By danbury; germany on Sunday, April 4, 2004 - 05:43 pm:
Na aber ausgezeichnet, M! :)
Seems like I was still working over my post while the answers were rolling in - thank you, Bob from Alabama! I knew about the nuts incident, but not where and when it took place. Rumor has it that it was seriously considered to send some!
Here's to you, Mary Lou: Three points taken! Although there are people who say that english is derived from the saxonian dialect - an opinion I never could quite share, especially since I like english, whereas saxonian has an unpleasant ring to it due to personal reasons.
A little sidekick: In northern germany, people talk "Plattdeutsch". This dialect is so similar to others around the north sea (?) that people from coastal regions of norway, denmark, germany, netherlands, england and scotland might understand each other without learning the actual language. Also, the english plural "-s" (like, folks) is being used in parts of northern germany.
And I never knew about your first point - though I believe there was once a vote in american history about wether english or german should be the language of choice. Would be interesting to know what would have happened.
I'm afraid I also have to add one little catch: I, being a german, do not like beer - a fact that has caused great irritation on occasion! That triviality aside, I especially agree about the fun part - and share your hope, although I'm afraid not that soon - depending on the circumstances. Or levels. I do not give too much about the talk of governments when I can deal with people directly. But no matter what happens, we can always keep at it, right? Like discussing german-american (or american-german) history on pasty.cam.
Oh, and I do agree on the third point.
M: Appears to me that your understanding of culture is pretty much german, so to speak. Whereas I'd put the art of a particular people into the mix, too. As a translation of the above post: M said, religion, tradition, history, and descent, eg, make culture. I add art, in every context, written, build, composed, painted etc., and probably something like values - eg, neutrality has become part of the helvetian culture. But since this might interfere with politics, it might change with policies.
Unlike that, our guests defined culture as the way people dealt with each other, and their environment in every sense. In my understanding, that's part of ones culture, but far from being the whole thing.
One fun part, at the very end: In the spring of '93, in the process of selling some real estate my mother had inherited in the wake of '89 I travelled to Leipzig on several occasions - funny to think our paths might have crossed.
By M on Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - 08:18 pm:
Danbury: My definition of culture is from my anthropology class in college. :-) - M.
