A little German
Kid has no idea what he’s in for
“Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and system-less, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and thither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, ‘Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions.’ He runs his eye down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand.”
—Mark Twain, “The Awful German Language”
SINCE SCHOOL has just started, and because the Labor Day holiday gives us the benefit/challenge of a long weekend, we pause today to review an essay. Namely, Mark Twain’s “The Awful German Language.” There is a kid close to our heart who started college this semester, and for some rea- son he decided to take the awful Ger- man language, instead of the beautiful Spanish he’s been studying for years in high school.
Nobody can accuse him of taking the easy way out. That’s something. Besides, if this goes according to (his) plan, he’ll not just be bilingual but trilingual. That’s a step beyond the grasp of most Americans.
But German is a step beyond the grasp of most Americans, too. German is a step beyond the grasp of most non-native born Germans. As Mr. Twain put just so:
“There are 10 parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and impressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the 10 parts of speech—not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary—six or seven words compacted into one, without joint or seam, that is, without hyphens; it treats of 14 or 15 different subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses, making pens with pens; finally, all the parentheses and reparentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it—AFTER WHICH COMES THE VERB, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about . . . . ”
Our famous American writer goes into separable verbs in the awful German language, which we hope isn’t taught to first-years in American colleges. And he touches on the parenthesis distemper. And how each noun has its own determiner—der, die or das. And how strange the language sounds when you add pronouns to the mix, and assign them to the nouns that have their own “the” which may or may not make sense:
“Gretchen: Wilhelm, where is the turnip?”
“Wilhelm: She has gone to the kitchen.”
“Gretchen: Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?” “Wilhelm: It has gone to the opera.” The first task, back in the day when we took German, was to memorize every noun’s determiner. You’d have to have a mind like a calculator to even attempt it. Then figure out the compound words without hyphens. Then figure out the cases. Then look for the verb in there somewhere. Our beloved college student is probably just realizing what he’s got himself into.
As for us, we avoid the awful German language like pink schnitzel. Mainly because we are so inept at it. (We love hearing a foreign language spoken—almost any of them.) But we are gladdened to have any excuse to read Mark Twain’s essay again. And to recommend it to our first-year college students who signed up for the awful German language.