Dussel wrote:
The process of creating modern German went much deeper. The grammar had to been created. The German dialects differ in their grammatical structure significantly: My home dialect e.g. works with two cases: One case used for the Nominative and for the Accusative, the other case combines Genitive and Dative. Other German dialects combine Dative and Accusative (like modern English).
I don't have any sources at the moment on the history of the noun cases in German, but I would point out that they correspond well with cases in other Germanic languages (including Old Norse and Old English) and go back quite a long way. There is certainly no possibility that they were added intentionally. Any similarity to Latin is probably in part because of their common Proto-Indo-European origin, though their forms and use possibly were influenced by Latin.
Dussel wrote:
The whole system of the Conjunctive has been created along the line of the Latin grammar and can not been found in any of the German dialects (the most German still struggle with the Conjunctive, especially with Conjunctive II). You also find hardly in any German dialect a Future II or a Passive. The most dialects work just with an Indicative, three or even two cases and one form for the Perfect, the Presents and the future.
The Konjunktiv is called subjunctive in English. I didn't find it terribly difficult when I was studying German, but I'll admit I didn't get very far into that form. In any case, the difficulty that even native speakers have with subjunctive and passive is because those forms are dying out. They used to be present in all the Germanic languages (the subjunctive was pervasive in OE, and the passive is still common today). They were certainly not taken from Latin.
Dussel wrote:
The mind-blowing complexity of modern German can be only explained from the adoption of a Latin grammar on the top of Germanic languages.
Or by the gradual drifting of dialects over many hundreds of years, punctuated by strong selection spurred by popular literary works.
Dussel wrote:
This is going on within the dialects in Germany, were eg. the Frankfurt dialect becomes more-and-more dominate above other dialects of this region. But the promotion of the modern German was project of the elites how needed a fully employed language for administrative and culture needs. Something the dialects could not serve well.
There's no particular reason any dialect couldn't work just as well as another - it just isn't necessarily to the taste of the people who have the influence.
Dussel wrote:
But you you don't the need of translating such stuff prior the late 15th century when slowly the Roman Law became dominate and the administration was in need of translating the term of the Ius Commune into German.
Speakers of Old High German were in contact with Latin-speaking Romans before the 8th century and certainly would have been sharing ideas about as soon as they ran into each other.
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"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." - Isaac Asimov
30 Jan 2009, 3:41 am
