Speaking of puns (the remarkable German language)

[Dennis R. Preston]

>We are beginning to formally investigate folk beliefs about
>different languages (not a part of Niedzielski and Preston, Folk
>Linguistics, 2000, Mouton de Gruyter, still in time to get one for
>the Holday gift season I guess).

We have some interesting work on Arabic versus English (which mostly
deals with sociopolitical issues) and some recent work on Japnaese
versus English in which the Japanese "sensitivity to interlocutor"
seems to take first place (even when the topics are more mundane,
e.g., relative size of vocabulary). Terumi Imai presented the latter
at the most recent NWAV.

dInIs







>. Not about puns really but about exaggerated claims for a particular
>language. I was at the American University in Cairo in the mid-70s and
>heard a lecture on Arabic literature in which the lecturer made a claim
>to the effect that Arabic was a particularly beautiful language for poetry
>and literature because it was the only language that was spoken *before*
>it was written.
>
>allen
>maberry at u.washington.edu
>
>On Fri, 15 Dec 2000 AAllan at AOL.COM wrote:
>
>>  << Er wollte sagen: Nur auf Deutsch kann *ich* das tun.
>>  D.h.: He meant to say, "German is the only language in which *I* can do
>>  that." >>
>>
>>  I don't think so. I knew enough German to distinguish between "ich" and
>>  "man." And it went along with some other endearing German characteristics,
>>  like the stout middle-aged Berlin housewives with their umbrellas battling
>>  their way onto the bus. Don't get me wrong, Americans have endearing
>  > characteristics too. - Allan Metcalf
>  >

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736