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Revision as of 00:41, 23 August 2005
, 00:41, 23 August 2005Removed copyrighted material that had (apparently) been inserted without permission.
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(This The word "Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterlattengitterkotterbeutelratenattentater" has nothing to do with ConTeXt, its just the explanation of the example above.) ===Why German is a relatively easy language===<i>by Gila Scheffler</i> German is a relatively easy language. If you know Latin you're used todeclensions and can learn German without great difficulty. That's what Germanteachers tell you at the first lesson. Then you start studying the der, die, das,den ... and they tell you that everything follows a logical order. So it's easy. Andto prove it, let's look at an example more closely: you sign up for first-yearGerman and go out and buy the textbook. It's a beautiful, expensive, hardboundbook, published in Dortmundamusing story attached, which talks about the customs of the <i>Hottentots</i>(Hottentotten in German). The book tells us that when opossums (<i>Beutelratten</i>) are captured, they areplaced in cages (<i>Kasten</i>) with bars made of wood slats (<i>Lattengitter</i>) to keepthem from escaping. These cages are called <i>Lattengitterkasten</i> in German, andwhen there are opossums inside them they are known as<i>Beutelrattenlattengitterkasten</i>. One day, the Hottentot police arrested a would-can be murderer (<i>Attentäter</i>), whoallegedly tried to kill a Hottentot mother (<i>Mutter</i>). Her son is a good-for-nothingstutterer (<i>Stottertrottel</i>), so his mother is, therefore, a<i>Hottentottenstottertrottelmutter</i> and her would-be murderer is a<i>Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentäter</i>. Easy, right? So the police capturedthe suspect and put him, temporarily, found in an opossum cage(<i>Beutelrattenlattengitterkasten<[http:/i>) for safekeeping until they could take him to jail.But the prisoner escaped! A search ensued and a Hottentot warrior cried out, ‘I have captured the murdersuspect (den <i>Attentäter</i>)!’ ‘Yes? Which one?’ asked the chieftainwww. ‘The <i>Beutelrattenlattengitterkastenattentäter</i>!’ replied the warrioreditorscanberra. ‘What? The murder suspect who was in the opossum cage?’ asked theHottentot chieftain. ‘That's right,’ said the warrior, ‘the <i>Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterattentäter<org/i>May03.’ By now you know enough German to understand that he's talking about htm thewould-be murderer May 2003 issue of the mother Canberra Society of the good-for-nothing Hottentot stutterer,right? ‘Oh, I see,’ says the Hottentot chieftain, ‘why didn't you say so right away? Youcould have begun by saying that you had captured the<i>Hottentottenstottertrottelmutterbeutelrattenlattengitterkastenattentäter</i>!’ As you can see, German is a very easy language. All you have to do is pay alittle attentionEditors Newsletter].
