Turning German into English
Thursday, October 31st, 2013 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lethargic_manBecause German is closely related to English, it shares many cognates, but those don't always mean quite the same as in English. As a result, it can be amusing to render them literally: For instance, whilst Germans can run (rennen), they normally rather lope (laufen). And whilst we drink fruit juice, they rather drink its sap (saft).
A while ago, it struck me, seeing the sign "Zug endet hier" on the front of a train how, if one were to reverse the High German Consonant Shift and the inability of Germans since the ninth century to pronounce "th", you'd end up with something not all that different from English: "Tug endeth hier". I keep meaning to see to what extent this holds true for longer texts, but have been failing to get around to it for a long time, since I gave up learning German (for the time being) a year ago...
A while ago, it struck me, seeing the sign "Zug endet hier" on the front of a train how, if one were to reverse the High German Consonant Shift and the inability of Germans since the ninth century to pronounce "th", you'd end up with something not all that different from English: "Tug endeth hier". I keep meaning to see to what extent this holds true for longer texts, but have been failing to get around to it for a long time, since I gave up learning German (for the time being) a year ago...
