‘In German, a young
lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought
reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect
for the girl.’
Scathing at times with his witticisms about the German language,
American satirist and writer Mark Twain displayed an evident
love-hate relationship with the language that he deemed “perplexing.”
Amongst Twain’s anecdotes is a story about surprising
a Heidelberg Castle museum keeper with his “unique”
German. Twain writes that the man requested to add it to his
“collection of curiosities” as it was such a rare
variation of German it could only belong in a museum. Yet,
like many other internationally-minded and travel-hungry young
Americans, Twain devoted considerable time to learning German
to enhance his travels around Europe.
Indeed, any trip around Europe these days is vastly improved
by knowledge of German. Learn German at a German course Dallas
or a German course Kansas City and be able to converse in
the native language of over 100 million people worldwide.
90-95 million of these native speakers live in Europe, residing
predominantly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Yet travel and tourism isn’t the only reason to learn
German, otherwise you may as well just enrol in any old Spanish
or Italian course Miami, or even a French or Italian course
Chicago. German is a fascinating language to learn in its
own right, as any German course Miami will prove to any student.
Another detail about the German language that caught Twain’s
attention was the infinite possibility of the length of compound
nouns. In an 1899 speech given in Vienna, Twain claimed to
have received the 95 letter word ‘Personaleinkommensteuerschätzungskommissionsmitgliedsreisekostenrechnungser-gänzungsrevisionsfund’
on a telegram
from Linz. He reportedly added that if he ‘could
get a similar word engraved upon my tombstone I should sleep
beneath it in peace.’
