Isn't English the amalgamation of like 5 different languages and if everything were broken down like this, English would sound just as ridiculous?
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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I think every language probably sounds silly if transliterated into another language
It's not a transliteration, it's a direct translation. Transliteration is the conversion of one script into another and (Modern) English and German use the same script based on Latin. Transliteration would be дружба - druzhba.
By the way, in many German online communities, it's a meme to take English expressions and directly translate them and is called Zangendeutsch. Just go to any of the ich_iel communities here and you can see it :)
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I only did three months of research for this comic. Guess it still wasn't enough. Verdammte Bullenscheiße!
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The Anglo-Saxons loved compound words. The vocabulary of Old English (and just before that) was very small, so putting words together was necessary for building more complex concepts.
English, a Germanic tongue carried into Britain by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, has been influenced by:
- Celtic languages
- A tiny bit of Pictish
- Old Norse
- Latin
- Greek
- Norman Old French (a dialect somewhat distinct from the rest of Frankia)
- Plenty of other things
My favorite English compound word is bookkeeper. 3 consecutive double letters.
My favourite stop on the London Underground is Knightsbridge - 6 consecutive consonants.
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We can do that with the first sentence and flip it into German, replacing "lighter" with "fireworks". We get:
"Sie dürfen die Feuerarbeiten nicht mit in die Luftebene nehmen."
A lot of German speaking communities online do translate English loanwords into German words, often with the intention to create this funny effect.
There is a form of English called Anglish which tries to remove all non-germanic words, I think some examples are wordbook for dictionary, becleft for atom, sourstuff for oxygen and birdlore for orinthology
Coincidentally, I just watched a video on that sort of thing the other day that was pretty neat: Anglish: English without the 'foreign' bits
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Close, English is the unholy amalgamation of 666 incomplete languages, forged in the bowels of the great vowl shift but incomplete as an affront to God and the eighth deadly sin.
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Me laughing at Germans for calling hospitals "sick houses".
Me realizing hospitals are called "hurty places" in my native language.
It's not a sick house. It's a house for sick people.
It's sick house for some other languages too.
I'mma be honest, English has no business making fun of any other language. English is not a language, it's three languages standing on eachother's shoulders in a trenchcoat.
I would argue that the correct translation of Zeug is more like "thing". Wagen would be "car" in the context of the cartoon. But then it wouldn't sound absurd and their lowball attempt at humor wouldn't work.
TIL some StarCraft objects are called Zergzeug
Car is short for carriage.
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Because it took me way too long: Beender=Terminator
(there's an unwritten glottal stop between those two ee's, for anyone wondering)
Beender Beending Rodriguez
One Word you mentioned showed nicely what you missed here: Plain
Originally it was called an aeroplane. This could be translated with "flat thing in the air". Which is exactly as ridiculous as your other examples in German. The difference is that Germans don't mind complicated long words where English does so they just drop the part they don't like.
Oh Germans do drop parts they don't like. For example, they drop the Gute- from Gutemorgen.
Guten Morgen ist ein Oxymoron!
Oxymoron is a funny word. Like a moron, but now improved with active oxygen for stronger cleaning!
No texactly. I drop the "Wassn scheiß"
the thing about compound words is that they become a new word and people usually don't think about them by breaking them up so they don't sound ridiculous. if another language has a dedicated word for it, comparing them with the direct translation of the broken up compound word makes a funny comparison.
if you'd like to break up some English compound words to see how they might sound weird or basic in other languages here are some examples:
- arm chair
- arm pit
- blue print
- cup cake
- dead line
- eye lash
- fire fighter
- fire man
- fire works
- home sick
- horse shoe
- lip stick
- make up
- news paper
- pass word
- pine apple
- pot hole
- work place
hedge hog
Let's see some of them are their own words in our language. Blueprint is similar with it being combined from 2 words. Firework (fire thrower) and homesick (home sad) and newspaper (time write) are in the same boat. Pothole and workplace are 2 word phrases however. Road hole and working place.
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Theres one big difference between German and English. German allows you to just take multiple words and pack them into one word. This is a ~~bug~~ feature English does not have(or at least not to this extend). That's also the reason why its sometimes very hard to translate some gean words because you have to split them up and then translate them individually.
Childless but many of my friends have kids and seeing that top panel... Just... lol.
"this is a tool, not a toy"
How many times have I heard that said, or even said it myself, to children.
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German is weird in more ways, namely word ordering
Sie dürfen nicht ein Feuerzeug mit ins Flugzeug nehmen
You're not allowed to a fire stuff with you in flight stuff bring
But all languages are weird. Here's some french for you
qu'est-ce que c'est?
I don't have the knowledge needed to translate this properly but it's something like "wh'is-at what that is" (its the way they say "what is that")
And Swedish, my native language
I eftermiddags åt jag jordgubbar. Nu ska jag äta middag.
This after middle day ate i soil old men. Now I'm going to eat middle day. (This afternoon I ate strawberrys. Now I'm going to eat dinner)
Given that Swedish is my native language I'd also like to inform you that the English word "smorgasbord" is completely ridiculous. It's literally just the Swedish word "smörgåsdsbord" but without å and ö, so it's pronounced completely wrong. The word smörgås is however also a bit weird, it literally means "butter goose". So your English word smorgasbord means "butter goose table". Also window means wind eye, it's the old Swedish word "vindöga"
No german would ever talk like that. Correct would be "Sie dürfen keine Feuerzeuge mit ins Flugzeug nehmen" (You are not allowed to bring lighters into the aircraft).
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German is weird in more ways, namely word ordering
Nope, germanic was first, you guys did it weird.
Btw,
Sie dürfen nicht ein Feuerzeug mit ins Flugzeug nehmen
that would be
You're allowed not a fire tool with in flight tool bring
No?
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Needs more hand shoes.
I've learned that
Hospital = Krankenhaus = Sick House
Ambulance = Krankenwagen = Sick Wagon
It actually makes sense.
English has “plaything”, which is kinda similar.
Krankenhaus - die Kranken (the sick persons from krank meaning sick) and das Haus (the house). A Krakenhaus could maybe be found at an aquarium as it's a house of octopuses (release the kraken!). Octopuses are more commonly called Tintenfisch tho, which literally means ink fish.
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Toy = Spielzeug = Play Stuff
English has “plaything”, which is kinda similar.
I like the art style!
I find medical terms are fun like that in their own right. A lot of them follow a similar structure with Greek/Latin pieces. Then others have fun origins depending on how we thought the body worked way back when
Thank you! Yeah, I find the translated medical terms exceptionally funny in German (though doctors will also use the latin terms a lot).
I love shield-toads! 🐢
What about naked-snails?
飞机 = Flying Machine
打火机 = Fight Fire Machine (wtf lol)
玩具 = Play Device(?)
工具 = Work Device
救护车 = Save-Protect Car/Cart (SPC? SCP? 🤔 Ambulances are an SCP confirmed?!?)
Edit: Also
救命 = Save Life (Much better than "Help", English is lame)
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German... the Language of Love
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