Silly Wank--The German Language: Beautiful or Brutal?
Okay, I'm going to preface this whole wank with this statement: German is my second language. I love it. I'm working on Italian as my third, and I also love that, so it's safe to say that I'm very fond of languages. Spanish is next on my list, and I expect to love that, too.
So, the wank: Why, why, why do people, when they write about Germany, Prussia, or Austria, feel the need to point out how 'rough' or 'barbaric' the German language is? It really isn't, in my opinion, and I get it that's my opinion but when people go on about how beautiful and lyrical Italian or French is and then have to go and insult the whole German language, it kind of grinds my gears.
I, for example, cannot stand the sound of spoken French. My mother speaks it, and, even so, it rather bothers me. Not the people, or the culture, or even operatic French, but I find the sounds of the French language to be mildly unappealing to the ears. That doesn't mean I'm going to compare French to Italian and say something along the lines of "When Italy spoke French, the strangeness of the awkward, nasal language in his flowing Italian accent made blah blah blah." That's just plain rude.
The real problem I have is that many people use the perceived roughness of German and the perceived beauty of Italian (which can sound pretty rough in its own right, too, ktxhbai), French, or Spanish to make statements about the personifications or, worse, the actual constituent peoples. Not cool.
I understand that people like to use the perceived roughness of the language to show Germany's manliness, or Prussia's, or Austria's (not as often, but I've seen it). But the way I've seen it used, they make it out to be a barbaric language of an under-educated people and I honestly want to scream. I feel that making a point to say that German is rough is a subtle, perhaps even unconscious way of implying the barbarism of Germany/Austria/Prussia/Switzerland (again, less so). I've rarely seen it used in a fic where the Germanic peoples are shown in a positive way, but I have seen it, and that doesn't bother me nearly as much. In those circumstances, I think it's more of a slightly clumsy way of showing the differences between two countries/their personifications and I understand that, and accept that, but I really wish people would stop making it out like German is such an ugly language. A lot of us think it's beautiful.
I also understand that many English speakers' first experiences with the German language is in the way of WWII movies where there are a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis shouting and "Heil Hitlering" each other and that there are still negative connotations with the language more than half a century later. I GET IT; I'M A JEW, OKAY?! But, please, don't use one's negative connotations with German to imply things about German speakers.
Okay, this was a really, really incoherent wank, and I'm terribly sorry. I'm running on 1.5 hours of sleep because of college. tl;dr, I love the German language.
So, the wank: Why, why, why do people, when they write about Germany, Prussia, or Austria, feel the need to point out how 'rough' or 'barbaric' the German language is? It really isn't, in my opinion, and I get it that's my opinion but when people go on about how beautiful and lyrical Italian or French is and then have to go and insult the whole German language, it kind of grinds my gears.
I, for example, cannot stand the sound of spoken French. My mother speaks it, and, even so, it rather bothers me. Not the people, or the culture, or even operatic French, but I find the sounds of the French language to be mildly unappealing to the ears. That doesn't mean I'm going to compare French to Italian and say something along the lines of "When Italy spoke French, the strangeness of the awkward, nasal language in his flowing Italian accent made blah blah blah." That's just plain rude.
The real problem I have is that many people use the perceived roughness of German and the perceived beauty of Italian (which can sound pretty rough in its own right, too, ktxhbai), French, or Spanish to make statements about the personifications or, worse, the actual constituent peoples. Not cool.
I understand that people like to use the perceived roughness of the language to show Germany's manliness, or Prussia's, or Austria's (not as often, but I've seen it). But the way I've seen it used, they make it out to be a barbaric language of an under-educated people and I honestly want to scream. I feel that making a point to say that German is rough is a subtle, perhaps even unconscious way of implying the barbarism of Germany/Austria/Prussia/Switzerland (again, less so). I've rarely seen it used in a fic where the Germanic peoples are shown in a positive way, but I have seen it, and that doesn't bother me nearly as much. In those circumstances, I think it's more of a slightly clumsy way of showing the differences between two countries/their personifications and I understand that, and accept that, but I really wish people would stop making it out like German is such an ugly language. A lot of us think it's beautiful.
I also understand that many English speakers' first experiences with the German language is in the way of WWII movies where there are a bunch of goose-stepping Nazis shouting and "Heil Hitlering" each other and that there are still negative connotations with the language more than half a century later. I GET IT; I'M A JEW, OKAY?! But, please, don't use one's negative connotations with German to imply things about German speakers.
Okay, this was a really, really incoherent wank, and I'm terribly sorry. I'm running on 1.5 hours of sleep because of college. tl;dr, I love the German language.