretty good to me. It’s funny how some things sound comforting vs. annoying vs. dumb etc. depending on your experiences in the region.
January 23, 2012 @ 7:56 pm
I get you totally. The US is like that too. I have a hard time with the more nasal accents of the NE. There are definitely places where I lose out on a couple of words per sentence in the US even without any added dialects.
I have gotten used to the badisch corner. Munich and Bavarians still sound like foreigners to me. Even after years I listen to them on the telephone and will swear they are not native German speakers. Alas, doch. I like the northern accents from what I remember of my summer in Hamburg. There is something nice about it sounding just a bit more like English.
January 18, 2012 @ 9:28 pm
It’s funny, before heading to German speaking parts of the world I was never too impressed by the language. After hearing it quite a bit more, I actually really like it. My specialties are the melodic romance languages – Latin, Spanish and Italian. Lately I’ve been really loving the sound of languages that are different than those, such as German, and I’m also keen to learn more about South Slavic languages. It’s all about having an open mind while listening, and letting all the little idioms charm you! Great post.
January 20, 2012 @ 9:18 pm
There is something appealing about the “exotic” languages that you can’t understand. I thought Chinese was interesting to listen to in Hong Kong. Italian still has a poetry about it for me. Agreed that is it worth having an open mind and enjoying the idioms. Even after years I still enjoy the odd translations back and forth in German.
January 18, 2012 @ 3:15 am
I do love listening to German – it is so interesting and different. Although, I think I murder most of the words when I try to pronounce them.
January 18, 2012 @ 8:59 pm
Most people mangle the words when still learning any language. It takes practice. Glad you like listening to it. Even I hear it as harsh when I have been away from it a while, though does carry a sound of home as I step off the plane from a long trip.
January 17, 2012 @ 1:25 am
German is indeed very appealing. Definitely on my list of languages to learn. Right now I’m in the middle of Spanish lessons 🙂
January 18, 2012 @ 8:54 pm
Learn one then move onto the next. That seems to reduce the problem of getting them mixed. I waited until I was pretty fluent to try Italian and did fine. When I tried French without being good at German I failed. Though it could just be that I don’t get French and yet Italian seems to make sense to me.
January 16, 2012 @ 4:28 pm
Really cool post about German — and how to think about languages in general. I loved listening to my friend and his family speak German around the dinner table when I visited him several years ago. I didn’t understand a word, but I was happy to eat and smile and listen. It was my first time being surrounded by German and I quite liked it!
January 18, 2012 @ 8:53 pm
Thanks, Heather. German can be a great thing to listen to if you let yourself enjoy it. I have a friend who visited me who just found the various guttural sounds funny. She kept pointing at things and asking me the words, just to laugh and smile at the sounds.
January 16, 2012 @ 1:16 pm
Hi Andrew, An interesting way of looking at native tongues. I studied German at school and can assure you my efforts were far from melodic! I would love to hear how you would describe the Welsh language!
Love the blog, kind regards, Si
January 18, 2012 @ 8:52 pm
Thanks, Si. Yeah, I remember our German teacher telling us not to smile as you cannot properly make the sounds with a smile.
As for welsh.. I have not heard enough to make an opinion. I would love to visit at some point though.
January 15, 2012 @ 5:42 pm
I looooove this post! English is definitely a jazz band – you’ve carried this metaphor of perfectly, I think. But I can’t decide where Spanish belongs in this spectrum, unless its salsa but that seems too easy. And not entirely appropriate even though I can’t put my finger on why.
January 18, 2012 @ 8:48 pm
Thanks so much. I love metaphors and the concept of the flexibility of English and with it borrowing so much from other styles just screamed jazz at me. Spanish is perhaps somehow between French and Italian. I honestly haven’t heard enough Spanish to be of much help. And the little that I have heard, my brain takes as Italian for a while until I really listen. Too many languages in my head sometimes.
Let me know if you come up with something good for Spanish.
January 15, 2012 @ 5:20 pm
Love this clip and your analogy of German to a marching band. I think German also gets a bad rap since often when North American’s hear it, it’s in a war movie with a German guy yelling something which makes any language sound harder than what it is. Let me know when you want to try out your “used car salesman” voice, I would love to hear it!
January 18, 2012 @ 8:45 pm
Thanks. I had not thought of the exposure being through war movies. Though I do remember a t-shirt with “All the German I know I learned from Indiana Jones”, which I guess is similar. As for the voice, I can only do it in English and usually only for a joke. 🙂