Revived words

[sirdanilot]

Jal Like many Dutchmen I had 2 compulsory years of German in high school which is the minimum. And if you are a dialect speaker like me then you have no difficulty with divergent west Germanic languages and dialects. Like German.for instance. I can also understand divergent dialects of 'dutch ' like from limburg, though they are often closer to german than to dutch.

And different people have differenr interests. Mine lie not with German. Perhaps you like it, sadly you were not born in a certain time in the 20th century where you would have heard more German in our country !

In contrast, I took 6 years of French in high school. Though because that is quite divergent i cannot understand rapidly spoken French though I can read it and understand clearly formal spoken French.

[sirdanilot]

What is completely incomprwhensible to me is German from Switzerland. That is just.... Plain weird.

[Zju]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the case of the word weird yet, as it has quite a weird etymology. Though strictly speaking, it was never ceased to be used, even if only in a remote dialect and later being replaced by its 'revived' form.

[hwhatting]

Of course because I am a native Dutch speaker I can understand and read and hear almost anything in German

I call bullshit. Standard German is so far removed from standard Dutch, that there's really no mutual intelligibility without at least some studying the other language, let alone that one can "understand (...) almost anything".

I don't know. Sirdanilot talks about both reading and listening, and on listening I'm with you - if you haven't studied the language, as a normal speaker of Standard German you'll only understand snippets of spoken Dutch. But reading? Piece of cake. There will be words you don't understand and false friends, but you'll get about 80% of what's written.

[sirdanilot]

I also went to church sermons while in Germany and if I focused I could understand most things. Though if I did not focus then it was very easy not to hear anything at all. I could also easily hold basic conversations with the people after the service, no problem. I just talk Dutch with a german-ish phonology, and some of the German words that I happen to know and they understand me just fine and I them.

Outside of that I don't really interact much with germans while I am there. At most to buy something in a shop or someting but then I also use the same Germanized Dutch and it goes okay. I don't usually talk English in Germany because the people don't speak English anyway, and if they do I am better at understanding their German than their English.

I think being a German in Holland is much harder than the other way round, also because people will start to speak English to you if they suspect you are foreign. Sometimes people even speak English towards Belgians, even though they are native Dutch speakers. Of course this happens only in regions where people aren't used to hearing Flemish, not in the border regions.

[jal]

but you'll get about 80% of what's written.

First, 80% says little about comprehension, as it's the content words that matter. I know, as my progressive hearing loss often causes me to miss a word or two in a sentence, which may be enough to not understand the conversation at all. Not to mention that missing one word at the start of a (sub) conversationcan cause complete loss of understanding of the entire conversation, as topics are very often only referred to by pronouns etc. Especially radio DJs are prone to that, which is dreadfully annoying. So yes, maybe you'd recognize 80% of the words, but understanding the conversation (or text) is a different thing. Just for fun, here's the first sentence of the dirst article at spiegel.de:

Der Syriza-Triumph schockiert Brüssel. Dort hofft man zwar auf einen kompromissbereiten Regierungschef Tsipras, fürchtet aber eine Abkehr vom Reformkurs auch in anderen EU-Staaten - und eine linke Renaissance in Europa.

Triumph - probably close enough to "triomf" to understand, though regular Dutch is "overwinning"
schokiert - probablty close enough to "schokt" to understand
dort - x
hofft - without anhy knowledge of German sound change laws, difficult to link to "hoopt". Looks more like "hoofd" (head)
man - without prior knowledge not clear it's Dutch "men", i/o Dutch "man"
zwar - false friend, looks like "zwaar" (heavy)
auf - x
einen - possibly close enough to Dutch "ene", "een" ("one")
kompromissbereiten - close enough to "compromis" en "bereid" to understand
Regierungschef - close enough to understand "regering" and "chef", although the latter isn't used in Dutch like that
fürchtet - x
aber - x
eine - possibly close enough to Dutch "ene", "een"
Abkehr - possibly close enough to "afkeer"
vom - x
Reformkurs - probably understandable if one knows what "reformatie" means, and if one pronounces the "u" correctly (not as Dutch "u" but as Dutch "oe")
auch - "oog"? (eye)
in - ok
anderen - ok
EU-Staaten - ok
und - x
eine - ok
linke - Dutch "link" is colloquial for "dangerous"
Renaissance - ok
in - ok
Europa - ok

So, we have about a 50% score, a number of false friends, and without any background knowledge on what it is about, about 0% understandability. Of course, knowing at least *some* German will get you much, much futher on this, but still, I think some of you are hugely overestimating the ability of the average Dutchman to understand written German, or vice versa. In case any German here doesn't know any Dutch at all, try this sentence, which is about the same news item:

Alexis Tsipras, de grote winnaar van de parlementsverkiezingen in Griekenland, begint maandag met de onderhandelingen over de vorming van de nieuwe regering.

JAL

[sirdanilot]

JAL, you are assuming a Dutchman who has never ever heard one word of German in his life. That is the fallacy of the 'perfect monolingual speaker'. This does not exist, especially not in Holland. We hear German and everyone got at least 2 years of German in highschool. In fact I think most people get 3 years, but our school only gave 2 years for some reason; probably because our region is closer to France than it is to Germany because it's in the far southwest.

This is what I gathered upon first reading that text


Der Syriza-Triumph - No Idea what this is, but some kind of victory. I first assumed this had to do with Syria, but that's not because of lack of German knowledge but because I haven't followed this news item.
schockiert Brüssel.- Shocks Brussels
Dort hofft man zwar - people hope heavily. I have no idea what 'zwar' means so I assume it's the same as Dutch 'zwaar' (though it's not) and I also don't know what dort means. 'Hofft' is hope because it is in verb position so it cannot mean 'head'. Also, most people will know such basal knowledge as 'haupt' head.
auf einen kompromissbereiten Regierungschef Tsipras - a government officer named Tsipras who is willing to make compromise
, fürchtet aber eine Abkehr - has an 'afkeer' (I don't even know the english word now). note that I understand this despite having no idea what furchtet means.
vom Reformkurs auch in anderen EU-Staaten - a plan to reform also in other EU states
- und eine linke Renaissance in Europa. - and a (left) Renaissance in europe. Only 'linke' is not trivial here (does it even mean left?) but still you can understand this if you don't know the word.

JAL, people are much better at filling in gaps than you think, and often better than they think themselves. Your brain is wired to fill in all sorts of missing information. Sometimes this puts you in the wrong direction but often it works surprisingly well. Despite your illness, I am sure that you can still unerstand the majority of conversations because your brain fills in the missing information, and it probably does so more than you think. The same goes for reading texts in a foreign language; the 'gaps' are the words you do not know but you can fill them by using the data you do know, or by maybe looking up one recurring word in a dictionary.

This is exactly the way how I teach kids to do comprehensive reading (I do this as a side-job, teaching kids to make French reading comprehension exams for high school, a struggle for many kids). I don't let them look up every single word, but I try to get as much out of them with the limited knowledge they have, and only look something up in the dictionary if it's absolutely necessary. Filling in gaps is also something you can train your brain to do.

[zompist]

Alexis Tsipras, de grote winnaar van de parlementsverkiezingen in Griekenland, begint maandag met de onderhandelingen over de vorming van de nieuwe regering.

Solely with English, I'd guess

Alexis Tsipras, the big winner of the parliamentary elections in Greece, begins Monday on the task of forming a new government.

(Select to read.)

Checking... only word I really got wrong was "onderhandelingen", but I still got the gist.

But then political reporting is highly predictable; I certainly can't do so well with most Dutch.

[jal]

JAL, you are assuming a Dutchman who has never ever heard one word of German in his life. That is the fallacy of the 'perfect monolingual speaker'. This does not exist, especially not in Holland. We hear German and everyone got at least 2 years of German in highschool.

I did, of course, but I don't think it's a fallacy. For one, German is all but absent on tv, and completely absent elsewhere. You live in Zeeland, iirc, a province that is swamped by Germans every summer. But in the rest of the Western Netherlands not so much (with the exception of Amsterdam). As for education, you are wrong that "everyone" gets "at least 2 years of German in highschool". You seem to completely forget that that's only in higher education (have/vwo), but not in lower education (vmbo), that latter which comprises over half of high school students. See here for some figures.

Der Syriza-Triumph - No Idea what this is, but some kind of victory. I first assumed this had to do with Syria, but that's not because of lack of German knowledge but because I haven't followed this news item.
schockiert Brüssel.- Shocks Brussels
Dort hofft man zwar - people hope heavily. I have no idea what 'zwar' means so I assume it's the same as Dutch 'zwaar' (though it's not) and I also don't know what dort means. 'Hofft' is hope because it is in verb position so it cannot mean 'head'. Also, most people will know such basal knowledge as 'haupt' head.
auf einen kompromissbereiten Regierungschef Tsipras - a government officer named Tsipras who is willing to make compromise
, fürchtet aber eine Abkehr - has an 'afkeer' (I don't even know the english word now). note that I understand this despite having no idea what furchtet means.
vom Reformkurs auch in anderen EU-Staaten - a plan to reform also in other EU states
- und eine linke Renaissance in Europa. - and a (left) Renaissance in europe. Only 'linke' is not trivial here (does it even mean left?) but still you can understand this if you don't know the word.

Ok, so you got "Some kind of victory shocks Brussels. People hope heavily, have aversion, a plan to reform also in other EU states, and a left? renaissance in Europe". I'm sorry, but that's gibberish, you didn't understand at all what this was about. Sure, without knowing what "Syrizia" is (the anti-Europe election winning Greek political party) it's going to be difficult anyway, but you missed so much, that even with that knowledge, you wouldn't have gotten far.

JAL, people are much better at filling in gaps than you think, and often better than they think themselves. Your brain is wired to fill in all sorts of missing information. Sometimes this puts you in the wrong direction but often it works surprisingly well.

It's not about filling some or even almost all gaps, it's about filling the gaps that you need to understand. And that's much harder. Sure, you can get by on holiday, but let's face it, you can get by on holiday in Egypt talking to a monolingual Egyptian Arabic salesman as well. That says little about mutual intelligibility.

In general though, people tend to *over*estimate mutual intelligibility. Danes boast to understand Swedish, Portuguese to understand Spanish, Maroccan Arabians to understand Egyption Arabic, and Dutch to understand German. But without intensive language contact and perhaps some training, this turns out to be wrong. (I've recently read something about research into the matter, but I cannot recall whether that was here, or on Language Log, or somewhere else.)

Despite your illness, I am sure that you can still unerstand the majority of conversations because your brain fills in the missing information, and it probably does so more than you think.

It does. And it is excruciatingly annoying, because automatically filling the gaps you *think* you've heard it correctly, and later it turns out you haven't. I have trained myself to not believe my brain, and conciously detect every missing word, evaluating whether I think that's an important word, and ask for retransmission if needed. It's very tiring, but it is needed for good comprehension.

The same goes for reading texts in a foreign language; the 'gaps' are the words you do not know but you can fill them by using the data you do know, or by maybe looking up one recurring word in a dictionary.

Reading is sometimes easier, especially if you at least know how to pronounce things.

Filling in gaps is also something you can train your brain to do.

The problem being that it can lead to disastrous results.


JAL

[hwhatting]

but you'll get about 80% of what's written.

First, 80% says little about comprehension, as it's the content words that matter. I know, as my progressive hearing loss often causes me to miss a word or two in a sentence, which may be enough to not understand the conversation at all. Not to mention that missing one word at the start of a (sub) conversationcan cause complete loss of understanding of the entire conversation, as topics are very often only referred to by pronouns etc. Especially radio DJs are prone to that, which is dreadfully annoying. So yes, maybe you'd recognize 80% of the words, but understanding the conversation (or text) is a different thing. Just for fun, here's the first sentence of the dirst article at spiegel.de:

You know, the point about reading text is that you can go back and see what you missed, and that you can use clues you get later in the text to understand what you missed earlier. And the longer the text is, the bigger the chance that you get the gist of what is said. And while I'm assuming someone who has no formal schooling in Dutch and doesn't use a dictionary or grammar, I'm allowing for people having a certain exposure to Dutch texts which lets them see connections, like e.g. that Dutch "t" often corresponds to German "s /ss / ß", etc. Recognizing this kind of substitution rules is what makes for mutual intelligibilty, and these things will become clear to a reader after reading a few sentences.

So, we have about a 50% score, a number of false friends, and without any background knowledge on what it is about, about 0% understandability.

Well, background knowledge is again what helps, because it clarifies things that one is doubtful about and helps one process the clues that one has. Let's use your example:

Alexis Tsipras, de grote winnaar van de parlementsverkiezingen in Griekenland, begint maandag met de onderhandelingen over de vorming van de nieuwe regering.

Now, if this would be (say) Hungarian or Finnish or some other language not related to anything I know, I'd probably only understand that this is about Alexis Tsipras, and that would it be. But, trying to forget what I know about Dutch, except that it's in many ways similar to German, I get:
Alexis Tsipras - ok
de grote winnaar - Looks like a combination of article + adjective + noun; grote is sufficiently to große and winnaar looks like it is related to gewinnen, Gewinner; this is also a meaning I'd expect from my background knowledge, so I'd understand
van - cloes enough to "von"
de - Article again
parlementsverkiezingen - Parlaments - what? Here the languages aren't close (In German it's Parlamentswahlen and the cognate küren is both quite distant phonetically and obsolete / restricted in usage. But background knowledge and the similarities to German in the rest of the sentence allow a correct guess / Interpretation.
in - in
Griekenland - Griechenland
begint - beginnt
maandag - if one doen't make the connection to Montag immediately, it probably comes after one parses the rest of the sentence
met - mit (close in form, and then it's also beginnen mit in German)
onderhandelingen - Close to Unterhandlungen "negotiations", although the normal word one would use here is Verhandlungen.In any case, I don't think there would be much dubt here about what is meant
over - Verhandlungen über. The form isn't very close, but the context makes it clear.
vorming - On first glance, not comprehensible; the German equivalent is Bildung. But the context makes clear that this is what is meant, and then there might be the added lightbulb moment that it's related to formen.
van de - treated already
nieuwe - maybe not immediately relatable to neue, but the context reduces the amount of possible meanings, and neue is similar enough to exclude other possible interpretations (like "next")
regering - Regierung; close enough

As you see when I'm talking about understanding 80% of a written text, I'm also inluding using the clues given by the very similar words to decode the less similar ones (where the decoding is helped by the similarity, even if it's not visible at first glance) and to deduce the meaning of words that are totally different.
And yes, background knowledge helps - in my experience, it's easier to understand news items or articles / literature in a field that you know, and where you know what to expect, than novels or poems.

[ęzo]

To return to the topic, another English example is shrithe, which was apparently revived from Old English scrīþan by way of translations of Beowulf.

[Zaarin]

To return to the topic, another English example is shrithe, which was apparently revived from Old English scrīþan by way of translations of Beowulf.

I've never heard that word before, but it's awesome and I'm adopting it.

[Terra]

How about "lich"? It originally meant simply "corpse", but got revived by fantasy writers with the meaning of "animate undead creature". I only complain that there's no reason why it shouldn't be spelt "litch".

German examples from the same period include Mär, Hain, Reich, and (with a shift in meaning) bieder. I'm sure the same thing happened in Dutch as well.

How about German "Panzer"? It originally meant only "armor", but then took on the meaning of "(army) tank", via a shortening from "Panzerkampfwagen" (literally: "armored-fighting-vehicle").

I've never heard that word before, but it's awesome and I'm adopting it.

Briefly looking at Seamus Heaney's Beowulf translation, I find "thole" for "endure, tolerate" on the first page. I don't see "shrithe" though.

If we get to revive Old English words of our choosing, I choose tungle" for "planet".

[hwhatting]

German examples from the same period include Mär, Hain, Reich, and (with a shift in meaning) bieder. I'm sure the same thing happened in Dutch as well.

How about German "Panzer"? It originally meant only "armor", but then took on the meaning of "(army) tank", via a shortening from "Panzerkampfwagen" (literally: "armored-fighting-vehicle").

But I wouldn't see this as a revival - for that, the word would have needed to fall out of use. It's just a repurposing of the word, not even very far-fetched.. And Panzer is also used for shells, carapces, etc. of animals, so the meaning had been extended from "armour" before.
I somehow overlooked linguoboy's examples - I'm not sure about Reich; when did it fall out of use and was revived?
The situation with Hain seems to be not so much a revival, but a competition between forms Hag, Hagen, Hain, where Hain shows up in OHG / MHG sources, but is rare until the 15th century; it's not a case of revival of an obsolete word, but a dialect variant that becomes used more frequently. (At least that's what I get from the article in the Grimms' dictionary).
So, of these words, only Mär is a real revival; it seems to have been out of use during most of the 17th and 18th century, only kept alive by its use in the Christmas carol "Vom Himmel Hoch" (Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her / ich bring euch gute, neue Mär "From heaven high, from there I come / I'm bringing you good, new tidings"), and then was revived by poets in the late 18th century. It's questionable how successful its revival was - the word is mostly restricted to poetry and archaising language.

[Terra]

I thought of another: drone

It's a bit like 'panzer' though. It was already in use, but uncommon, and then technology created a new thing, which got strongly attached to the name. Looking on Google Images, when I search for "drone", I don't find a single bee or ant, but only the flying machine.

[Nortaneous]

Een zestienjarige jongen uit Mander (Overijssel) is in de nacht van maandag op dinsdag dronken uit een auto geplukt, waar hij zonder rijbewijs in reed. Surveillerende agenten hielden de auto rond 1.15 uur aan op de Manderveenseweg in Manderveen.

Een ademanalyse op het bureau wees uit dat hij meer dan 0,5 promille alcohol in zijn bloed had. Dat is voldoende voor iemand met een rijbewijs om een boete of rijontzegging te krijgen.

De jongen is aangehouden, meldt de politie dinsdag.

A sixteen-yearish young out of Mander (Overijssel) is in the night of Monday up Thursday drunk out an auto geplukt, where he zonder rijbewijs in road. Surveillering agents hielded the auto around 1:15 uur aan up the Manderveenseweg in Manderveen.

A breath analysis up the bureau was out that he more than 0.5% alcohol in his blood had. That is voldoende for anyone with an rijbewijs om an boete of rijontzegging te fighten.

The young is onholden, said the police Thursday.

----

Griechenlands Ministerpräsident Alexis Tsipras ringt um Zustimmung für seine Einigung beim Brüsseler Eurogipfel. Er trifft in seinem Land auf erheblichen Widerstand: Die Gewerkschaft der Staatsbediensteten hat für Mittwoch zu einem Streik aufgerufen, die Beamten sollen 24 Stunden lang ihre Arbeit aus Protest gegen die Bedingungen für ein drittes Rettungspaket niederlegen. Auch die Apotheker wollen in den Ausstand treten.

Zahlreiche Abgeordnete des linken Syriza-Flügels haben bereits angekündigt, gegen weitere Sparmaßnahmen bei der Abstimmung am Mittwoch im Parlament votieren zu wollen. Zu der Gruppe gehören bis zu 40 Abgeordnete, heißt es. Syriza hat insgesamt 149 Sitze im Parlament in Athen.

Mit dem Brüsseler Kompromiss konnte Tsipras vorerst eine Staatspleite und einen drohenden Grexit abwenden. Doch nun muss er die Bedingungen für ein drittes Rettungspaket erfüllen, das bis zu 86 Milliarden Euro umfassen soll. Dazu gehören mehrere Gesetze, die erste Schritte zu einer Rentenreform und höhere Mehrwertsteuereinnahmen umfassen.

Greekland's Ministerpresident Alexis Tsipras rings um Zustimmung for his Onlying by the Brussels Eurogipfel. He triffs in his Land auf erhiblichen Resistance: the Workshaft of the Statebediensteten has for Wednesday to a Strike aufgecalled, the Workers should 24 hours long their Work out Protest against the Bedingungen for a third Rettungspacket niederlegen. Also the Pharmacies will in the Outstand treten.

Numberreiche Abgeorder of the left Syriza-Flügels have bereits angekündigt, against weitere Austerity(?) by the Abstimmung on Monday in Parliament vote to are going to. To the Group gehear bis to 40 Abgeordnete, it is called. Syriza hat insgesamt 149 Seats in Parliament in Athens.

With the Brussels Kompromise can Tsipras forfirst an Statespleite and a drohendenGrexit abwenden. Doch nun must he the Bedingungen for a third Rettungspacket erfill, that bis zu 86 Milliard Euro umfassen should. Thereto gehear more Gesetze, the first Schritte to an Rentreform und higher Morewertsteuereinnahmen umfassen.

[jal]

What?


JAL