Should I watch Return of the King? - Shameless attempt to get 100 post count.

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Well, language invariably crosspollinates. I find that there's no major West-East language drift in German, but the North-South axis really kicks you in the shins. I was on vacation at a friend's house in Austria, and although I got the gist of what they were saying, there was quite a lot I felt I was missing.

The real difficulty in German dialects was the variant spelling, which was cleaned up when Hochdeutsch was introduced. (As early as Luther translated the bible, which is commonly seen as the first step to introduce an actual written German - as opposed to Latin and later French which was prevalent amongst the ruling class.) I generally consider myself to speak a pretty "high" German in that it's very close to official spelling, but I love using dialect to spice it up some, and then there's the whole slang aspect of being A) young B) into hacker culture and C) speaking fluent English. I tend to think I'm pretty understandable when I consciously keep myself on track - I've certainly never met somebody who didn't understand me for reasons of dialect. On the other hand, when I crack out my special style, German relates to it like

[code:1ost_uid0]
int main()
{
printf("Hello World!");
return(0);
}
[/code:1ost_uid0]

to the Obfuscated C Contest.

But the language you should never get me started on is Russian. I barely scraped by in school, and all I remember is how to read the cyrillic alphabet and say "I don't speak Russian" in Russian.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[Opium]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Is...very...confused...from...now...on...will...on ly...speak...Kirk.

Was ist das?
Das ist ein Computer.[/colorost_uid0]

[Nan]

[quoteost_uid0="Nic Corelli"][color=#000000ost_uid0]And apparently the Dutch language has no word for "evil"![/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]Buh... guh... whuh....

No word for evil? But it's the fun alignment![/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]And an apt description of the sandy Dutch forests!

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="mudshark"]It sure [iost_uid0]looks[/iost_uid0] like it ought to be Dutch. If not, what is it really?[/quoteost_uid0]
Supposedly, it's dialect. I still don't buy it though. :eyeroll:

[quoteost_uid0="mudshark"]Edit: BabelFish thinks it's Dutch, too; most of the pages on which the word appears have the .nl coding; one of them even shows you all the ways to conjugate it ... in Dutch.[/quoteost_uid0]
Oh, it's Dutch alright. It just means something else. See, as it turns out, that word has many meanings, one of which I haven't even heard of before. But "to depart" is not one of them. :eyeroll:

[quoteost_uid0="Nan"]No word for evil? But it's the fun alignment![/quoteost_uid0]
...And that's why we just call it "evil".

Of course, we don't translate "good" either... :eyeroll:

And I don't like it if someone says he's a "barbaar". Generally, we just don't translate anything dnd.[/colorost_uid0]

[PointyHairedJedi]

[color=#000000ost_uid11]Language makes my head hurt.[/colorost_uid11]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]It's what has kept me from trying to put together a Spycraft game here...I'm just not sure whether I should try to translate it (which would invariably cause confusion) or just use the English terms (which would invariably sound stupid).

So, yeah. On the contrary, English has no word for Gemütlichkeit. So there.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[Nan]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]Gemütlichkeit[/quoteost_uid0]

What's it mean?[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]*Looks up gemütlichkeit*

Ehm. Ok. Just before I looked it up, I was going to say English has no word for "gezellig" either. It's kinda superfluous now. :eyeroll:

Also, what's up with "not" not having an opposite?

[quoteost_uid0]What's it mean?[/quoteost_uid0]
That depends. What other language, besides English, do you know? :eyeroll:[/colorost_uid0]

[mudshark]

[quoteost_uid0="Gatac"][color=#000000ost_uid0]English has no word for Gemütlichkeit.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]"Cordiality" would seem to do the trick.

[iost_uid0]Schadenfreude[/iost_uid0], on the other hand ...[/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Gemütlichkeit is more than a simple word. The sheer concept of it is inconveyable. Unless you're at an Oktoberfest and ingesting large quantities of alcohol.

Oh, yeah, Schadenfreude. Everybody does it, but only we can name it.

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0="Gatac"]Gemütlichkeit is more than a simple word. The sheer concept of it is inconveyable.[/quoteost_uid0]
I couldn't agree more.

[quoteost_uid0="Gatac"]Oh, yeah, Schadenfreude. Everybody does it, but only we can name it. [/quoteost_uid0]
Leedvermaak. You're not [iost_uid0]that[/iost_uid0] unique.

But wouldn't that translate as malicious pleasure?[/colorost_uid0]

[admiral sab]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]wow a whole page of gibberish! lol well to me it's gibberish. I know Hebrew! well a little Hebrew. I can't type that out on this thing though...

Sab

PS I speak Southernese pretty good! ask me what chitlins are! [/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[quoteost_uid0="admiral sab"][color=#000000ost_uid0]ask me what chitlins are! [/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]No. [/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]*I* know what schadenfreude is... it's my favourite German word, aside from the full name for "panzer", which I've completely forgotten.

Nope, I don't speak German at all. [/colorost_uid0]

[Gatac]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]Malicious pleasure would be pretty close word-wise, but I'm not sure if it conveys the right concept. This is a fusion of language and culture and can not be plucked apart like that.

Everybody loves the word "panzer". Which is all the more perplexing when you consider that we first used the English word for them. (Which lead to names like the Tankgewehr 1918, perhaps the world's first serious anti-material rifle.) But I disgress...

What [bost_uid0]are[/bost_uid0] chitlins?

Gatac[/colorost_uid0]

[taya17]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]I think Matt Ridley put it very well in his book [iost_uid0]Genome:[/iost_uid0]

"It would be absurd to argue that only Germans can understand the concept of taking pleasure at another's misfortune; and the rest of us, not having a word for [iost_uid0]Schadenfreude[/iost_uid0], find the concept entirely foreign. "

Interestingly enough, it was in a chapter about language being a genetically programmed instinct.

And yes. What be chitlins, Sab?[/colorost_uid0]

[admiral sab]

[color=#000000ost_uid0]we call children chitlins sometimes. But it's also a food.
I was raised in the north til I was 9 so I can honestly say I've never had a chitlin nor had any desire to, but I know what it is. Believe me I wish I didn't. But don't take my word for it. I have a link! Chitlins!

LOL isn't that gross? who wants some pig intestines? here's the urban dictionary terms: slang

just remember, you asked.

Sab[/colorost_uid0]

[Sa'ar Chasm]

[color=#000000ost_uid0][quoteost_uid0]t's my favourite German word, aside from the full name for "panzer", which I've completely forgotten.[/quoteost_uid0]

Panzerkampfwagen, with capitals thrown in at random.[/colorost_uid0]

[catalina_marina]

[quoteost_uid0="Sa'ar Chasm"][color=#000000ost_uid0]with capitals thrown in at random.[/colorost_uid0][/quoteost_uid0]
[color=#000000ost_uid0]Sounds German to me. [/colorost_uid0]