I once attended a solo vocal concert of Handel’s German songs, and was amazed how I could follow to some degree the vocal part and the German and English verses from the program notes.

While Spanish may be easiest for English speakers to learn, I think that German may be the easiest language for us to speak. A German speaking English sounds much better to me than a native Spanish speaker speaking English.

Charles, while I am not a linguist, I would view Scots as simply a dialect of English. Wee cowrin’ tim’rous beastie. Or something like that. While I find it a challenge to read Scots, I also find it a challenge to read Shakespeare and to understand what someone from Northern England is saying.

Danny: fascinating to find out that Dutch helped in comprehending the Old English of the Canterbury Tales.

Spanish has always been the easiest language for me, mostly because of its Latin vocabulary, its reliable orthography and (almost) relentless logic. Do NOT get me started on Spanish pronouns, though. Oy.

In my roaming around looking for the language that is closest to English, it turns out that many linguists think that neither Frisian, Dutch or Low German is our tongue’s closest relative. Instead it’s Scots (not Gaelic Scots, but Bobby Burns Scots). The language’s pedigree is very much like English’s (Saxon, Norman, Danish influences, however, in different doses), but with enough difference that some linguists assert it is way more than a dialect of English. Instead it’s a separate tongue that of all the Germanic lingos comes closest to English. The analogy for how close would probably be Swedish and Danish.

Elizabeth I, who was a polyglot, boasted Scottish (what many Scots call “Lalans”–”lowlands talk”) as one of the languages she was fluent in. All the better to understand what the hell the ambassador from the Scottish court was broguing about.

I didn’t find German particularly difficult. It seems very similar to English to me, and I’ve never understood the “it’s really hard” thing. They do have their own way of setting up sentence structure and modifiers (“Throw Mama from the train a kiss”), but aside from that, it seemed to me to fall into place.

How do you know?

But I’d bet money Arnold didn’t say “Nein, sie ist zu Dumm”, but instead said “Nein, Deutsch ist für ihn zu schwer ” — not “she’s too dumb” but “it’s too hard for her.” That goes along with the common “Deutsche Sprache ist schwere Sprache” saying.

Hey, speaking of, bringing up Nietzsche last night led me to commit translation.