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"Vaguely North Germanic" speakers trying to learn "English"

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msnoodles contessa di cavatappi Since: May, 2011
contessa di cavatappi
#1: May 17th 2011 at 12:21:28 AM

Hello! I'm writing a kind of silly crossover fanfic (between two different continents from the Fire Emblem series) in which there is a language barrier, and while I'm having lots of fun playing around with their languages, I've gotten a bit over my head. I'll go ahead and give the tl;dr details, but y'all can skip to the important part at the bottom.

Basically, there are three languages: the first one I thought I'd model off Germanic languages, chiefly North Germanic, with that kind of sentence structure, syntax, morphology, etc; I basically lift the different syllables from dictionaries of different languages and mess around until they "sound Germanic", even though that's an incredibly diverse language family if you go much beyond the mutually intelligible and relatively common ones. There's no real internal logic behind it, just semi-arbitrarily incorporating different language conventions that are loosely related and at least reminiscent of certain languages.

The second language mostly draws its vocabulary from Romance languages, like Galician, Italian, Catalan, Romanian, etc. These are pretty diverse examples, but this is more Fictionary than Conlang; the story takes place on their continent, so while it might get some level of attention, I'm not too worried about structure or cohesion.

The third language is a very limited point of reference for the speakers; in the game it's just backwards Japanese, and I took that as license to do whatever the hell I want with it since nobody's really fluent in it and most of them are drawing from ridiculously specific lexical knowledge. Mostly used for magical incantations, so attempting to insult someone with it would be pretty ineffectual.

There's an implied, but somewhat loose Translation Convention at work here; whenever it's from a certain character's POV, it's assumed all of the dialogue in English is in their language unless, for whatever reason, I want to draw attention to the language difference, e.g. one character is teaching another a useful phrase, so you might see the phrase "untranslated" as they say it. Since the "Germanic" characters are the strangers in a strange land, they're the ones trying to pick up a new language, so it would have the most effect on their dialogue whenever they try to communicate, while the opposite is true for the speakers of the other language.

tl;dr:

Gave a couple of characters a fictional language that loosely "sounds Germanic"; as they're learning a language that will mostly be conveniently translated for us into English, what are some syntactical quirks, consistent grammatical errors, etc, that "sound Germanic"?

(Beyond the obvious "English is Germanic too, numbnuts!")

Any common idioms or turns of phrasing that someone might mistakenly apply to English? These are really broad questions, I basically would love to hear some people's experiences with their native language and the transition to English, or vice-versa, or just anything, really.

You didn't really need the context above, but I thought I'd include it to see if there's any glaring misconceptions or assumptions I'm making, and also because I'm afraid I've been going about this as clumsily as can be and someone with more knowledge and experience in this area can call it out. Linguistics isn't my strong point, as much as I love it!

Pyroninja42 Forum Villain from the War Room Since: Jan, 2011
Forum Villain
#2: May 17th 2011 at 4:23:02 AM

During the middle ages, English and German were nigh-identical.

That's the most useful information I can provide right now.

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."
msnoodles contessa di cavatappi Since: May, 2011
contessa di cavatappi
#3: May 17th 2011 at 6:46:24 AM

I'm not sure how different this is concerning structure, but that's why I'm going with chiefly North Germanic, so like Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, etc, or in keeping with the heavy Norse mythology themes that the game features, Old Norse, which seems incredibly similar to its descendants. I don't know much about English's older iterations, just that it's on the same language branch as German, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were almost identical at one point.

This isn't in response to your post but I think I might've been unclear, because I wrote that OP sort of late at night. The only English is a result of translation convention, whereas they're "really" learning something that we can say is closer to Italian (or something similar) but since I don't know how an Icelandic speaker would adapt to a Latin/Romance language, I'm handwaving it with "the translation the audience receives (in English) is a very rough portrayal of their awkwardness in this other language" instead of wrapping my mind around the differences between two made up tongues based off a swath of languages I don't really know beyond the basics or some of the similarities they share.

So I could've asked "Norwegian/Danish/Swedish/Icelandic etc (Dutch or German and the like is fine too) speakers, what are some common habits or quirks they have when trying to learn and speak English?" but I muddled it up when I tried to frame it in a certain context.

blueharp Since: Dec, 1969
#4: May 17th 2011 at 9:36:58 AM

I know there are some quirks which I find common, such as putting articles in places that seem odd in English, but I'll be darned if I can articulate them clearly.

Best I can suggest is running your text through some translation engines to see what comes up.

Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#5: May 17th 2011 at 10:51:44 AM

One stereotypical "Germanesque" thing is to use an odd word order in the sentence, usually putting the verb last: "Up the coats hang" rather than "Hang up the coats".

This is a fairly interesting page that covers some of the idiosyncracies of Pennsylvania Dutch (which is English filtered through Low Deutsch)

Here's a Pennsylvania Dutch version of "The Night Before Christmas"

edited 17th May '11 10:55:07 AM by Madrugada

annebeeche watching down on us from by the long tidal river Since: Nov, 2010
watching down on us
#6: May 17th 2011 at 10:53:36 AM

I'm too lazy to go into a lecture so I'm just going to link to some useful information as a starting point for your research:

While researching language, look not only at the syntax and grammar of the language but also at the phonology, which is just as important to the language's shape. Sounds possible in English may not be possible in your language, which may affect how your "vaguely north germanic" individuals speak English!

edited 17th May '11 10:55:53 AM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
Pyroninja42 Forum Villain from the War Room Since: Jan, 2011
Forum Villain
#7: May 17th 2011 at 1:27:11 PM

[up][up]Actually, that's only if there's more than one verb in the sentence or if the verb is past tense (with "ge-" added to the front of the past tense verb). Some examples.

English: I can speak a little German.

German: Ich kann ein bisschen Deutsche sprechen.

_____

English: I spoke a little German.

German: Ich ein Bisschen Deutsche gesprechen. (Or is it gesprochen in past tense?)

edited 17th May '11 1:30:02 PM by Pyroninja42

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#8: May 17th 2011 at 1:44:53 PM

That's why I said it's a " stereotypical "German-esque" thing". It's not correct German, and it's not correct English, but it's something that many people recognize as a way of 'germanizing' a sentence.

JHM Apparition in the Woods from Niemandswasser Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hounds of love are hunting
Apparition in the Woods
#9: May 18th 2011 at 2:54:10 AM

[up][up] & [up] Just very archaic grammar could work. For example: Instead of, "I think he used to have several dogs," have them say something like, "Several dogs he used to have, methinks."

Also, depending upon how atavistic the language in question is, I'd advise you to have them split lots of infinitives. Namely, if one might be so inclined to say, "I need to run home quickly," have your foreigners say, "I have need to quickly run home."

edited 18th May '11 2:58:05 AM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.
Octo Prince of Dorne from Germany Since: Mar, 2011
Prince of Dorne
#10: May 18th 2011 at 8:51:10 AM

[up][up] [up]It's also in subordinate clauses. Anyway, I'm a tad displeased about some posts here treating Germanic and German as the same... though besides English German is the only Germanic language I know, too, so... yeah. Might be good if some Scandinavians could post here, that would then even be North Germanic.

And "Ich sprach ein wenig Deutsch" or "Ich habe ein wenig Deutsch gesprochen" (in spoken German simple past and present perfect are pretty much interchangeable, most use the latter...)

During the middle ages, English and German were nigh-identical.

That's the most useful information I can provide right now.

And then English got all Frenchied uptongue

Now on-topic: Uh, composite words? German (as as said the only Germanic language besides English I know) is kinda infamous for that in the Anglophone World, even if English kinda does the same, only retains the spaces between the single words... that is forming words out of combining and slapping together nouns. Then again, it's nothing you hear in actual speech... whether you say for example "Police Department" or "Policedepartment" is the same... so, hm, maybe not...

edited 18th May '11 8:52:30 AM by Octo

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic
Pyroninja42 Forum Villain from the War Room Since: Jan, 2011
Forum Villain
#11: May 18th 2011 at 9:00:25 AM

They do that if its a title. And there's no limit to how long they can be. My German I teacher demonstrated this by creating a title that was like fifty nouns long, all grammatically correct.

"Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person that doesn't get it."
honorius from The Netherlands Since: Jun, 2010
#12: May 22nd 2011 at 12:06:43 PM

A suggestion: in Dutch we don't have fixed positions for location and time in a sentence. It would be grammatically correct to say: Ik heb vandaag mijn hond uit gelaten in het park. (I have today walked with my dog in the park).

Also, depending upon how atavistic the language in question is, I'd advise you to have them split lots of infinitives. Namely, if one might be so inclined to say, "I need to run home quickly, " have your foreigners say, "I have need to quickly run home."
"Ik had tegen hem hebben moeten zeggen dat hij harder had moeten rennen om het doel te bereiken" (I should have told him to run faster to reach the goal) There are 6 infinitives in that sentence, so I guess you're right.

If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied -Rudyard Kipling
msnoodles contessa di cavatappi Since: May, 2011
contessa di cavatappi
#13: May 24th 2011 at 2:41:47 PM

[up] [up] [up]

Yeah, I think one problem is that there are comparatively much less speakers of a Scandinavian language and a lot of them seem to speak English pretty fluently compared to non-native speakers of other languages, so it's hard to pin down any observable trends, especially for me when I don't think I've ever met a native speaker of a Scandinavian language in person (I've met a few German-speakers on my sister's side of the family, but only briefly). A native-Spanish speaking English learner is much easier to imitate (written) for me because I interact with learners on a regular basis and Spanglish is much more common and integrated in local culture. :)

Re: Pennsylvania Dutch, that's very interesting, thank you! I imagine that's the closest German gets to a Spanglish equivalent, which is a nice point of reference— and thanks all for the suggestions. I don't need to exactly adhere to the grammatic features of any one language; my main concern is internal consistency in the broken "English", and like Madrugada said, it's recognizably "Germanic"-ish without seeming gratuitous/cartoonish or like an asspull.

MadassAlex I am vexed! from the Middle Ages. Since: Jan, 2001
I am vexed!
#14: May 24th 2011 at 8:39:53 PM

Try the Swiss dialect, which other German speakers often make fun of.

Swordsman TroperReclaiming The BladeWatch
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#15: May 24th 2011 at 9:07:55 PM

Glad I could help. And although I hadn't thought of it in those terms, I think that you're right that Pennsylvania Dutch is the American/German analogue to Spanglish or Franglish.

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