Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!woodlawn!deb5
From: deb5@woodlawn.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: English is a Germanic Language?
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: midway.uchicago.edu
Message-ID: <DFLHHD.MEI@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: The University of Chicago
References: <446iqb$ag5@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> <BfNCm3I.cinepott@delphi.com> <44c6pd$rku@hearst.cac.psu.edu> <5RDCupE.cinepott@delphi.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 02:56:00 GMT
Lines: 58

In article <5RDCupE.cinepott@delphi.com>, Bob  <cinepott@delphi.com> wrote:
[rhetorical question and answer deleted]
Masur:
>>I have no disagreement with the fact that English is a Germanic language
> Well, why did you title your post "English is a Germanic Language?" ??
> 
>I am glad you personally found Spanish so easy to learn. I understand it has a
>great number of irregular verbs that give many a tough time. Maybe  you hadn't
>gotten to the hard part of learning Spanish yet. Basically  all languages are
>hard to learn and take a great deal of time, but German  is in the same family
>as English. It is much easier for us to learn one of our sister languages,
>because there are so many similarities.

Ack!  I've just been hit with a loaded generalisation!  Watch where you aim
those things!

No two people learn any language in precisely the same way.  What is easy
for one (memorising long lists of vocabularly, remembering when to use
the subjunctive, reading comprehension) can be death to another.

Furthermore, I don't know if you've been keeping up with the thread on
linguistic trees, but there seems to be some confusion over what 
information they are and aren't meant to display.  One thing they don't
model especially well is ease of learning (partly because there are so
many factors which affect the learning process above and beyond the
actual structure of the language.  So, for example, although I found
Spanish structurally much easier than German, I ultimately learned much
more German mainly because a) I like it a lot more and b) my German
courses were more intensive than my Spanish courses).

All this is to say, it's not enough to say "German and English are both
Germanic languages so it's easier for an English speaker to learn 
German than a non-Germanic language."  You need to give statistical proof
(e.g. one set of students learned X amount of German in A amount of
time while, over the same amount of time, the other set learned Y amount
of Spanish).  Anecdotal evidence doesn't cut it.  You say you found 
German easier than Spanish; Mr. Masur says the opposite.  I believe you
both, but this has no actual bearing on which is harder for the average
English speaker to learn.

But as long as we're on the subject of anecdotal evidence, ask a Spanish-
speaker which he found easier to learn, English or Latin.  Better yet,
take a look at modern Icelandic and ask yourself how much your knowledge
of English helps you understand it; then take a look at modern Rumanian
ask yourself how much help your Latin (or Spanish) is.

And one last point:  German is far from a pristine Germanic dialect with
a few Romance lexical borrowings.  In fact, the very thing which caused
the other poster so much trouble--the convuluted syntax of the German
verbal phrase--was an Enlightenment innovation inspired by Latin and,
although an integral part of the modern standard lanuguage, it is not
found in most of the regional dialects (or closely related languages
like Dutch).

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
