The Sun still Shines/Die Sonne scheint noch

K. T.   Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:28 am GMT
I still meet people who hate Germans, the German language, etc., and frankly I don't blame them even if I personally feel they should try to stop hating them for their own good.

Sophie Scholl was one member of a Nazi resistance group. She was a college student (I think) when she was executed for passing out anti-Nazi pamphlets.

If I am not mistaken she feared that because of what Germans did in WWII, the German language would be hated. Maybe this is not profound, but I thought it was a prophetic windown on the popularity of languages.

I would like to see any (polite) responses to this. Please don't write nonsense.
Guest   Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:30 am GMT
That should be "window".
Guest   Sat Feb 09, 2008 4:53 am GMT
What is this garbage doing here? I thought you were better than that, K.T, unless it's an impersonator.
K. T.   Sat Feb 09, 2008 5:52 am GMT
What's garbage about it? Do you know me personally? Yes, I know there are three "KT" posters here, or at least two. I don't care.

They can delete this if they wish. Ms. Scholl had the foresight to realize that the actions of the Nazis would cause some people to dislike her language and culture.

I think that the things we dislike inform the choices we make in studying languages. Discovering unpleasant things about the culture of those who speak the target language may cause us to give up studying the language or impede our progress temporarily.

I just saw some of Miss Scholl's comments recently and found it interesting that she would care about this.
M.C.   Sat Feb 09, 2008 6:53 am GMT
I just met a (German) girl today who refused to say she's German.


I do think that Antimoon should be fairer towards German.
It's obvious that one of the moderators had a certain averseness to German.
But I honestly don't get what your question is, K.T.
Does it have anything to do with language?
Guest   Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:33 am GMT
O-kay. It may be a little obscure.

We get comments here sometimes from people who start studying a language and then they ACTUALLY meet people who speak the language and they are not so keen about the language anymore. The people they met were unpleasant, the culture was suffocating or they learn something heinous about the culture and the interest is gone.

You may think this only happens with immature or overly sensitive people, but it happens with seasoned learners as well, I think.

Ms. Scholl understood the cultural implications of belonging to a soon-to-be hated culture and the potential loss of prestige to the language. Additionally, she understood that people would not want to study her language (or maybe even stop studying it) and I found that to be very good insight into how language and cultural perceptions are deeply related and indeed we see this all the time here at antimoon.

(Recently, someone suggested that I watch the film about her because of the German used in the film. I haven't seen it as that isn't exactly my cup of tea.)
Guest   Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:21 am GMT
Schooll is a fool. Why is she so worried about people not wanting to learn German? Get a life! And the WWII was all politics nothing to do with language or culture. Another day, with different economics/politics, it could have been the brits starting a war.
Guest   Sat Feb 09, 2008 10:20 am GMT
Should Americans be worried about their already-and-increasingly-hated culture? That is the question, IMHO.
Guest   Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:35 pm GMT
That hatred is caused by pure envy.
zgrizzly   Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:25 pm GMT
"And the WWII was all politics nothing to do with language or culture"

I think you're wrong. After WWII it took some ten years before it was possible to study German at a university in Poland. And even presently there are people that cannot stand hearing this language. After 1989 it was Russian that was banned from schools for a long time, until the moment when the lack of fluently speaking persons was too visible.
greg   Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:45 pm GMT
'Guest' : « Ms. Scholl understood the cultural implications of belonging to a soon-to-be hated culture and the potential loss of prestige to the language. Additionally, she understood that people would not want to study her language (or maybe even stop studying it) and I found that to be very good insight into how language and cultural perceptions are deeply related and indeed we see this all the time here at antimoon. »

Sophie Scholl exprimait sans doute que l'horreur quotidienne vécue par l'Allemagne nazie aurait nécessairement des répercussions négatives sur son pays et ses habitants, et donc sur la langue nationale et son attrait. Elle ne s'est pas trompée, à court terme, car l'Allemagne a dû longtemps faire avec une image ultranégative. Mais ces temps sont révolus : aujourd'hui la langue allemande se porte très bien, la culture allemande fascine toujours autant, l'image de l'Allemagne s'est grandement améliorée et, à mon avis, l'allemand reste et restera une grande langue de communication incontournable.
epson   Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:57 am GMT
Many languages go through this type of swing. German in the U.S. was unpopular even after WWI. But not everyone goes along with this kind of thinking.

To give one example:

Ephraim Kishon was a popular author, screenwriter, and director in Israel. Born in Hungary, he survived the death camps during WWII. If anyone should have harbored a hatred for all things German, it should have been him. But he had the opposite approach.

His works were translated into German, and he was very popular there. He wrote:

“It gives me great satisfaction to see the grandchildren of my executioners queuing up to buy my books.”

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Kishon

And a language can be studied even if the culture or politics are hated or feared, precisely because of the perceived importance: Russian during the Cold War, Arabic after 9/11, Japanese in Asia after WWII, etc.
K. T.   Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:45 am GMT
Yes, people study languages as a matter of self-defense or in anticipation of the future as well as out of love or interest. During WWII I understand that there were "victory" classes in German in California schools.

There was a movie in German a few years ago about a Jewish family who moved to Africa sometime in the thirties or forties. After World War II, they moved back to Germany. I thought that was odd, but German WAS their Muttersprache/mother tongue and Germany their "home".
epson   Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:04 am GMT
The movie K. T. mentioned is Nowhere in Africa (German: Nirgendwo in Afrika), based on the autobiographical novel by Stephanie Zweig.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefanie_Zweig
Xie   Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:01 pm GMT
This is a very inspiring topic.

If I were to learn Japanese, and in fact I did (just dabbled a bit), the best discount would be my native knowledge of the same characters (90%+ of them) but the worst struggle would have to do with prejudices and nationalism.

I was born long after my country "established" relations with that country, and none of my relatives suffered directly during the invasions (in fact, they suffered more under the commies), BUT perceived cultural prejudices and nationalistic sentiments have been even visible. I should belong to the minority who don't think radically - unlike, as our legend goes, people in "NE China", whose ancestors had been subject to the rule of the Royal Army longer than any others. Yet, as you might know well, this country HAS been, unfortunately, regarded as a really "dangerous" neighbour, despite countless diplomatic, cultural and commercial links at stake.

This IS now unthinkable in the West and their immediate neighbours (possibly except *the biggest* among them...). But for many historical reasons, without much particular nationalistic propaganda (in fact, the commies had been trying to play the issue down altogether for financial reasons), one typical Chinese mind is at times "rather" suspicious of that neighbour.

But unlike German Jews, we've got relatively few Chinese Japanese, we aren't in something like the EU, we are a huge country (and at times considered a huge energy, military competitor), we are *rather* homogeneous...

and some of us think there must be issues that have not been settled in the WWII. This is my worst worry - along with some ridiculous cultural claims among the CJK countries, sometimes against each other - which would be too much and too late a sad thing to realize, when I have already known the horrible past of Europe.