au ja! deutsch

er/es (or he/it) | always great ideas over here

[idissectgermanwords]

What if instead of creating more grammatical genders, we made more tenses.

I suggest the even less useful Futur III and Ultraplusquamperfekt

[idissectgermanwords]

What if I made more gendered forms? Not a genderneutral form, there are enough of those, but just more gendered forms.

We already have the feminine -in and the masculine without suffix, but what about neutral? What about xenine?

I just realized I'm trying to make xenic german grammar. Which makes my idea better I think. Now I feel less weird about my first third being "metal". Because yes! Metal!

[thydungeongal]

I think it's funny that in French the word for "unicorn" is "licorne" because:

The word "unicorne" was first reanalyzed as "une icorne"

The definite article was then added, making it "l'icorne"

The new definite form was reanalyzed once again, resulting in "une licorne"

[thydungeongal]

Before any anglophones get on the French people's case on this, consider for a second what y'all did when you reanalyzed the Spanish "el lagarto" ("the lizard") as "alligator."

Reanalysis is fun.

[jkcorellia]

Oh yeah, everybody does this*. Another English example is "apron", which was once "napron" until we reanalyzed the initial N as part of the indefinite article (a napron -> an apron).

A fun one in Arabic is the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Quite understandably, Arabic speakers heard the initial "Al" and thought "ah yes, the ubiquitous definite article" and Alexandria became al-’Iskandariyya.

In the opposite direction, Spanish adopted hundreds of Arabic words during the Middle Ages due to Andalusian/Islamic influence, and there are very few Spanish words that start with al- that aren't of Arabic origin (and in fact, many words that start with A without being followed by an L, as in about half of cases in Arabic the L in "al-" is elided).

Reanalysis occurs in many other places besides article-noun combos, of course, but it's an extremely common case.

*citation needed, but reanalysis is extremely common

[thydungeongal]

Oh, this actually explains something I'd just attributed to a quirk of sequence constraints or something; why Alexander is realized as Iskander/Iskandar in Arabic! It makes sense to analyze it as al-Iskander in Arabic!

[grungeygoddess]

Same thing happened with the word alchemy! Started out as the Arab term "al-kimiya", and when it was transported to Europe, it became "alchemy". This is actually really interesting, because as the term evolved more, it became "chemistry", effectively un-reanalyzing the word!

[thydungeongal]

Oh actually there's another layer of fun there: the Arabic "al-kimiya" is actually a loan of the Ancient Greek χῠμείᾱ (khumeíā), which was used to refer to the art of alloying metals. Arabic borrowed a lot of Greek terminology owing to Arabic translations of Greek classics (many of which were actually lost in Europe until they were retranslated from Arabic). So, yeah, the Greek khumeíā made a round trip through Arabic, then into medieval Latin as "alchemia," and from there we eventually do get chemistry!

[valtharr]

Not quite the same thing, but this reminded me of one of the funniest phenomena in the German language.

So, you may or may not know that x-rays were discovered by a guy called Röntgen (or Roentgen, though the ö is the proper spelling). Because of that, they're called "Röntgen rays" in German. Now, the thing is that in the German, the infinitive of a verb is always formed with an -en at the, so, for example, "to run" is "rennen" or "to sleep" is "schlafen." And because of that, it just so happened that the verb for performing x-rays became... "röntgen."

ich röntge, du röntgst, er/sie/es röntgt, wir röntgen, ihr röntgt, sie röntgen

[thydungeongal]

In the X-rayed lab, straight röntgin it

[idissectgermanwords]

Then there is also the noun form of verbs so "das Röntgen" comes from the verb "röntgen" which comes from the guy Röntgen.

[idissectgermanwords]

*salesman voice* Have you ever tried to show people something just for it to go wrong? Have you ever wondered if there is a very specific german word for that, that you can absolutely butcher? Of course there is.

✨✨Vorführeffekt✨✨

It basically translates to "demonstration effect", but that seems to mean something different in english.

[copepods]

leitmotifs never get old to me like holy shit dude there’s this melody that corresponds to this one guy and if you hear the melody it means the guy is there. holy shit. and sometimes it refers to ideas too not just guys. has anyone heard about this

[duckapus]

Sometimes something fucked up happens to the guy and their melody gets fucked up too. Sometimes the thing that fucked them up also has its own melody and when the first melody gets fucked up the second melody gets mixed in

[copepods]

no fucking way dude. are you serious

[idissectgermanwords]

Leitmotiv (noun, neutral); leading motif

leiten (weak verb); to lead

Motiv (noun, neutral); motif

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

WAIT. Wait wait WAIT.

poltergeists:

push things off tables

break delicate objects for fun

in general just enjoy moving and destroying stuff for pleasure I guess

make loud disturbing noises in the middle of the night

sometimes poke or bite people, depending on the myth

are invisible aka no one knows what they look like

poltergeists are just the ghosts of rambunctious housecats

[idissectgermanwords]

Poltergeist (noun, masculine)

poltern (weak verb); rumble, crash

Geist (noun, masculine); ghost

[idissectgermanwords]

Realistically the Anglo-Saxons must have used some form of "snabula" (germanic, meaning "beak"), I just currently can't find it. And this is the issue I have every time I try to find an Anglo-Saxon to modern english dictionary, a problem I don't have with old and middle high german.

And I'm trying to find this for the very serious reasons of translating platypus to what it would be if english speakers 1) used words of germanic origin for "animal" and "beak" and 2) structured their word the same way as "Schnabeltier" in german.

My best guess right now is just "snable deer". Which is probably the same thing I'll get even if I look any further. It's not like you can have that many logical variations. Maybe some dialects would even write it as "snabel deer".

[idissectgermanwords]

Maybe I should make up names again, that's fun. I just have no ideas right now.

[idissectgermanwords]

All I can think of is "Guy named Kabelbinder" type stuff. Which is funny but not really what I'm going for.

Can you believe the word cable comes from the middle latin word "capulum" and got to german through french in the middle ages? Because that doesn't really help right now.

Anyways, guy named Kabelbintar. His name means cable ties.

[idissectgermanwords]

Maybe I should make up names again, that's fun. I just have no ideas right now.

[idissectgermanwords]

You know wifwolf? The female equivalent of werewolf? Yes? Good. Well, as the german Werwolf comes from the same word roots as in english, and "wīf" (wife) and "wīp" (Weib) also come from the same root, then realistically the german equivalent would be Wibwolf/Wipwolf.

(Note: I forgot about the Entverhärtung with p/b, but as I looked at it, I realized I wrote "wīf" as the german word. I fixed that now.)

[idissectgermanwords]

Hey! Wanna know the german version of April Fools? Of course you do! It's

April April!!!

[idissectgermanwords]

Formatfernsehen (noun, neutral); TV channel that directs its program at a specific group

Format (noun, neutral); format

fern (adjective); far, remote

sehen (strong verb); see

[idissectgermanwords]

Oschi (noun, masculine); just a really big thing, like, impressively huge

[idissectgermanwords]

hellauf (adverb); very

hell (adjective); light, bright

auf (adverb); on, to, in, at

[idissectgermanwords]

wartungsarm (adjective); low maintenance

warten (adjective); wait, maintain

-ung (suffix); nominalisation

arm (adjective); poor, lacking, sparce

[idissectgermanwords]

Bundesstaat (noun, masculine); (federal) state

Bund (noun, masculine); federation

Staat (noun, masculine); state

Can refer to a country with states (ex. Germany) or the states in the country (ex. the 16 states in Germany)

[idissectgermanwords]

Kate (noun, feminine); small wooden house, cottage (originally hole or cave)

related to Katen (noun, masculine) meaning the same thing, both originiating from Kote (noun, feminine)